This guy is a genius with retirement

[cl8ton]

From The London Times:

Outside England's Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses.
For 25 years, its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant.

The fees were for cars ($1.40), for busses (about $7).

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn't show up; so the
Zoo Management called the City Council and asked it to send them another parking agent.

The Council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the Zoo's own responsibility.

The Zoo advised the Council that the attendant was a City employee.
The City Council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the City pay role.

Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain (or some such scenario), 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 at about $560 per day -- for 25 years.

Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over $7 million dollars!
And no one even knows his name.

(Maybe an urban legend?)

[WilsonTC]

Oh well...nice story...while it lasted:

Description: Email joke / Urban legend
Circulating since: April 2007
Status: False

Parking attendant at British zoo takes off with the funds- Fiction! Possible Aprils Fool Joke!


Summary of the eRumor: A story about an unknown man who worked at the Bristol Zoo in England for 25 years as a parking attendant. One day he stopped showing up to work and the zoo administration called the Bristol town council to hire a replacement. The town council told the zoo that they never hired a parking attendant in the first place and it turned out that this person was not an employee of either the zoo or the city. Calculating the costs the zoo figured this person took off with close £4 million and is probably enjoying a very expensive retirement in Spain.

The Truth: This story is a myth, according a notice posted on "This is Bristol," a visitor information website in the United Kingdom.

The story began circulating around early April and it is believed that this is just an April Fools joke that exploded on the world wide web.

[cgarr]

Oh Those silly Brits!

[cl8ton]

Ahh dammit, I hate it when these turn out to be UL's, I was pulling for that wanker

[WilsonTC]

Originally Posted by cl8ton

Ahh dammit, I hate it when these turn out to be UL's, I was pulling for that wanker

Well, it does happen. Down by the AAA Arena (Miami Heat), the bums (e.g. "homeless" for those that are politically correct) don orange vests & set up cones at un-attended lots then collect cash from unsuspecting drivers. When the lot fills up, the bums split and the tow trucks show up.

They did a news story on this awhile back. There were a lot of pizzed-off people who thought they paid for parking, only to find out their car was towed.

[Aerkuld]

I thought this was going to be a thread about Kimi Raikkonen's driving history at McLaren.

[cl8ton]

Originally Posted by Aerkuld

I thought this was going to be a thread about Kimi Raikkonen's driving history at Ferrari.

Corrected it for ya!

[alf]

It is an easy scam to pull off and one i have witnessed myself. I used to work part time for the University of Washington Parking Control. Free parking on Sundays but you'd often find a street guy standing by the booth selling parking stubs for $5 each to unspecting visitors on busy Sundays. He'd probably pull in a couple of hundred before the cops get around to chasing him down...till next Sunday at another booth. Hey he is just selling stubs and a friendly greeting for $5 and did not say it is for parking.