parking woes
It seems that every day I fail to make it to work on time. Is it because I don't wake up on time? Because I missed the light with the four-minute cycle? Because someone had to change a tire on the other side of the freeway, and everyone on both sides had to stop and look? Because that moron in the Geo Prizm would only go 28 in the 30 mph zone? Yes to all of the above. But mainly it's because of the parking garage.
The building I work in is some 42 stories tall. Yep, we gots big buildings here in Texas. Yee-haw! Of course, big buildings require big parking garages, and the one I park in goes 8 floors below the ground, has three sections, and three or four separate entrances.
The people that work in my building have things pretty well figured out. We have a little card that you stick on the windshield. You pull up to the gate, gate goes up, you drive through, gate goes down. A three second process at most.
The people that cause the problems are the ones who
don't work here. The people that are here for interviews, conferences, meetings, whatever. These people have a much more complicated procedure, involving many confusing steps. 1) Press button, 2) Take ticket, 3) Wait for gate to open. I realize this is completely different from all other parking garages in the world. And the big flashing button that says "PUSH BUTTON AND TAKE TICKET" is poorly worded and highly confusing. Even with all of the confusion that people must feel when pulling up to the intimidating flashing button, surely they can figure out this process in, oh, say a minute or less. Imagine waiting behind 27 or so of these people, each one as confused as the one before, nobody thinking to look ahead to the guy in front of them to see how they managed to beat the system.
Yeah, I know things could be worse. At least my company provides a place for me to park. And it's attached to the building, so I really don't have far to travel to get from parked car to parked butt. But where would this blog be if I didn't complain about stuff? I ask you that!