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Weird Parking Bay Problem at Workplace
anon23
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So a bit of a weird situation at my workplace that Im looking for some advice on.
At our office there is only 3 parking spots designated to our company, 2 for the director and 1 for the employees, of which there are 2 (me and one other person).
Now when I started I didn't care as i was parking on the street and figured it was fine to do so. Turns out its not and I have since gotten 2 or 3 parking tickets of $100 each time over the course of 12 months..
I was parking in our designated spots for a while as I tore my achilles this year and when i was recovering the other employee offered me the space..
Now however, they have "taken" it back.. They come in extra early just to get the spot and Im left footing a bill for any fines that may crop up..
Public transport sucks for me and quadruples my travel tim and costs.. and for them they are on quite a good line and when i was injured they were fine getting the train.. However, not so anymore..
How can I broach the subject of possibly sharing the parking bay at work so Im not the only one at risk of $100 fine every day? Is it a fair thing to do to take turns through the week or whatever?
PA, what would you do?
At our office there is only 3 parking spots designated to our company, 2 for the director and 1 for the employees, of which there are 2 (me and one other person).
Now when I started I didn't care as i was parking on the street and figured it was fine to do so. Turns out its not and I have since gotten 2 or 3 parking tickets of $100 each time over the course of 12 months..
I was parking in our designated spots for a while as I tore my achilles this year and when i was recovering the other employee offered me the space..
Now however, they have "taken" it back.. They come in extra early just to get the spot and Im left footing a bill for any fines that may crop up..
Public transport sucks for me and quadruples my travel tim and costs.. and for them they are on quite a good line and when i was injured they were fine getting the train.. However, not so anymore..
How can I broach the subject of possibly sharing the parking bay at work so Im not the only one at risk of $100 fine every day? Is it a fair thing to do to take turns through the week or whatever?
PA, what would you do?
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Is there a public parking lot that your work could help you pay for?
As to actually solving your problem, the first step would be to find a place nearby where you can legally park. It doesn't matter if it's a few blocks away, that walk is better than a $100 fine (assuming it doesn't aggravate your injury). The second step would be to talk to the other employee can come up with some compromise because if there's only one stop between you, it should be shared if it isn't assigned.
Edit: nevermind, just saw the post you made at the same time as this one. Don't realize there were 2 directors.
Heya thanks, and I had already looked into public parking bays out of trying to avoid this confrontation. Turns out there is literally zero in a 5km radius of my work for whatever reason. Also doubt my work would help pay for it if there was anyway.
It seems like talking to one of the directors might be going a bit too far or something and make things weird.
I basically want to know how i can say to this person "hey we are sharing this space now" without coming off as an asshole.. I think I've been more than accommodating and they know ive been getting fines yet continue to snake the spot...
How about working with your directors to figure out a way to get more parking spots designated for your company?
I'm guessing that working with the owners of the building to get an additional parking space designated for your office is over your pay grade, as such you need to talk to someone who can do something about it. In this case, your director.
You don't have to go in confrontational (in fact, I'd advise against doing so) but starting with "We've got X number of people here, and X-1 parking spots. This is a problem when everyone is driving in because the person left without a spot is likely to eat a hundred dollar ticket for parking on the street. I've had 3 of these myself.". It's possible that since the directors have designated spots they don't realize that this is an issue. Asking them to work with the owner of the office building so you don't have to worry about tickets shouldn't be a huge problem.
This would seem to avoid the inter-office conflict you seem set on dodging, and at the very least it lets your directors know about the problem (and the tickets). Don't say "Co worker has an easy ass public transport commute that they could be using so I could use the spot, while my public transport commute requires me to be up and waiting at the first of 25 bus stops three hours before I get off work the day before to get here in time".
Or, just start getting there even earlier to get the spot. But that's a passive aggressive move and likely to escalate the situation instead of resolving it.
Just be honest with out sounding like complaining. In fact don't bring up any employees name at all. It's not about them.
"Director so and so. Can we lease another parking spot? There are no available spots for me and I'm getting hit with tickets when I park on the street. It would really help me out."
If he's not a dick he'll say yes or no we looked into it and nobody is willing to lease to us. He may have another solution.
They actually already looked into getting another spot, not for me, but for someone else who was going to start here lol! But there was none available in the vicinity of the building.
In part all of this is kind of my fault I feel as I didn't know there was no parking around when i took this job. And i took it because of the easy commute etc driving dammit.
Think I am just going to talk to the other person about it like "hey i know you have been driving for a while now but do you think it will be fair if we can share the park throughout the week 3 days on 2 off or whatever, then theres less chance of either of us getting a fine"
Hopefully that will pan out ok if they are a decent person..
Float that idea first.
But what will you do when they say no? Will you just let it drop and continue to get fines, or will you then finally suck it up and talk to the directors like you should?
This really should wake them up. At that point, it's arguably a workplace injury (IANAL), assuming that you've reported the issue up the food chain.
If they have spots designated for employees, then they know that employees need spots.
If you've reported the issue to them (in writing), with all the sub-issues involved, then they can't say that they don't know that:
- X spots are required for X employees to work, and the X-1 spots available are not enough
- those spots aren't being shared equitably (and more to the point, there's no equitable way to share non-divisible, exclusive portions of a finite resource)
- there aren't any options available within a 5km radius that don't violate local regulations
- having to effectively put in a 10k every day may well exacerbate your injury
The injury stuff is kind of a YMMV thing as to inclusion, but the facts of the matter should absolutely be reported in writing. This is their issue to solve if they want to maintain productivity.
Hah... I should read all the replies first before posting a suggestion...
Also start silently looking for another job because this is sort of inexcusable for a company. Let alone such a small one where there is no way they aren't already aware of the problem.
Nah - if it hasn't been brought up, they might not be aware it's a problem. Managers aren't psychic and often have a lot on their plates (disclaimer: I am one), so if it's not something actively an issue and it costs money, many ignore it until brought up.
From the other side: if there's public transit and no one is complaining about parking spots, why would you buy/rent/lease another one?
OP said they looked into getting another space for someone else that was going to start working there, and not the OP. That seems to imply that they are at least tangentially aware of the issue and haven't even seen fit to talk to OP about it.
Maybe they could sense my growing resentment with each passing fine.. hah..
Anyways they just started talking about it with me and said how good the drive in has been on school holidays (last 3 wks or so here), but that they will be back to getting the train again as soon as they are over.
Success! Kind of. I mean, I guess they do have some sense of fairness about the whole thing then. Decent human confirmed?
Would still love to sort out a proper 3 day/2 day schedule for future so they dont have to get the train but I guess that can be bought up next time.
Nah no car pool we literally live on opposite sides of our city.
And my directors would never carpool lol also id hate my entire life if i had to get a ride to work with my bosses... hah. Cheers for the ideas though!
It would be a bit awkward if I had to terminate them.
Oh god, can you imagine having to give the employee you just fired a ride home?
I don't think "awkward" is nearly a strong enough descriptor.
Maybe I'd just pay for the uber.
And I live in Dallas, its not like free parking is abundant!
3 advantages:
1. No company parking for me and the coworker, so we saved on parking fees.
2. We were able to use the HOV lane.
3. We didn't pay a dime for gas as the manager's car was a company paid one
I don't think there's anything wrong with asking a superior about carpooling... it's also a good opportunity to experience the "it's not what you know, it's who you know" cliche