Friday 19 April 2013

The madness of the bureaucratic mindset

Now don't get me wrong I love a bit of admin and as a card carrying 'pedant' I am never happier than when I am able to correct and critique others with a superior air.

I would however describe myself as a part time pedant and bureaucrat - i've actually got a relatively short attention span for proper work so I can get bored easily. Clearly this isn't the case over at Manchester City Council - Parking Services Business.

Long story short I received a parking ticket whilst at a WPA new product seminar in Manchester. Being a classic tech early adopter I opted to pay for my on-street parking using the city councils on-line payment system. So I logged on with the nearest IOS device, gave the website my debit card details and promptly received my ticket - parking paid at exactly 11.00am - job done.

On my return to the car two hours later (incidentally check out my live tweeting from this event in a recent blog post : http://localventure.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/wpa-seminar-today.html) there was of course a yellow bag waiting for me with a parking ticket. The ticket was timed 11.05am.

I complained to the company who runs the parking system on-line (who confirmed within an hour that the fault was the parking enforcement officers who hadn't updated their ticket scanner before writing the ticket) and then appealed the ticket direct with the council and yesterday I received a letter (copy below) confirming the ticked has been rescinded.

Let me draw your attention to the following line in the letter - the very bottom line of the letter :


It's not a super clear picture so here it is :

"However, if you get another ticket for the same reason I may not cancel it."


So to recap - I paid on-line, have a ticket proving I paid - the council have copies of both my pdf receipt from their parking provider and a copy of their parking ticket which proves the times overlap in my favour, their company have confirmed in writing the council officer is at fault and the council say in writing that they might not let me off under the same circumstances next time - either the Parking Enforcement team has had an irony bypass or the never-ending pointless administrative bureaucracy within the public sector has finally driven them absolutely barking mad - I almost feel like going back to Manchester and seeing if I can get another non-legitimate ticket from them and make them go through the whole song and dance again just to cause them maximum inconvenience.

To quote Dizzie Rascal : BONKERS


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