Ever blamed someone else for your mistake?

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Birmingham city centre for an important meeting. Now, I love Birmingham for so many reasons, the food, the people, the culture. But not so much for the parking. Like most big cities in the UK, parking is limited and expensive. But I’d paid my dues and purchased a ticket on the Ringo app, there was just one problem. I’d hugely underestimated how long this meeting would last, and I was so engrossed in what was going on that I let the ticket lapse. At 11.46am, I realised it had run out a full 4 minutes earlier. Not a problem, I thought, I’ll just pop more parking on. But just as I was about to hit pay, I looked out of the window to see a parking warden standing by my car writing me up a fine. I legged it out the door and ran over to him “Oi mate”, I said (in a friendly, cheerful tone!) “I’m just putting more parking on, it’s only a few minutes over, can you cut me a break?”

Now, I don’t know about where you’re from, but here in the UK parking attendants have a bad rap. They’re not well liked, and known to be assholes. But not this one. He was a nice, friendly kid who was happy to try and help. After some back and forth, discussing the time my ticket ran out, when I renewed it, and the timestamp on the ticket he’d already issued, he apologetically explained that he had no choice but to issue the ticket.  I was just a little too late. 

Now, I could have got angry. I could have blamed him and complained that he wouldn’t let me off. But why should I? After all, I had made that mistake. I had let my parking lapse, and why should he get blamed for my mistake? So instead, I thanked him, told him not to worry and gave him a handshake.  And do you know what he did? He gave me a little advice that saved me some money. He told me not to bother paying for more parking that day, the ticket he had issued would cover me anyway for the next 24 hours. So overall, his £25 ticket only really cost me a few pounds more than the parking I would have paid for in the first place! But what would have happened if I had failed to accept my mistake? If I’d tried to blame the ticket warden (who was just doing his job) for my error? He probably wouldn’t have helped me out, and we’d have both had a much worse day. 

So just a little reminder here folks, you can’t control everything in your life, but you can always control how you react to things. Next time something bad happens, take a breath, pause, put a smile on your face and remember not to sweat the small stuff (and it’s almost always small stuff!) 

How about you? Have you got any similar stories? I’d love to hear them 

 Chadd

 PS – If you fancy a laugh, comedian Joe Lycett has a hilarious video about the time he got a parking ticket – have a watch here if you want a giggle. He’s a Brummie too!