Asshat Parking: Group Mentality Edition

"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion) 12/13/2016 at 13:23 • Filed to: asshat parking

2

13

I work at a university. One might think people here are perhaps “above average” intelligence, this being an institution of higher education. Mind you, it’s also finals week, so students are in full no-f**ks given-parking-mode, which includes parking in faculty/staff lots at all times. Here’s what I found this morning:

I got a good chuckle out of this at the time. Little did I know, it would get worse.

Allow me to elaborate. There are some weird perpendicular spaces at the end of a row, but one person missed the space by a whole car length (they backed in too far?) It’s the silver saturn. Then THREE others followed this person for some reason and parked alongside. These are employees of this fine institution who park here every day. The layout of the lot is the same as it has been for years.

Google maps image of actual lot. Approximate location of offending cars in RED.

But wait! You say. There’s snow on the ground, obscuring the lines! Kind of, but no. You can see the lines clearly - look at the very first picture.

OK, it was an innocent mistake. It’s dark in the early hours, right? But then. People continued to park normally in the other spaces. Which created a blockade, trapping about 15 cars inside. Who parked last and finished the blockade? Who’s to say? All I know is, when I went to lunch, I walked by and campus police were out there trying to call the owners of the offending cars. Merry Christmas! Move your damn car.

Actually these two are “ok” believe it or not.

See? The irony here? The BMW is parked 100% legally. Why are these spaces like this, though? A topic for another time.

There’s no exit on this end bedsides hopping the curb which is now also a big snowbank.

My car was one of the ones trapped in there, but I didn’t need to go anywhere... thankfully.

And I didn’t even touch the tomfoolery that goes on with snowbanks making half-spaces at the end of every lot on campus! The Shenanigans! Everywhere!

Roundbadge > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 13:38

1

The parking asshattery that takes place in this lot every winter is astounding.

People will park diagonally across parking spots and create new rows, attempting to explain it away with, “I couldn’t see the lines.”

I mean, it’s not even like it’s all that complicated.

Urambo Tauro > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 13:39

0

Pretty risky, parking where you’re not absolutely sure that it’s even a parking spot.

#towtruckbait

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 13:42

1

Intelligence, particularly undirected, is not equivalent to competence. In anything. Never has been, never will be.

functionoverfashion > Roundbadge 12/13/2016 at 13:55

1

Occasionally I’ll take the opportunity to park in a non-space that’s blocked off for no good reason. Hard to explain, but we have a few here. And when the whole lot is snow-covered and people are parked however they want, I say, go for it if you’re only creating a space where there is reasonable room to do so. Parking at weird angles and the like? No excuse, when you park there every day.

functionoverfashion > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/13/2016 at 13:56

0

It’s true. My former employer was highly intelligent on a lot of topics. Good businessman, well read and always up for an interesting debate on a variety of topics. Hand him a cordless drill? Get ready to cringe.

functionoverfashion > Urambo Tauro 12/13/2016 at 13:57

1

Fortunately for them, campus police knows who they are because of the parking permits, and they can call you or even go to your office and bang on the door if needed. But really, this was ridiculous.

Future next gen S2000 owner > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 14:29

0

To be fair, that is a terrible layout for a parking lot.

jimz > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 14:43

0

there’s a difference between intelligence and “smarts.”

Chariotoflove > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 15:15

1

More education often just means having more ways to rationalize to yourself what you want to do.

Pickup_man > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 15:46

1

My school was incredibly lax, yet overly strict when it came to parking. Allow me to explain, when we got a lot of snow, which happens frequently in South Dakota, all bets were off, cars parked 3 spaces deep, rows crooked enough to actually start in one row on one end, then end in a completely different row on the other, and no tickets. As soon as that snow melted however, if you were over the line that you had no chance in seeing because it’s really hard to fully clear a parking lot that is constantly filled with cars... ticket. Motorcycle parking? Reasonably inexpensive parking pass, usually lots of places to park, but there was a certain date when motorcycle parking closed. It could be sunny and 50° F out, but don’t you dare park that motorcycle on campus. Then there were the scooters, those fucking scooters, who received every single benefit of motorcycle parking without any of the consequences. They didn’t have to buy parking passes, could park wherever we parked (usually taking up the entire parking area blocking spots from the people who actually paid for them), and they didn’t get any tickets, ever, because they didn’t have parking passes.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 12/13/2016 at 16:23

5

After nearly five years working for a university, I can confirm that intelligence and education should never be conflated. Education, and particularly graduate degrees, in and of itself tends to only reflect your willingness to do the wind up monkey thing for longer than others.

V8Demon - Prefers Autos for drag racing. Fite me! > functionoverfashion 12/13/2016 at 18:19

1

Attending an institution of higher learning as it were is absolutely no indication of intelligence. This post is simply more supporting evidence of that.

functionoverfashion > Pickup_man 12/13/2016 at 21:07

1

haha, oh lovely!

I remember at my school, there was basically one huge parking lot for everyone who lived on campus. They never required you to move your car for plowing and this was in upstate NY. So... mid-February or so, the place was a complete debacle of holes where cars had been, kids were constantly battling getting their cars out of spaces. I mostly laughed, but occasionally offered to help. Being from a place where I had experienced snow, I usually offered to push for a second, then just asked to drive. I’d rock it back and forth and then floor it and drive out of the space. Much to my satisfaction, every time. It blows me away that the didn’t have a lot maintenance schedule or something, though.