Recently I wrote about four city employees standing right under the stop signs at a 4-way stop, each one holding stop signs. I didn’t see any construction going on anywhere and thought this was a blatant waste of four perfectly good stop signs, but I soon forgot about it.
Today I was at the same intersection and the same four people were there. The thought crossed my mind; “I wonder how much money we, the taxpayers, are paying these people to be human stop signs when we, the taxpayers, have already paid for the four stop signs they are standing directly under?”
My curiosity led me to pull over to pose the question, “What the heck?” (or WTF for you younger readers). I approached a person in an orange vest that turned out to be a woman. “Why are you guys holding stop signs when there are already stop signs here?” I asked.
“There’s a detour,” she explained, and then went on to tell me the entire detour route. As she was doing this, the man at the stop sign to the right of us yelled, “CINDY!” I presumed he was her boss and he was alerting her to approaching traffic so she could have her sign at the ready. He must have felt that the few seconds it took me to ask the question and her to start answering was distracting her from her duties, which he appeared to think required her undivided attention.
The first time he yelled, she looked over at him to acknowledge that she’d heard and heeded his control-freaking. When I didn’t immediately scurry away, he quickly called, “CINDY” again.
“Actually,” I said, “I’m writing a humor blog and thought it was funny to see you guys standing out here under the stop signs. Is this really necessary, even with the detour?”
“CINDY!”
“We have to keep traffic moving off Multnomah Blvd. as they come around the corner to this part of the detour, and since this is such a short stretch of road right here, it would get backed up.”
“CINDY!”
I looked over and noticed he was waiting for one driver to get to him so he could let him or her through, which meant that Cindy couldn’t let her cars go. They were stacking up and snaking back around the corner of Multnomah Blvd., the very thing these four people were trying to avoid at all costs.
Cindy and I both watched him. The car he was waiting for continued to approach slowly, no doubt confused that his sign said, “Slow” but the sign right over his head said, “Stop.” I know the feeling from going through earlier. You really don’t know which one to believe. Finally the car got up to him and went through. Meantime about 20 cars had stacked up on Cindy’s side, blocking traffic on Multnomah Blvd. (which is a hard word to say and people who aren’t from around here really muddle it up. It’s pronounced “bull-i-vard).
In all honesty, I believe the stop signs could have handled the traffic better than what I just witnessed.
Finally Mr. “Hey Everybody I’m In Charge Here And Don’t You Forget It!” signaled Cindy that she could let her cars pass.
In a related story, I got a parking ticket about a month ago that I lost. It was for $70 and I don’t want the fine to double by not paying it, so I called the City of Portland and asked for a copy.
“I can’t find a record of the ticket,” the clerk said. “The policeman who wrote it hasn’t filed it yet. Call back in a week.” Which I did, and they still had no record.
“It’s been over a month, what am I supposed to do?” I asked, hoping the statute of limitations had run out on the thing.
“Just keep calling back every now and then,” she said.
“How long do I have to keep calling?”
“Sometimes it takes these guys two or three weeks to file their tickets,” she said.
“But it’s been over a month already!”
“Well, just keep calling.” So every week from now to whenever my ticket gets filed, or until eternity (whichever comes first) I will be calling the city.
I see those signs at highway construction sites that say, “Your tax dollars at work.” I’m thinking that my tax dollars hired some folks that really aren’t giving me my money’s worth.
Showing posts with label wasting taxes humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wasting taxes humor. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Stopping for Signs
Today I was driving to meet my friend so we could walk our dogs and I came up to a 4-way stop. Standing under each of the stop signs was a highway flagger person holding a metal sign with “slow” on one side and “stop” on the other. There was no construction being done as far as the eye could see.
The person facing my side of the traffic had his sign turned to “slow.” The car in front of me pulled forward. When I stopped (because of the Stop sign), he started waving the sign for me to proceed slowly.
I don’t know what the guy’s big hurry was. There were no other cars in the entire intersection, and no construction going on, and even he could figure out I’d stopped out of habit, so why’d he threw a hissy fit?
This job cannot be that difficult.
“Okay, you’re going to hold this sign here at this stop sign, and when the cars get close, you want to wave it in the air like this to make ‘em stop. Then you make ‘em wait a few minutes while you look back and forth like there’s something you need to check, and take a puff or two on your cigarette, and then you slowly turn the sign around and let ‘em go. You got that?”
“Whoa, that’s a lot to remember. You better run that by me again a little slower.”
“Okay, now that I’ve gone over it a second time, you think you can handle it?”
“You say I need to take a puff off my cigarette? But I don’t smoke.”
“Holy Jiminy Christmas.. Where do they get you guys? If you don’t smoke, you should. In the meantime, just pick your nose or scratch your ass or whatever you can think of to stall ‘em.”
“Why can’t I just let them go right away?”
“Now what on God’s green earth would be the point of that? You want to make this job fun, don’t you? Well, it ain’t no fun if you just let ‘em go without teasing them a little. If you hold them off long enough, they’ll start squirming in their seats a little, and then they’ll start slapping their fists against the steering wheel. I get a real kick out of that. It’s pretty entertaining on a long shift in the rain. Otherwise your days are going to seem like they last 60 hours. Is that what you want?”
“Well, I…”
“And another thing. You start letting people through in a hurry and you’re going to make the rest of us look bad. We stick together in this job, and you better get that through you head right now. If that’s not something you think you can handle, then you’d better hang up your sign. You finally got all that?”
“I guess so.”
“You’ve taken me well over five minutes to train you, and now I’m way behind. I hope you learn to pay attention out here or else find yourself another line of work.”
“I just…”
“Don’t give me no lip, boy. Now get a holt of that sign and get out there and start slowin’ down some traffic like I told you.”
When I went back home this morning, I took another route. I didn’t have the time to waste watching the State of Oregon spend 4 times the money needed on construction crews waving signs to tell me to do the obvious. I’m sure Oregon had good intentions this morning, but you know what they say about good intentions? The road to Hell may be paved with them, but the road to the dog park is paved with tax dollars and nincompoops.
The person facing my side of the traffic had his sign turned to “slow.” The car in front of me pulled forward. When I stopped (because of the Stop sign), he started waving the sign for me to proceed slowly.
I don’t know what the guy’s big hurry was. There were no other cars in the entire intersection, and no construction going on, and even he could figure out I’d stopped out of habit, so why’d he threw a hissy fit?
This job cannot be that difficult.
“Okay, you’re going to hold this sign here at this stop sign, and when the cars get close, you want to wave it in the air like this to make ‘em stop. Then you make ‘em wait a few minutes while you look back and forth like there’s something you need to check, and take a puff or two on your cigarette, and then you slowly turn the sign around and let ‘em go. You got that?”
“Whoa, that’s a lot to remember. You better run that by me again a little slower.”
“Okay, now that I’ve gone over it a second time, you think you can handle it?”
“You say I need to take a puff off my cigarette? But I don’t smoke.”
“Holy Jiminy Christmas.. Where do they get you guys? If you don’t smoke, you should. In the meantime, just pick your nose or scratch your ass or whatever you can think of to stall ‘em.”
“Why can’t I just let them go right away?”
“Now what on God’s green earth would be the point of that? You want to make this job fun, don’t you? Well, it ain’t no fun if you just let ‘em go without teasing them a little. If you hold them off long enough, they’ll start squirming in their seats a little, and then they’ll start slapping their fists against the steering wheel. I get a real kick out of that. It’s pretty entertaining on a long shift in the rain. Otherwise your days are going to seem like they last 60 hours. Is that what you want?”
“Well, I…”
“And another thing. You start letting people through in a hurry and you’re going to make the rest of us look bad. We stick together in this job, and you better get that through you head right now. If that’s not something you think you can handle, then you’d better hang up your sign. You finally got all that?”
“I guess so.”
“You’ve taken me well over five minutes to train you, and now I’m way behind. I hope you learn to pay attention out here or else find yourself another line of work.”
“I just…”
“Don’t give me no lip, boy. Now get a holt of that sign and get out there and start slowin’ down some traffic like I told you.”
When I went back home this morning, I took another route. I didn’t have the time to waste watching the State of Oregon spend 4 times the money needed on construction crews waving signs to tell me to do the obvious. I’m sure Oregon had good intentions this morning, but you know what they say about good intentions? The road to Hell may be paved with them, but the road to the dog park is paved with tax dollars and nincompoops.
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