Why Denver and I Broke Up
Last night, Denver and I broke up. Thats right, the city of Denver is on the outs with me.
The following is a chat session I had with some friends where I explained basically what happened. There is a lot of cursing, so if you are offended, you might want to close your eyes or have someone read you the following.
Imagine this was a company or store. I had a horrible experience. With social media, I am directly touching more than 12,500 people through Twitter, this blog and facebook. Imagine if that group of 12,500 shares this with their followers and friends. How many people are going to hear about how awful the experience I had with the city of Denver was? 100,000? 1,000,000? Seems cities, like companies, should do their best to listen to their customers (residents and visitors) and act accordingly.
In my discussions of influence I always say influence is just a one to one activity where I can affect the actions of another. What if this is just the beginning of an “influence chain”?
Must of the following is humorous, but scary for businesses. It no longer matters if you are a store, a city, a state or a country. Your customers and residents not only have a voice, they have INFLUENCE.
I challenge businesses and governments to be better. If you are unsure how to, call me. 720-231-7120. or email me. micah [at] currentwisdom [dot] com. or tweet me @micah. But dont allow your lack of understanding or belief to stop you.
I might be one person, but there are 30,000,000 people just like me on twitter, 75,000,000 of us blogging and 200,000,000 vocal users on Facebook. The power is truly with the people.
Here is the chat discussion uncut. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Except mine.
Me: ok
Me: so here is the story
Me: Im at a coffee shop with friends
Me: ok one friend
Me: I dont really have friends
Me: I walk out of the shop at 5:30, car is booted
Me: I call them
Me: $600 later, I pay for tickets I already paid for
Me: they say you have a default boot
Me: I say you are a fucking retard, because there is a keypad, so give me the code so I can take it off
Me: they say there is no keypad
ST: lol
ST: “ok one friend”
Me: I say, I am not blind you stupid motherfuckers, there is a keypad
Me: we argue about the existence of the keypad for like 5 min
Me: finally, I give up.
ST:this is funny
Me: They say by 7pm, some one will come to take the boot off.
MP: I’m writing the screenplay now.
Me: its 5:30, so I say fine.
Me: I will wait
Me: at 6:45pm, I call back
Me: I say, hey, so no one has come to take off the boot
Me: they say, oh, we meant 7pm EST. You are in central time, so you will have to wait until tomorrow.
Me: I say, stupid motherfucker, I am in mountain time. go get someone to take off the boot.
Me: they say, sorry, everyone has gone home.
Me: I hang up the phone
Me: I call back
Me: I tell my story
Me: I mention that there is a serial number for the boot on the citation. I read it to them
Me: they say, oh, that boot is on another car
Me: I say
Me: well, I dont say anything
Me: because clearly they dont believe I have the ability to see that there is a boot on my car
Me: I say, nicely, there is a boot on my car
Me: the serial number is 9743
Me: they say thats impossible
Me: that boot is not on your car
Me: I hang up
Me: I call back
Me: I tell my story
Me: the lady says, Im sorry for the inconvenience
Me: I ask that she apologize for the stupidity as well
Me: she doesnt find it funny
Me: I stop a meter maid
Me: (except its a dude who is clearly a douchebag)
ST: im cracking up
Me: he says, booting is not my department
Me: I say, you put it on there, take the fucker off
Me: he says, I am only trained in putting them on
Me: I said clearly
Me: he calls the dispatch
Me: they say everyone went home, and I will have to wait until the next day to get my car
Me: I said I hate you all and I hope you die. Except I said it like this
Me: “thanks very much”
ST: lol
Me: then I called a friend who picked me up and drove me to boulder
Me: we grabbed dinner
Me: since I had no car and he drove me
Me: he dropped me off at my house
Me: I get a call from new jersey
ST: how far is boulder from denver??
Me: “hello mr. baldwin, this the supervisor of the boot removal department”
Me: 40 miles
BH: apparently Denver is now in NJ
ST: ah
Me: “and we have removed your boot”
ST: hahaha
Me: I say, thats great, since its 9pm, and the meters run until 10pm, I better not have a ticket.
Me: so danny drives me down to denver.
Me: it starts to rain
Me: thunder
Me: lightening
BH: oh shite
Me: I get to my car
Me: the boot is gone
Me: there is no ticket
BH: THERE’S A TICKET
Me: I get in my car
BH: oh
BH: fuck
BH: change the story
Me: and I drive up in a torrential downpour
Me: and now I am finally home
ST: that was quite an ending
Me: after paying $610 in parking fines I HAVE ALREADY PAID
Me: and waiting 7.5 hours for the boot to be removed.
ST: so are you going to fight it?
Me: the end
ST: fight city hall!
ST: that sucks man
Me: I will never enter the city of denver again
Me: so the boot was invented in denver
Me: but its a new boot called the smart boot, of which the operation of it is outsourced to philadelphia
BH: Better than being outsourced to some foreign country
MP: another change in the story… outsourced to NJ
Me: fuck me
Me: http://learntoduck.com/humor/first-denver-smart-boot-recipient
MP: Thank you very much
Me: I wrote that the first time I paid the tickets
Me: is that unbelievable or what?
Me: then I was having fun writing horribly vitriol tweets about denver, so I went with it.
MP: For you Micah, a thousand times more believable.
BH: the best part is where they keep telling you that you’re a lying muthefucker
Me: lol
Me: I KNOW!
Me: my favorite part
Me: the lady says “According to our records you have a default boot”
Me: I say “according to my eyeballs I have a smart boot”
BH: Micah: I’m a Jew
BH: Boot: No you’re not
Me: lol
BH: Micah: No, I’m looking at my circumcised dick right now
BH: Boot: Sir, our records indicate that you are a woman
Popularity: 6% [?]
This was hilarious, and I really was cracking up. But you are so, so right… consumers have more influence and reach than ever before. It's not just a matter of us telling your friends and family that we had “terrible service at Sears” but it's us telling our ENTIRE social graph, and them telling their friends, etc. Businesses seriously need to watch it. My Mom had a really bad experience with Sears, but was having a tough time getting her issue resolved with customer service, so I recommended she take it to Twitter and Facebook and start complaining. Sure enough… someone contacted her and issue resolved. ;)
That is just the worst, when someone tries to argue with you about something that you know is true. So frustrating.
I always thought that the inefficiency in dealing with the parking dept, is part of the punishment, like the boot itself.
Good lord this is ridiculous. I mean, I was laughing, but… you have more self-control than I do, because I would've really flipped the shit on this one!
I'm not going to argue the fact that Denver Parking sucks (I spent an hour in court with them last week waiting for every drunk driver and no-license case to be heard before I got them to throw out my ticket).
But I think you are making the mistake of treating their PENALTY as a service. If I don't pay my electric bill and it goes so far as they refer it to a collections agency (in your case the Boot company) I'm not going to expect them to bend over backwards to make my life easier.
I do agree with you that a city should treat its residents and visitors as well as a business is expected to treat its customers but I think you are pushing it here (and the 'denver sucks' chant doesn't make me sympathetic).
That sucks, Micah. I think the whole Denver metro area is fucked though. I just got a call today (while on vacation) that the Thornton police department is trying to arrest me for a hit-and-run at Safeway in May. The only problem is that I haven't been to Thornton in years!
Thanks for the story. It's a little easier to deal with this stuff when I know that I'm not the only one feeling the long dick of the law right now.
Good luck!
The fact that 1) the boot was placed on without merit gives me full
right to expect to be treated correctly. To having done what was asked
of me gives me full right to expect to be treated properly.
———-
Sent wirelessly
Oh man, what a great story. Seriously laughing at my desk. Love it.
so funny! sorry you had to go through that though…
That is hilarious. Stop writing this excellent crap so I stop laughing at the office. And next time this happens? I want you to chat with me instead. Good work.
It's been a while since I was at a loss for words.
tragic experience, amazing story telling… Very entertaining :)
You'd think this was an episode of Parking Wars.
Denver parking still sends me collections notices for tickets on a car I sold in 1994–the tickets happened after I sold the car. I sent them a notarized copy of the sales receipt, and they say yes, you didn't own the car when the tickets happened. Yet they refuse to take the collection notice off my account. Why? Who the fuck knows.
Horrible experience ===> wonderfully hysterical story!! And definitely good point about our having power in our word of mouth spreading of the news, be it good, bad, horrible, or whatever!
Last night I got knocked out by a Denver meter maid. I got to my car right as the meter expired, I watched it flip to red. I tried to ask the guy what the deal was and he shrugged it off. I threw the ticket back into his Jeep and then he jumped out, got into my face and punched me out. I woke up in an ambulance headed to the emergency room. I have broken teeth and stitches in my lip. We were both charged with assault. I am in the process of looking for an attorney. That's my story.
Last night I got knocked out by a Denver meter maid. I got to my car right as the meter expired, I watched it flip to red. I tried to ask the guy what the deal was and he shrugged it off. I threw the ticket back into his Jeep and then he jumped out, got into my face and punched me out. I woke up in an ambulance headed to the emergency room. I have broken teeth and stitches in my lip. We were both charged with assault. I am in the process of looking for an attorney. That's my story.
I hate Denver and am thankfully moving out of here next week. I can't wait. I'm sorry you had to deal with this shithole. I've experienced the same thing with parking tickets in this overrated hell hole. Denver can fuck itself and it's shitty snow and snobby assed people.