December 2, 2024 at 10:21 pm

Petty Neighbor Kept Complaining That Somebody Was Leaving Their Garbage Bins Out, So A Civil Servant Drove By And Moved The Bins To Ensure They Were In Compliance

by Michael Levanduski

As a civil services employee, it is important to do everything possible to serve the citizens and keep the area happy.

What would you do if you kept getting calls from a citizen about something very petty like a garbage can being left out for a few hours?

That is what the servant in this story had to deal with, so he followed the letter of the law to pacify the petty citizen.

Check it out.

Petty Betty doesn’t like garbage cans

I worked in civil services in one of the most dangerous cities in my state.

(A city of only 300,000, but with two or three murders a month, and violent crimes several times a day, every day.)

So, while I understand little things can be annoying, the city has more important things to do than paying someone to drive 25 min across town to deal with ridiculous neighborhood bickering.

Especially when there weren’t enough hours in the day to help all the people who called with actual problems.

That is a good policy, though I’m sure it’s annoying.

That being said, the city had a policy of responding to every single citizen call, regardless of how stupid and wasteful it was.

One day a call came across my computer from an ‘anonymous’ caller (I’ll call her Petty Betty).

She was reporting the neighbor across the street had left their empty garbage cans at the curb for 4 hours after pick-up, and the caller demanded the owner be cited for it.

The caller was listed as ‘refused/non-contact,’ which means just like it sounds; the person wanted me to do their dirty work, but were too chicken to speak to me like an adult about their concerns.

What a waste of time.

So across town I drove, and as I barely slowed down while driving past the offending cans.

I cleared the call by typing, “Yes, can confirm there are in fact two cans sitting in the gutter as described, but can not confirm with non-contact RP what time garbage was picked up, so call closed. Also noted numerous other unrelated cans left out in the neighborhood. ”

About 10 minutes go by, and another call comes in from irate Petty Betty stating she had watched me drive away without even stopping to ‘do my job’ and ‘investigate’ things.

Why are some people like that?

Betty knows the law and demands the homeowner be cited for the eyesore.

(She even mentioned the correct obscure city ordinance stating cans couldn’t be out four hours after pick-up.)

Oh boy, you sure caught me, Betty…so back I go.

This time I get out, and as I’m pulling the cans back 3 whole feet so they’re on the owner’s grass and in technical compliance, I give a little finger wave towards Betty’s home just so she knows that I know that she’s peeping out the curtains, and then I leave.

Good, they don’t deserve a citation.

Not the most professional thing to do, but there was no way I was citing some poor neighbor for stupid garbage cans, but I was over it and on to other things without another thought.

But, like an annoying gnat that won’t leave you alone, a few minutes later I get a private heads-up message from a concerned coworker that Petty Betty was calling to file a complaint with my supervisor.

And sure enough, later that day I had a good laugh when my supervisor blamed me for making him snort-laugh as Betty described my ‘passive- aggressive’ wave towards her house, and it made her mad that he didn’t care about the cans either.

I would enjoy it every time I drove by.

Now the super petty revenge part; every time I drove by that house and the cans were out, I stopped to move them to the edge of the lawn just to make Petty Betty angry, and I waved each and every time.

Hope she saw me.

Now that’s what I call a public servant!

Take a look at the comments below to see what other people think.

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