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Citizen complaint of the day: Adding insult to porch-pirate injury
By adamg on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 10:51am
An irate citizen files a 311 complaint about a ticket:
Our wedding registry packages were stolen from our doorstep, the gifts removed, and empty boxes left torn open up the street. We were then given a ticket ($25 for "improper storage trash, res"). Would like to report the theft and dispute the ticket. Thank you!
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Call 911
First, call 911 to report theft. Then call 311 to be connected to ticket department. They won’t make you pay but you need to follow the procedure.
Lazy policing
A friend of mine had that happen - her mail was stolen in Cambridge, then she was summonsed by the Environmental Police for dumping trash in the South End.
Finding an address on something doesn't mean that the person who has that addressed dumped something. It is just lazy.
Packages
Just better to have anything shipped to work. At least someone will be there to sign and accept delivery. Even back in the day working at the restaurant i had stuff delivered there.
If I registered for a wedding
If I registered for a wedding and specified that all gifts should be shipped to my place of employment, I would not be terminated or face any backlash from my employer.
Because our receptionist would hunt me down and kill me.
Not all employers oblige
In this job and my former job, we were told not to have personal items shipped to work. It creates a lot of costs for the employer to handle the packages.
No car
And even if your employer allows it, if you don't drive to work it's not always practical to take large or heavy packages home by T/bike/walking.
Yes, employees abuse the system
I worked at a company in the Prudential Tower years ago.
The mail room staff told me crazy stories:
An attorney had a set of 4 tires delivered to the mail room and of course the staff had to bring them down to her car in the garage.
I'm surprised she didn't try to get them to mount and balance them!
I work at a much smaller company now and the handful of employees all take deliveries for each other. No burden on staff or the company.
Bugs, instead of have it shipped to work...
Ever thought about renting a P.O. box at the local post office?
How would that help for
How would that help for packages delivered by FedEx, UPS, or Amazon's random contractor in a rental van?
Who uses Citizens Connect to report a theft?
Perhaps the citizen should be connected with basic civics.
As for the ticket, yeah, that ain’t right. It does seem like the ticket would have info on who to contact to dispute the ticket, though.
Oh, and most importantly, having your wedding presents stolen sucks. My condolences.
Code Enforcment appeal
Hilarious, resolved by linking to the ticket appeal process. So to add insult to injury you have to now take a day off work to appeal that $30 ticket. Bureaucracy at its best.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time in Boston
It’s that this city will do whatever it can to waste residents’ time, while enabling employees to do it in the laziest way possible.
Honestly, any role with the city is an absolute dream job.
Wow. Now that I know that a
Wow. Now that I know that a box or two will result in a $25 fine, I'll make even more of an effort to clean up other people's trash in the neighborhood than I do already.
I also have to question the logic of the city sending someone out to write a ticket without picking up the trash. I'd like to save them the effort as well.
It's done on the "low-hanging
It's done on the "low-hanging fruit" plan.
They send inspectors out to neighborhoods on the day/evening before their scheduled pickup or the day of scheduled pickup for that route. Prime time to get targets of opportunity: trash out too early, empty dumpsters not brought back in soon enough, cans & dumpsters overflowing because it's been 7 days (8 if there had been a holiday weekend inbetween) since the last pickup...