Thanks to Parking Today’s blog for this gem, which we are reproducing as published, entitled ‘Whoops… He Took $5 Million A Year’.
Outside 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’the?”
“Err … NO!” insisted the Council.
Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, is a bloke 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 £3.6million ($5million)! / [FYI – that works out to $200,000/year — all bottom line income, with no taxes or costs-of-goods-sold (except for his chair, umbrella and ticket machine).
And no one even knows his name.