10. Treat me Nice

I found myself paired up with Barney today as we are short staffed again - so we had to do "The Tour" - basically 2 hours Central, 2 West and 2 East and all points between. The morning started well enough with a quick 4 PCN's down in the commuter belt round the stations - when will they learn that we patrol there all the time. I then hit the town centre, noted a load of 30 min valves and just strolled around making a nuisance of myself while waiting for Barney to finish the Aztech run and join me.
When the va;ves times were up, I headed back to see if I had any scores and blow me if there weren't 6 overstayers all in a line - what a result - my daily 'target' completed in under 2 hours. I started to issue when my Hand Held just gave up the ghost - no way could I get it back working again so I had to lose those issues and head back to the office. Just to add insult to injury I passed some 2 hour valves I'd taken when I first arrived and there were another 2 tickets there that I couldn't do anything about - not a happy girlie, trust me on that.

An hour or so later and I'd swapped my knackered HHC for another hopefully fully working one and was back Central for tha last 35 minutes. I picked up a quick pair at one of the arcades then headed for Austen St where you can often grab a few on the SYL. Sure enough I had a customer there so did the necessary and was just about to slap it on the screen when the driver returned. When in this situation I tend to play it by ear - I'm more than happy to VDA the ticket (ie mark it down as a driveaway before I could put the ticket on) if the driver isn't a complete bitch/bastard to me - it's no skin off my nose really. Anyway:-
"Oh FFS - I've only been here 2 minutes" - not going too well to start
"I'm sorry sir but ......"
"You bloody jobsworths are all the same"
"But I ...."
"I had to park there because some arse has parked in my space out back"
"But Sir if ...."
"2 effing minutes - thats all I was gone, 2 effing minutes" - quite possible as 2 minutes is all the grace he gets
"If you would just ..."
"You effing people are all the same - get the tickets quick just to increase your bonus" - a common misnomer - WE ARE NOT ON A BONUS SYSTEM
"RIGHT SIR, if you would just take a breath and let me get a word in edgewise - NO - just keep it shut for a minute. I was about to say that you are given 2 mins grace before we issue the ticket and I did not see you at all in that period or I would not have issued the it. As you are probably aware, the PCN is only valid if it is on your windscreen or handed to you - if you drive away before I get the ticket on the screen you escape scot free"
"You lot just want to get as many tickets as you can" - what an arse
"Oh sod this - I was quite prepared to write this down as one that got away but you've blown that now - please accept this PCN and enjoy the £30 fine"
With that I stuck the PCN on his screen and started photoing it as he stood there with his big mouth wide open. All completed I smiled sweetly at him, turned on my heels and sauntered off with a yell of "BITCH" echoing in my ear - score one for little miss perfect :)

Shortly after that I met up with Barney to continue "The Tour" which proved pretty uneventful - I wound up with a total of 12 (top score for the day - big deal) but the Austen St ticket was the most satisfactory. Rantin and raving at a PA never helps - keep your cool (so hard I know), try to be polite and there is a chance things will go your way - I've lost count of the amount of tickets that I've VDA'd (dodgy) or even removed from the screen (a total nono) if the 'punter' is nice or gives me a good sob story.