Shaking my head

Well, parking enforcement just gets more and more interesting.
I saw my first transport truck vs. car show. Take a guess at who won. I was wary of transports before, now I’m going to be downright leery. The noise was incredible, the shattering of the back-end of the unfortunate car. Fortunately for the car (SUV I guess), they weren’t moving when they were hit, ‘only’ sideswiped as they stuck a little too far out of their parking space, waiting to back out. So other than the potential heart attacks of the elderly couple inside, nobody was hurt. Their car on the other hand… The back-end was totaled. There was a glass, plastic and metal explosion, complete with sound effects and flying bits of car. It was one of the scarier things I’ve seen this summer (so far anyway).
This job is teaching me a lot of things about human nature, not the least of which being there a quite a few parts I don’t like.
For instance.
There is one business at the end of our main street. I’ve been warned about him specifically because he always gets mad when his cars get tagged. And he gets tagged a lot. But hello, you know we’re out marking cars! There’s an entire parking lot right beside you, and it’s yours! Just park your cars there, and stop getting mad at us for doing our job. I swear it’s probably just shear stubbornness making him constantly park there.
People are so two-faced, because you better believe if it was someone else doing the same thing and inconveniencing them they’d whine and complain about how we aren’t doing our jobs. Plus, it’s generally the same people, and once you know we’re out, it’s not that hard to just follow the law. Two hour limits. And seriously, what are you doing downtown during the day that takes more than two hours anyway? Plus, it’s not like there isn’t tons of private parking with no limits all over town. So, you might have to walk a whole 30 seconds farther. You’ll get over it, exercise is good for you.
To the scruffy-looking man who came out of the laundromat with an ever scruffier guy to your somewhat beat up car and yelled angrily “why don’t you get a real job!”….
Do you even have a job? If you do, I probably do at least as much work, deal with at least as much stress and even more bs every single day then you do, partly because I have to deal with people like you every day.
What is a real job then, exactly?
I don’t understand some people, I really don’t. Parking by-laws have been around for ages. There are loads of easily visible signs all over the place. Two hours means two hours. It’s not a difficult concept. And it’s not like we’re unfair. It’s always over two hours, and if there are exceptions.
Another interesting moment today, I was writing a ticket and almost finished. A lady comes out, and says, playfully almost, “Did you get me?”. I say yes, apologetically (I’ll get over doing that soon I promise) and continue writing. She gets in her car and drives off. It was almost comical, even more so if she thinks she won’t get the ticket now. No, actually, all you’ve done is increase the fine and put a set deadline on when you have to pay by. Congratulations.
People are just so odd.
There are some serious no-no’s I’ve come across that aren’t funny though. Like, leaving your kids in the car. By kids I mean one under a year and the other no older than four. With the car running. Hello, are you asking for some whacko to come kidnap your children? What are you thinking?! Well, clearly you aren’t. But seriously. I’m pretty sure that’s against the law anyway. Definitely should have called that in, and in the future I will.
Also, leaving your dogs (I’ve never seen cats) in the car. Or even in the back of the truck. It. Is. HOT! Leaving them in out in the back of a truck in the sun is bad enough, never mind in a car. How many times do we hear about animals suffocating in cars. Children do too, by the way. Think people. Really. If I can convince her, I will get my supervisor to make a by-law about that, if it isn’t already law too.
Until the next series of events….

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