It seems pretty logical to assume if you were to pull into a six level parking structure and you happen to find a parking spot on the first floor you would take it. I mean, of course you would. Nobody in their right mind would pass up a convenient spot for a more challenging spot. Unless you’re in a university parking structure where all the preferred spots go to the faculty and you, the student, have to get behind a line of 20 cars to find a spot on the fourth or fifth floor.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could just take the first floor spot? Well, I mean you could but you would pay the price. I think university preferred parking spots should go to the students, or at the very least should be given out on a “first come first serve basis,” just like most other parking lots. What a bureaucracy.
It’s quite discouraging especially when the faculty lot seems to be less full every day. Has anyone else noticed just how seemingly empty the faculty spots have been? I guess the answer is obvious: decreased staff and furloughs means increased spots. But, what I don’t get is why they must remain empty?
They sit open in the desolate lot- a bleak reminder of the days when the faculty parking lots were full and the school spirits high.
We all know there are six percent less students enrolled this semester, but trying to find a parking spot on Tuesday at 9 a.m. surely doesn’t make it feel that way. It takes approximately 8 minutes just to park, during this time. Eight minutes is crucial in the morning considering most of us have this ‘time management’ thing down to the minute- giving ourselves a total of 26 minutes to get from bedroom to classroom. Anything exceeding the eight minutes can make or break you in the morning.
Most likely you’ll get a spot on the fourth floor, maybe third if someone decided to cut out of class early. You’ll wait about three minutes to catch the elevator and that’s only if you don’t have someone like me already inside continually hitting the “close door” button because we don’t have time to wait for you. Add it up and this is easily 11 minutes wasted and you haven’t even left the parking structure.
So, what I don’t understand is why the faculty gets front row, first floor parking? The schools are paying them to work here and we’re paying the school to come here, so shouldn’t we get the preferred parking?
We could potentially not be let into a classroom if we’re late, so shouldn’t we get the front row, first floor parking. Our professors can show up late and that’s no problem, so they should have to duke it out in the parking structure while we mosey in to the front row, first floor spots. Seems logical to me.
Isn’t the customer always right? Well, I’m a customer of the university and I feel like I’m always wrong. Your staff needs you as much as you need them and me, the consumer. I have options, or at least I did have options.
How about letting the students park in the empty faculty spots because nobody’s using them, so why can’t we? Public Information Officer Christina Villalobos said changes to the parking allotment can be changed at anytime based on any specific need.
Well, in specific, I can’t stand seeing empty preferred staff parking while I’m racing to the top of a structure to grab the last spot. I think it’s time for a change.
