A Well-Planned Retirement
or……a perfect example of municipal mismanagement.
Outside Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 20 years, the lot and it’s parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant always happy to help the visitors. When he had a day off, an equally pleasant lady, probably his wife or partner, showed up and managed the lot, collecting the fees from the machine at the end of the day.
Then, one day recently, after 20 years of never missing a day, neither of them showed up at the lot; so the Zoo Management called the City Council and asked it to send another parking attendant to help the visitors and collect the fees.
The Council checked their records and replied that the parking lot was the Zoo's own responsibility.
The Zoo advised the Council that the attendant was a Council employee.
The Council responded that the attendant had never been on their payroll.
Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain or France or Florida, laughing all the way to the bank ... is a man who'd apparently had a ticket machine installed completely on his own and then had simply begun to show up every day, commencing to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated by the Council at about £560 per day -- for 20 years.
Assuming 7 days a week for 51 weeks a year, this amounts to about £4,000,000 …... and no one even knows his name or a single thing about him.
Now that's enterprise!