Reading difficulties

Twice today I have booked peoples cars and then had to point out the restriction signs on both occasions less than three metres from their respective vehicles to them. Both drivers whined worse than a wonky transmission about it, but then that’s the behaviour I’ve come to expect. Both complained mightily that I shouldn’t have booked them and each demanded that I cancel the ticket there and then.

To both drivers I responded with a world weary; “The restriction signs are there, and clearly there. Whilst I am here to enforce these restrictions, I cannot force people to read what is in front of them.” Both drivers didn’t see it this way (Well they wouldn’t, not to a snotty jobsworth like me.) Both drivers had blithely plonked their vehicles on the restrictions in question (One single yellow, the other Pay and Display) without a bye, leave or Thankyou; then complained it was my fault the restrictions were there in the first place. When I pointed out that they should know this stuff as it is in the Highway Code, both declared that it was ‘years’ since they had passed their test. Dipsticks.

Then the one driver told me he had terminal Cancer, and the other claimed his wife had just left him, and the uncharitable thought (On both occasions) passed behind my eyes; couldn’t happen to a nicer person. Needless to say, my garrulous trap remained firmly clamped shut. Not that I truly believed either persons story. Some people will tell you anything to make you feel bad about doing your job.

Then they have the nerve to say that you’re a suspicious bastard. Well it goes with the territory.