I need to get this off my chest.
Borland’s Austin office is located in a big multi-company office building. In the back of the building is a multi-story parking garage. The parking spaces on one side of each row are huge, and on the other side they are very narrow and designated as ‘Compact Cars Only’.
In the morning, the big spaces fill up first for two reasons: they’re on the side where the doors to the building are located, and they’re easy to park in. Of course, since those spaces aren’t marked ‘Big ass vehicles only’, people who get there early, regardless of car size, parks in those spaces.
Those who arrive later in the morning have two choices: park farther away in some of the other big spaces, or a little closer to the door in a narrow space. And of course, by that time, many people park in the closer narrow spaces regardless of the size of their car.
If I want to park in the narrow spaces (I drive a pretty small car, by the way), often the car that’s already there is right up against the dividing line or slightly over it. In this case, it would be impossible to park in the adjoining space without going over the next line. So, instead of leaving 3/4 of a space open, I just pull next to the car that’s already there, which puts me further over the next line. Sometimes, later arrivals continue my pattern of disregarding the lines to make reasonable sized parking spaces, and sometimes the next person leaves the remaining partial parking space on the other side of my car open in order to park in the next designated space (there’s a lesson about personality types in there somewhere).
Well, that was all fine and good before the building management started putting the stickers above on the cars that are parked over dividing lines. It pisses me off to no end that I’m parked over the line in an attempt to work around the management’s stupid arrangement of spaces, and then I get a hostile sounding note from the management for my parking.
I would complain to the building management or to my company’s facilities people, but it wouldn’t serve any productive purpose. I guess this type of ranting is what a blog is good for.

Categories: Odds and Ends

2 Comments

Stan Taylor · 2008/04/29 at 15:44

Actually, I was thinking of putting them on cars that are properly parked, just to cause bewilderment and havoc. The first time I got one, I wore it on the front of my shirt all day.

Rafe · 2008/04/29 at 14:39

I imagine you could very easily start a trend of removing the stickers and putting them on something conspicuous that belongs to the building management. Like, say, the door to the building.

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