Moral dilemma at work - WWYD

I would certainly offer to pay. Absolutely.

We have residents' parking by our house and, on the odd occasion that our guests have been given parking tickets, I've paid them. I would see this situation aas the same.

I'd be very sorry - but I wouldn't pay.

Oooh tough one.

i would not want to pay it but would def feel i should and would almost certainly offer on that basis, albeit in the hope that the other person would say no need, yu were doing me a favour etc etc. I would def be annoyed if I did have to pay for someone elses car!

I guess it will mean issues for the rest of you/them now that this has happened! No-one will offer to do it from now on etc...

I think he should at least offer some money towards the cost of the ticket, if not all of it, well that's what I'd do as it would have been my fault.

I'd just pay. He shouldn't have said he'd do it if he wasn't going to. I know he got tied up, but still. If he'd said "I might do it if I remember/ get time", she probably would have just done it herself and not got a ticket. She was a bit out of order asking in the first place though, it's a bit rude.

I'd offer to pay because I'd feel awful. It would really put me off doing the same favour for a colleague in future though.

good luck with that ?

if i had offered to deal with the paying of the meter and had forgotten, i d definitely pay the fine and i cant really understand why someone wouldnt.

I'd pay for sure. How was G going to sort it out herself from a meeting? I'd expect a colleague to help out in instances like that - as I would for them and I'd definitely cough up if I cocked up.

If i said i would do it and didnt i would cough up

the whole thing sounds very haphazard though

I would absolutely pay.

But wrt the resident's parking thing, I don't quite get it?

You mean your friends are parking without tickets regularly outside your house? Do you not have some kind of guest vouchers?

If I had agreed to do something for someone, then not done it and it cost them money I would definitely offer to pay. If he was busy he could have asked someone else to pop down.

I'd pay it.

I would have paid the ticket. It's not her fault she got a ticket as B had taken responsibility for topping up the meter. I'm quite surprised that he didn't offer.

In reality, I think I'd pay too - I've just had a shocking day at work and at the moment wouldn't wee on my 'colleagues' if they were on fire and I think that may be affecting my judgement.

R-A: yes, we do have vouchers. But we've had a couple of instances where, for various reasons, friends/family have got tickets and then we have paid.

Your colleagues are rubbish Loof so you wouldn't say yes to helping them in the first place - no dilemma

I would have offered to pay it as I'd agreed to take responsibility for it BUT if it had of been my car then there is no way on earth I would have taken the fine money off a colleague who had agreed to do me a favour. Especially as he hadn't just forgotten and buggered off somewhere - he was genuinely caught up with his own work.

What would she have done if there was no one in the office to move the car for her?

I don't get why it's rude for her to ask. Surely it would have been more rude for her to leave whoever she was in a meeting with twiddling their thumbs whilst she went to top up her meter (especially so if it was a client).

I wouldn't let anyone pay for my mistakes so I think her boss should have offered.

I don't think it was rude either - what is rude about asking a colleague for assistance? I am betting it's not the first time someone has been asked to help. UIf the boss felt it might not be possible, all he had to do was say he didn't think he'd be around at the expiry time or whatever. As it is, he accepted, she made it easy for him by leaving the money and settijng a reminder alarm. I don't understand why the boss wouldn't offer to cover the cost of the ticket - it was his responsibility because he said he would top up the meter but didn't.

Thanks for the opinions! To me it seemed really clear cut (if you screwed up and didn't do as you'd said - you should pay the fine) but it's interesting to see what others think.

I don't think G was rude in asking him to top it up - we ask each other quite frequently (maybe someone will ask someone else once a week or so) if we're going to be out of the studio. There's always someone around so there wouldn't be a situation where no one was free to do it. G was at a meeting off site at a client's place so she couldn't have physically done it herself.

I think part of the issue is that we do pay for our parking and are used to popping outside to top up every 2 hours (my mobile has an alarm set to remind me, should I forget). B has free parking so it's not something that he would have been naturally reminded of when he went to do his own. I think G only asked him as she's moved desk and now sits across from him so just thought he'd be the easiest person (plus he could hear her alarm etc).

She's paying it herself (and it's not unheard of, most of us have had a ticket at one point for forgetting our own parking) but I think it's really unfair of B. It won't put me off helping colleagues in the future but it has made me look at him in a different light!

Really? I would always give friends/family a visitor permit, and show them how to fill it in correctly, but if they still ended up with a ticket I'd see it as their problem, it wouldn't even occur to me to pay it.

I would absolutely offer to pay in that situation - after all, the car owner was under the impression that it would be topped up.

It's a bit like the incident the other day when I walked off with JK's car and house keys. There was a teensy bit of blame on her side, because if she'd got her shopping out of the car the previous evening instead of asking me to do it at about half midnight when I was tired and not thinking straight and so absent-mindedly put the keys into my pocket instead of on the table...

...but I should have checked before I left and so there was no question that I had to turn round mid-commute. In the end, her morning was mildly inconvenienced whereas mine was so fucked up that I ended up taking half a day's annual leave, but I still think that's the way it should have worked out! ?

I'd also be considering re-thinking your company car parking as obviously it's not practical to be having to leave what you doing to keep topping up the parking every 2 hours.

Do you not have a big NCP or similar nearby that you could get a corporate account / daily user rate with?

I can see the parking ticket quandry from both sides, he became busy and completely forgot, if she new she had a meeting could she have parked somewhere else, got public transport?

The studio is in a really nice part of town, but quite residential. It's in an Edwardian townhouse with the back garden converted into a car park which holds about 6 cars, 4 for directors and the other two on a rota so those who've signed up to the rota system get a free space every 10 days or so.

There is no NCP parking nearby, we just park in the crescent outside which always has space. To be honest, topping up parking every 2 hours isn't really a problem. Maybe i'm just used to it. If i come in at the same time as someone else, I'll offer to do theirs while i'm down and i usually do it when i got out for lunch too so i only really have to leave my desk, for a max of 3 mins once a day (and then at lunch).
I guess she didn't think of taking the train or whatever because it's usually just no big deal - you leave and someone tops you up, end of.

There was talk of moving into the city centre, a purpose built block. There would be no free parking at all though - just proximity to the main train station or NCP parking for all. Funnily enough, the directors decided not to bother...

I don't think it was rude but she was inconveniencing her boss by asking him.

I'd probably not have asked the director to do it and asked a colleague who also parks on the road to help me out as I could return the favour then.

If I were the boss I wouldn't have offered to pay the ticket (and would have a been fed up at being asked to interrupt/disrupt my work to put money on the meter in the first place)

You could always key the director's car as payback ..

really? I would have assumed that seeing as she couldn't do it herself because she was at a meeting for work, doing her job, working for her boss, he would have preferred to to be asked to do her the small favour, rather than have her not go to the meeting.

ETA it would be a bit different if she had asked him to do it because she had gone out to lunch or something.

I don't think you could say to your boss that you wouldn't go to a meeting because you needed to feed the parking meter.

I would definately offer to pay - but if I was G I would refuse it!

But I don't see it as the Director's fault so no payback is required.

On the otherhand pouring paintstripper over someone's porsche because he deliberately had you clamped is totally justifiable. ;-)

I dont understand why the director couldnt just ask someone else to pop out and do it as he was caught up at the time. Surely thats just common sense and decency. The colleague afterall was out making money for his company!

I would offer to pay without a doubt. If the Director thought he would be too busy, he should have said no when asked or got someone else to do it when the alarm went off.