The Laundry Pit

I want to find out who hires for the City.
I want to know who hired the cashier lady at the City Hall "Cashier" window.

I think she has to be one of the least, if not THE least, helpful people on earth. I will refer to her as "Potted Plant", as that's what she is...and gets paid to do it. Grrrr.

Yesterday, Tom left the house in the a.m. not feeling great. This sometimes is a result of a lack of coffee, or he's slow waking up, and he improves over the morning. Yesterday, he didn't improve. He felt lousy. 

11:00 a.m. rolled around and he decided he was not going to make it to 5:30, so he IM'ed me he was coming home.  A few minutes later he IM'ed me that he wasn't coming home; there was a boot on our truck.

Yeah, the day after "Ms. RDBIKER" was all up in our tailgate.  My ridiculously predictable husband parked in the same spot....which had me thinking "Ms. RDBIKER" had a friend in the police department or something....and was a little 'bottlebrush' about her three tickets. 

Who says I don't have an active imagination?

So- at home, warm, comfy and working on things- I now have to get OUT of my pajamas (WTH?) and into clothing and go save my weak, tired, not-feeling-so-hot, hubby.  I was less irritated with him than I was with the idea that assault is against the law and so's putting marshmellow creme all over the car of whomever did this.

We walked over to City Hall from his office- and this "Cashier" whom I call Potted Plant, (her more appropos title would be "Doorstop") has always responded to every single question I've given her with:

"I'm sorry, I don't know, I can't help you."

Oh. Really. Then WHY FOR THE LOVE OF CHEESE DO YOU WORK FOR THE CITY?!?!?

Turns out, she CAN help you if you crawl up her leg and chew at her backside a bit- by pushing her a little outside of her comfort-zone of doing NOTHING, and request she actually DO something. 

She tells us we need to go deal with this at the Transit Center, 8 blocks away. 

Really. Really? REALLY?!?!

Hubby is standing here turning green and swaying (all 6'6" of him) and she wants me to what? Put him on a dolly and wheel him down there? His truck is booted- transporting him is not an option. (nevermind my jeep- that isn't a factor here.)  So then...We do the 'Press' technique.

Tom: "Can you call down there and find out what is going on with my truck?"  (the little sign they left did not specify why they had booted it.) I glared at her from behind my husband where I was trying to hold him upright. Glaring seems to affect Potted Plant a little.

Potted Plant: "Uhm, yeah."

I also have to mention that I went in about a month ago and dealt with this same Potted Plant person where our water bill was concerned as it had been in the wrong name and we were only sporadically getting our bills.  She claimed she could not do anything about it- "Sorry, I don't know, I can't help you." I was so upset that maiming someone with my car keys would get me in trouble...... (ahem)

And so I asked for her supervisor. She looked like I'd threatened to shoot her, but nonetheless called for her supervisor. I re-explained the situation with our water bill, our name, and our postal layout, as well as postal regulations- and the supervisor reached LESS THAN TWO FEET to the left and whipped out a form, which I filled out, signed, and now our water bill is in the right name.

I think this useless Potted Plant Cashier remembers me when I step around from behind my husband and now she's thinking she'd better help us or I'll ask for her supervisor again.

So, Potted Plant gets on the phone and talks to the parking department for a moment and hangs up. Then she turns forty-five degrees to her right and GETS ON HER COMPUTER and pulls up the information.  RIGHT THERE. IN FRONT OF HER.  WITHOUT STANDING UP OR WALKING ANYWHERE. 

Turns out my husband had 3 parking tickets (expired meter) from August- which he doesn't remember, I never saw, and thus- we never paid. 

Oh.  Ok. 

Potted Plant then says; "A letter of notice was mailed to you last month telling you about this."

Oh. Really.  So we paid the extortion fine, and then had to wait 15 minutes for someone to unboot his truck.

Hubs then came home and went to bed and proceeded to sleep until 5:30 the next morning. Yay for him. He evidently feels better today as he went to work, and took youngest child to school as well, without bugging me to get up.

HOWEVER: When we got home yesterday, after this whole interaction with Potted Plant,  I found the "letter" she referred to.  Dated 11/25/09.  Postmarked 11/30/09. Arrived 12/1/09.  Booted 12/2/09.

This does not add up.  Tom has taken the letter and envelope down to the City Hall building (and might I mention he works for the County and is in charge of all the Sheriff and Police, Fire and EMS in the county?!?) and file a complaint to get his extorted funds fine back as giving us 7 days notice, and then sitting on the notice for 5 of them, does not compute.

Evidently Potted Plant at the City Hall isn't the only one of her kind.