OT-Well planned retirement

[NS13Jarhead 6]

Don't know if it's true or not, but it's a great idea!

 

A Well-Planned Retirement - From The London Times:

Outside the Bristol Zoo, in England, there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 coaches, or buses.

 

It was manned by a very pleasant attendant with a ticket machine charging cars £1 (about $1.40) and coaches £5 (about $7).

 

This parking attendant worked there solid for all of 25 years. Then, one day, he just didn't turn up for work.

 

"Oh well", said Bristol Zoo Management - "we'd better phone up the City Council and get them to send a new parking attendant . . . "

 

"Err . . . no", said the Council, "that parking lot is your responsibility."

 

"Err . . . no", said Bristol Zoo Management, "the attendant was employed by the City Council, wasn't he?"

 

"Err . . . no!" insisted the Council.

 

Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain (presumably), is a man who had been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at £400 (about $560) per day at Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over £3.6 million ($7 million - or $280,000 every year for 25 years)!

 

And no one even knows his name.

Edited July 14, 2009 by NS13Jarhead

[Rickitycrate 10]

I know about a parking lot, see's a lot of traffic it does, hmm...... Hawaii here I come.

[Rickitycrate 10]

But you live in Florida, or so you say.

[Olham 164]

Hey, that's a good story!

And that is exactly, what usually the state does with us.

[Hauksbee 103]

Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain (presumably), is a man who had been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at...just over £3.6 million. And no one even knows his name.

In my favorite 'retirement story', we do know his name: Stanley Rifkin. He was a California computer specialist [the big mainframe types] in the '70's. He was part of a contract to install a new computer at Security Pacific bank in San Diego. This takes some time, and by the time the computer was ready to go on-line, everybody was used to seeing Stanley's face around the office. Thus, when he turned up on the first day of operation, no one raised an eyebrow. He checked in with the guy running the system. "Any problems? Any glitches?" Of course there were. Always are. So Stanley tells the guy to go get lunch and he, Stanley, will have it fixed by the time lunch is over. He then transfers $18 million to a prepared account in Switzerland. Knowing that a tranaction of this size must be confirmed by the Bank Manager, and knowing that the manager always took lunch at the same time each day, Stanley slips into the guy's office, takes the call from Accounting, and confirms his own transfer. So far, so good. A clean get-away.

 

Alas, no happy ending. With all this done, Stanley goes to the Soviet Mineral Export Trade Bureau in Switzerland and converts most of his cash to diamonds. Then, back home. [How he brought the diamonds in is never disclosed] Now, he starts to sell off the diamonds. Somebody rats him out to the FBI, who, in turn, calls Security Pacific Bank and tells them, "We have reason to believe that you're missing approx. $18 million. Would you run a check?" The bank does, and replies, "No, everything is fine." The FBI insists that their source is reliable and says, "Will you check closer?". The bank does, and it all unravels.

[Olham 164]

The old fashioned British method has more sympathy, I say. I mean, really - could you imagine

to be the judge if that guy had been caught, and you had to bang him into jail? I wouldn't like it.