Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe) Guest Blogger
“Nobody is in charge.”
“Low and middle level bureaucrats have no power to make anything happen. The only way they can have any sense of personal worth and power comes from their ability to obstruct.”
– Dr. Dwight W. Allen, Dean Emeritus, College of Education, University of Mass., Amherst.
In 1971, I was having lunch with Dr. Dwight Allen. The conversation was wide ranging, but he has strong views on educational institutions, school boards, why irate parents are irate and making institutions more accountable. At that time the Vietnam war was dragging on, and his views on entrenched power structures applied to our difficulty extricating ourselves from that as well. He co-authored American Schools: The $100 Billion Challenge, with one of his former doctoral students, Dr. William H. Cosby. You may have heard of Dr. Cosby.
Some people use the term “bureaucrat” as an epithet. When George Wallace ran for President in 1972, he railed against “bureaucrats,” saying he was going to take all their briefcases and throw them into the Potomac. Wallace conveniently ignored the fact as Governor of Alabama, he was in charge of a huge bureaucracy that had exactly the same problems he said he was going to fix.
Decades ago, Dr. Laurence Peter pointed out that all organizations with a hierarchical management structure are bureaucracies. Dr. Peter analyzed those structures, and reported many of the same issues Dr. Allen shared with me over lunch. He coined the term, “Peter Principle” to describe how otherwise competent people rise through the ranks until they achieve their “level of incompetence.”
Recently, we see those observations applying to people who are caught up in a Kafkaesque drama at city hall and municipal traffic courts. Public officials and offices are not the only culprits. There are countless tales of woe from people trying to deal with big banks, mortgage companies and faceless collection agencies. Those are problems likely to have more direct effect on us personally than global events in Washington, London or Kabul.
Let’s take the case of Capt. Dave. Dave Petrich, of West Seattle, WA mostly navigates boats around the Puget Sound area rather than vehicles with wheels; hence’ his nickname, “Capt. Dave.” The good captain restores old wooden schooners and runs maritime-history tours. As he put it, “I like to put old boats back to work.”
A few years ago, Capt. Dave founded Seattle’s first modern floating farmers’ market, which he named FarmBoat. Then he hammer fell. Not from the health department. No, the bombshell came from traffic enforcement. Seems that Dave was accused of accumulating too many traffic tickets to the tune of $8,000 and counting. The catch is, the tickets are not from anything Dave did, but were accumulated by a vagabond who was a off-and-on vendor at FarmBoat, and who sometimes helped out with a few chores. The city of Seattle had been trying find the scofflaw for some time, but since they couldn’t catch him, they targeted Dave and FarmBoat instead. Dave got a demand letter from the city’s debt collection department demanding he garnishee the vendor’s wages. The problem is, the vendor is not an employee. Dave has no employees. The man whose vehicle was ticketed only rents space to sell produce, and often pays his stall rental fee in extra produce. Also, when he got the demand letter to garnishee the vendor’s wages, it was after market season and the FarmBoat was closed. The only response he has gotten so far is that he needs to pay the fines “he” owes for all those parking tickets. FarmBoat has a blog with a timeline for the sordid story.
Dave thought, mistakenly, that a couple of phone calls explaining he had no employees, and has no control at all over the private affairs of vendors who sell produce at the FarmBoat farmers market would do the trick. That worked, right? Wrong. The city manager blames Dave for the mess, claiming the city has no responsibility for their continued harassment of him and ruining his business. The city continues to pursue their claim, having placed a lien on both the FarmBoat and Capt. Dave personally, effectively shutting down the farmer’s market. The city won’t back down. The city manager has accused Dave of not cooperating when he refused the collection department offer to settle for $500. Quite a deal for a guy who drives a boat and not a car. Five hundred bucks to pay somebody else’s traffic tickets.
I have written before here on how difficult it is to deal with some banks and mortgage holders. Homeowners have had their homes foreclosed and sold at auction, despite the fact the home is fully paid for and they have never done business with the lender who foreclosed on them. In one case, Bank of America foreclosed on a house for which the owners had paid cash. It is next to impossible to find anyone who will even apologize, much less authorize restitution.
In Unicoi County, TN, a local man had his pickup truck stolen. He reported it stolen and bulletins went out to all law enforcement agencies across the country. Eventually, the truck was found in Texas and returned to him. The truck was not the only thing returned to him. He received a traffic ticket in the mail for a traffic camera violation while the truck was stolen. It was a traffic-cam ticket from the City of Knoxville, TN. The thief had been photographed by a traffic cam while speeding in that city. The crime victim contacted the Knoxville traffic enforcement office, only to be told he needed to pay his fine. His explanation and offer of proof the truck thief did it was ignored. He continued to try and talk with anyone who would talk with him, but all he got was that he needed to pay the ticket or additional penalties would be added. I have been told the thief’s speeding ticket would also add points to his driver’s license, an additional victimization. He was at the point of being ready to give up and admit defeat when he ran into the sheriff one day. He explained the situation to the sheriff, who told him to not pay the ticket yet, but to let him handle it.
Exactly what transpired next is not quite clear, but the sheriff called someone in Knox County, telling them in no uncertain terms they had better make the ticket go away. The ticket was dropped immediately. I don’t know about other areas, but traffic cams in our area are operated by a company in Arizona. Because misdemeanors are involved, they are out of reach of local courts and cannot be sued. Whenever there is a dispute, local authorities simply refer the person getting the ticket to the camera company.
The problem was getting so bad, the State Legislature considered a bill requiring traffic camera operations in the state must have corporate headquarters and all their image processing equipment inside the state. Not surprisingly, a great deal of money was thrown at the bill to defeat it. A recent court decision determined that thousands of bogus tickets were issued to people making legal right turns on red. The camera companies objected, as did municipalities who lost significant revenue.
Has this kind of thing ever happened to you, and if so, how did you deal with it? Anyone have any suggestions on the best way to deal with these kinds of situations, where it is next to impossible to find anyone in charge able or willing to correct it? Legal of course. Shooting people or beating them up may provide temporary satisfaction, but will get you talked about by the neighbors.
Nevertheless, the proper thing to do is find an attorney and lawyer up, don’t try to fight it yourself. If you do try to fight it yourself, then if at first you don’t succeed, give up or hire an attorney.
A strategy I have used three times, which worked every time, is to look through public records and find an attorney you can hire with a connection to the attorney you want to influence. Somebody that donated big to their campaign, somebody that worked for them and knows how they see cases, somebody THEY worked for coming up, whatever.
raff,
There is some advantage in the fact your mail comes from a law office.
Raff,
Reminds me of an anecdote about a guy who lived in Las Vegas. Police arrived on his doorstep with an arrest warrant for thousands of unpaid tickets. Seems his vanity license plate read, “NONE.”
Whenever a car that did not have a plate got a ticket, the officer wrote “NONE” in the line for license plate number.
OS,
I had a continuing parking ticket issue with Gary, Indiana. They had my license plate on a car that I never owned. It went on for months until I threatened to forward the correspondence to the Illinois Attorney General. I never heard from Gary, IN again!
davidbluefish,
My first impression was why not pass the hat and get enough money to pay the $500. But after reading the blog, I see there is a larger issue. That is one of not letting the city get away with this, and paying the money would do just that.
Reading between the lines on his blog, I get the impression he intends to force them to defend their position. This is going to get interesting. It has just come to light this week is why most people have not heard of it. Dave is taking advantage of the media and internet to crank up the pressure. It occurred to me this is the new version of a sit-in.
Usually, your best bet w/ insurance companies are to find a small, mutual insurance company. There are many in Wi. Other states not so many, the more rural/agrarian the state the more likely. Having worked for many insurance companies, as well as being a consumer, the smaller the better. But not always!
If you have a company on the other side that has a front door, a porch, and a doorbell, then consider the poop in the bag trick outlined on this blog by a dog earlier.
Insurance companies are soulless b@stards. However, there are many you can choose from. There’s only one DMV, IRS, etc.
It wasn’t a government office, but my home insurance company.
A crack developed in my shower wall; upon investigation I found the wall was rotten, due to water damage of many years caused by an improperly executed seal beneath the outside eave, that let water inside the wall if the wind was blowing the rain a certain way. So I checked my insurance policy, called the company, and an appraiser came out. I had many digital pictures, and while appraising it I had a contractor (also a friend of mine) take the wall out, rebuild it properly, and we took pictures all along the way.
The insurance company denied my claim. I called them, and gave them the exact sentence in my policy that stated, in no uncertain terms, that the damage caused was covered, even if the problem was faulty construction.
They denied it. I sent them a certified letter quoting the same thing. They replied with a denial.
I said fine; I went to my attorney. He told me it was a gamble: They might stick to their guns if they were worried about setting a precedent, or it might just be their tactic because some people will go away. But he would charge me $150 up-front to send them a letter, and $500 more if that led to him negotiating a settlement (on a $4000 claim). I said let’s send it. Two days later he called me and told me he just got off the phone with them, and they had agreed to pay in full with all his fees ($650) on top of the $4000 I wanted. His letter was literally half a page, on his letterhead. He pointed out the three facts I had given him, cited two court cases I had never heard of, and respectfully asked for my $4000 and his attorney fees. After over two months of me trying to convince my insurance company of the blatantly obvious, I had money in my hand within ten days of calling my attorney, and although I did risk $150, it ended up costing me nothing.
I suggest everyone on this blog named Dave, send “Captain Dave” a $5 dollar bill. He will have enough to pay the $500 fine and probably buy a case of beer with the extra!!! Cheers Captain. :o)
Bron, The IRS can destroy a person or company. And, some of those bureaucrats love that. But, you’re absolutely correct, many are reasonable people. Always find a personal connection, kids are a great one. “Oh, how old are your kids.” “Yeah, that’s a tough age.” Then you’re fine and have an ally, not an adversary.
nick:
always be nice to the IRS.
To tell you the truth, the few run-ins I have had with them were actually quite pleasent and they treated me way better than my accountant did.
I am a big fan of the rank and file people who work for the IRS, they do a hard job with little thanks from the public. They have to enforce the stupid laws the congress writes and they get the blame.
When I went to see them about a lost form I told the woman helping me that the accountant sent it in. She said she was going to call and talk to him, I told her he never returns my calls. She said “trust me, he will return mine.” I said today? She said within 5 minutes. He called back in 4.
With trepidations I will answer the question posed. However, this only works if you live in another state. I was in LA on biz back in the 90’s. I had a rental car for the 2 days I was there. A parking tix was issued to that rental vehicle in Santa Monica. The rental company told them I was leasing the car @ the time, but they were incorrect. The time on the citation showed I had returned the car 5 hours prior, and another customer of the leasing company had actually been driving the car @ the time of the citation. The car company was one I did a lot of biz w/. They were apologetic and took care of me financially, quite generously.
The City of Santa Monica would not be deterred. They kept sending me nasty letters. I had the car company send them several letters, but the bureaucracy would not be deterred, the machine churned on blindly. Do you know I got @ least 12 letters threatening me over the span of maybe 3 years. I just ignored them. They finally stopped. I am wary of driving in Santa Monica. I can live w/ that.
Whether some folks here believe it or not, the way to deal w/ bureaucrats is to be as nice as pie. It doesn’t always work, but being a jerk never works. Bureaucrats need love, just like everyone!!!! This may be a duck call for justateacher. She/he hates that I do that.
I don’t know if this thread is going the way it was envisioned.
Jamie Dimon:
you are talking about someones job here. that is pretty harsh isnt it?
Isnt everyone entitled to a job for life and good health care?
The bureaucratic corporate/government nightmare machine operates without regard to commonsense, logic or the law, These faceless bureaucrats take no responsibility for their actions and blame any action taken against an innocent as ‘part of the job’. The bureaucratic cog is rewarded not for making good decisions, thinking clearly or investigating a wrongdoing, they are rewarded for a droning behavior of doing the same process repeatedly regardless of changing times, advancing technologies or new norms. It’s the process, not a favorable or an ethical outcome that matters.
My brother received a traffic ticket from NYC a few years back and he had not been to NYC since he was a young boy. The City threatened him with increasing fines and license renewal issues if the fine wasn’t paid. It didn’t matter that the make of the car was different on the ticket, it just mattered that the fine was paid. This went on for months until it was discovered that the officer writing the ticket had made a T look like a 7, which triggered a ticket warning for my brother’s plate. It was finally resolved but not until many hours of work by my brother.
Speaking of bureaucracy, USPS has again showed me why these bloated beasts encourage droning behavior instead of making something right. I went to send a letter that I wanted tracked. The USPS employee said that they don’t track letters unless you also want the letter signed upon receipt and it would cost about $4.00. I said that I didn’t want it signed, so they said it could go Priority for $5.60 I asked about sending a parcel. I was then told that if it was a parcel they could send it tracked for about $2.00. She said I could thicken the envelope to 3/4 by stuffing it with papers. I’m now shaking my head with amazement. I said to the USPS employee that instead of sending this letter in an envelope, it would cost me less to mail this letter in a heavier box and I could get tracking as well? She said yes, or I could open and thicken the envelope to 3/4″….. Being somewhat stubborn, I went home and put the letter in a small box that allowed me to get the letter sent tracked for $2.07.
The bureaucracy rewards the long-serving cog with very healthy retirement packages. I know people in NY who work 25-30 years doing the same exact thing over and over and they receive 3/4 pay and health benefits for life. They are unionized, so it is almost impossible to get fired unless they attempt to do something that isn’t in their job description or the rules books.
As a drone, it is not advisable to push the envelope, analyze an issue, improve a process, or recommend policy changes. Rewards are given those who take little initiative and stay true to the system for 25-30 years regardless the cost to others. A scam by any other name…I could go on, but you get my drift….
Sue the bastids!
I can’t think of much recourse except to shine a public spotlight on the problem, get a sympathetic ear from the media, and shame the authorities mercilessly in the eyes of the public. Call names of the people in charge, from the Mayor, to City Councilmen, to Judges involved.
Here’s the BIG difference between public and private sectors. If I have a problem w/ a bank, hospital, law firm, whatever..I can go to another one! If I have a problem w/ the DMV, I have no choice. That is part of the problem w/ public bureaucrats. Public bureaucrats w/ guns[police] can take away your freedom. If you have a problem w/ “bureaucrat” being a term of derision, maybe you should change government and the bureaucracy that create them. Or, you could change the name. There is a housing project in Madison that had a deservedly bad reputation for crime. The city changed the name of the project! You can’t make this shit up
OS:
when ever I have a problem like this, I try to solve it at the lowest level and if I cant I move up the chain of command until it gets solved.
Believe it or not, I had a problem with a Chevron credit card and called the president and spoke to his assistant, problem solved in 24 hours.
Another time I bought a cell phone and there was some issue with the service and price. I called the company and spoke with some middle manager and got the run around, I then called the presidents office and in 30 minutes the middle manager called me back and apologized for the problem and solved it.
Heads of orginizations pay attention to the public or at least that is what I find.