because I'm sure nobody ever says this: I love the Traffic & Parking Department!

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

For sheer novelty value I will share a happy story about the Traffic & Parking Department here.

With a few days over "enough" notice (ie, probably 25 days in advance when they said to allow 21 days in advance), I mailed off my parking permit renewal information in early January. The permits in our neighborhood expire at the end of January. January 31 came and went and I hadn't gotten my new permits.

So on Wednesday I remembered to check whether the check had been deposited (it had), and then called 311, who connected me to someone at the Traffic & Parking Department, who took my name, said that it had been mailed a full week beforehand, and we both agreed that it ought to have been delivered by now, but I would check my mail for a few days and hope it turned up.

Today, before mail delivery arrived, I found an envelope from Traffic and Parking addressed to me, with no stamp on it, left on my doorstep, containing the permits! I don't know if the originals got lost in the mail, or found in a batch that they forgot to mail out somehow, or what.
But the net result was - I made a call, talked to someone pleasant, and someone in some way went slightly out of their way to make sure I had my parking permits. Yay! Thank you, friendly traffic and parking employee!

Comments

[devilishloompa.livejournal.com]

traitor!

That's right!

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

Only hope-smashing posts that emphasize how screwed up everything is are welcome these days! :-)

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad they were willing and able to help you efficiently. Yay for effective government employees!

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Wait, 21 days? Damn. Because mine expire end of the month and I just started thinking about this. Luckily, they are apparently helpful! Heh.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're supposed to mail it 3 weeks before the end of the month, which is pretty close to now, or show up in person. The middle of the month is not too bad a time to show up in person, but I knew I'd forget.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

I think I can explain this.

I sent mine off before the holidays, or about 40 days before expiration. And I know it takes a few weeks to get the permit, so I didn't expect it to show up until January.

But after a month had gone by, one week to go with no permit in the mail and the check hadn't been cashed, I called them to ask if they got it or I should come in.

They said there was a problem with the mail. They got a basket from the post office that was held up for some reason, and they were trying to process all the applications that week. They said they weren't going to enforce the expiration until they were all mailed out.

Now, I don't know what that has to do with their outgoing mail, but it may explain why they were going out of their way to get the permits delivered.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Very nice!

There are a few odd quirks of city government that I really like. For example, the fact that City Hall stays open until 7:00 on Thursday (although they close, I think, at noon on Friday.)

The extra hours on Thursday make it easy to get business done with the city if you have a 9-5 job, and I bet they weren't getting much work done on Friday afternoons anyway.

[progressnerd.livejournal.com]

Any advice for removing an expired sticker? I read on a previous post that hairdryer helps.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

We've had success with goof off and a good razor-blade type scraper, but that was on the more accessible side window.

By progressive lateness I have managed to wind up so that my sticker expires the same month as my inspection sticker, so this year I just got my car inspected and asked them to scrape the parking sticker off while they were at it.

(Alas, I also learned that you can't get your car inspected within a week or two of your battery dying as the inspection reads a bunch of data on the onboard computer, which gets lost if your battery is disconnected,
so then you don't have enough data for them to pass your inspection on.
So mostly I got my car inspected in order to have them use the nice scraper on my expired parking sticker. Phooey.)

[dashford.livejournal.com]

Rather than apply the sticker directly to the window, I stick it to a piece of clear plastic film (or cellophane, in a pinch). Then I spray the film with tacky adhesive (like the stuff on post-it notes) and apply it to the window. Easy to remove a year later.