Heavy Wait
(Slow) Moving Violation
How long would you be willing to wait for something? I know...it depends.
A fresh Whopper without cheese...maybe 10 minutes. Another season of Ted Lasso...three years — and that's pushing it.
A verdict in traffic court...eighteen years. At least in Toronto, Canada.
In 2007 Neville Greene was pulled over and ticketed for running a red light. He pleaded not guilty in 2008, claiming that construction had impeded normal traffic flow causing him to block the box. Even though Greene had pictures, the judge turned a blind eye and refused to allow them as evidence saying, "This isn't Law & Order."
DUN! DUN!
After receiving a conviction, Greene filed an appeal with hopes of getting a speedy trial. Instead he was subjected to a sloth-like, inept bureaucratic quagmire. He consistently re-filed the necessary paperwork to get another hearing and heard nothing but crickets for nearly two decades. And I thought applicant tracking systems had the worst response rates.
I understand the wheels of government can move slow at times, but waiting four and a half presidential terms for the system to make such a trivial decision is cruel and unusual punishment. When this whole thing started, Greene was probably a spry young man still mailing DVDs back to Netflix, waiting for the first iPhone to debut, and listening to Amy Winehouse complain about Rehab. If he'd been on the way to the hospital to witness the birth of his child when he got pulled over, that kid would now be old enough to fight their own red-light ticket.
Greene spent eighteen years fighting a traffic violation like he was on death row. When his second day in court finally came, his effort was rewarded. The appellate judge awarded the appeal — which reversed the conviction — then explained the reason for delayed justice by simply stating that the court "may have lost his paperwork."
Let the record reflect the dog ate the court's homework.
Case Closed
Greene wasn't really fighting a ticket for eighteen years. He was fighting to be proven right.
He kept those photos for nearly two decades because he knew he was right. But being right privately wasn't enough — he needed the system to officially say he was right.
And who among us hasn't starred in this movie? At some point we've all patiently waited for that long-owed acknowledgement to walk into the scene.
We save that email thread just so we can one day forward it with a "per my earlier note" comment. We reference that one unfair sentence in an otherwise glowing performance review — a year later. We wait to hear that doubting boss from the past say, "I was wrong about you."
We hold on to those receipts with hopes they'll prove we were right and help us win the case. But the win never comes because everyone else has moved on.
We're the only one still showing up to court.
Question of the Week
Whose "I was wrong about you" are you still waiting on?
Are you subscribed?
If you enjoyed this article and want more weird stories that make corporate life make sense, Sunday Setup lands in your inbox every Sunday at 3:30 PM ET.
Click the button below to get a weekly dose of humor and mindfulness to help beat the Sunday Scaries.
