Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My spot

I fully admit to being obsessive-compulsive. I know I have a slight problem. So this blog is mainly just for my own venting purposes.

A while ago, while I was at work on a holiday, some kids came by, got on the ground and looked under my car. Since this isn't the greatest of neighborhoods, I wasn't sure what they were up to, but I was betting it wasn't good. They were young enough to be scared off by my pressing of the car panic button. My car was fine.

Since this incident, I have tried as much as possible to park immediately outside my office window, in what I have [in]appropriately labeled "my spot". Sometimes I will move my car when I see it has become free. My feelings have been exacerbated by the multitude of skateboarders who use our parking lot after 4:30, when I'm still here. Then I *really* want my car within view, so I can make sure it isn't getting hurt.

There is a Dodge Neon in our parking lot, owned by a woman who works at the company upstairs, which tends to be parked in a particular spot for the week. I assume she must take a company vehicle and travel for her job. She picks a random spot and parks there, leaving her car until late Friday. Yesterday, though it was a nice day and I should have gone for a walk at lunch, I had to leave my spot to go uptown. When I came back, the Neon was in it. Crap. There goes the opportunity to have my spot for the rest of this week.

This woman has done nothing wrong, it's not really "mine" nor reserved. I don't expect anyone to agree with me. It just grates on me that someone leaves their car in my spot for a whole week. I wish she'd pick *any* other spot, including one of the reserved spots for their company. I assume they leave those spots for executives. Granted she does drive a Neon, so I guess she doesn't care what happens to her car if it sits here overnight for days. I'd never leave my car in this parking lot overnight. Too many hooligans around. There are worse neighborhoods, to be sure, but this one still isn't great when it comes to vandalism at night. We have video surveillance, but if it is monitored, they don't ever seem to do anything about it security-wise. At least not that I have witnessed, since we still have a skateboarder problem.

Side note to the skateboarders: we built you a skate park. Go there. Stay away from my car.

So I'm just annoyed that I can't have "my spot" this week. Nothing I can do, I certainly can't go on a campaign to get my own reserved spot... that's about as likely as getting extra vacation time on my 10 year anniversary. I won't get 4 weeks of vacation until I'm here 20 years. Even then I still wouldn't get my own parking spot.

1 comment:

Liza said...

I love reading your blog and this one made me smile because, as a teacher, I've watched the turf wars for well over 30 years. I seldom assign seating unless it's necessary to bring about a semblance of order from the typical chaos of any room filled with 30+ people who don't know one another. There are posturing and positioning that could become a life-long study into dynamics.

Students stake out a seat and defend it to the death as MY place in the classroom. I've seen people arrive late to class and be unable to function because someone else is in their seat -- and they cannot settle into the new geography of the only empty seat in the room.

Perhaps you are obsessive about your parking spot, but the logic is sound, the rationale justified, and the constant state of tension a by-product of someone else taking your spot ruins an otherwise good day.

These are also the reasons that I arrive far too much ahead of schedule at my job: there is a certain place I want to park, MY parking spot, and if I time it just right -- I get it!! Makes my day that much better to be in MY spot!!