Yet Another Reason I Like Working Nights

I've said it before, and I will say it again...parking sucks at my job, unless you work nights. That's pretty standard at most hospitals, I think. You are allowed to park in places normally off-limits to the day employees because of the safety factor.

There are those rare occasions that I find myself having to go in during the day for something or other. Today was such a day.

I'm on a craptastic committee, designed to earn some prestigious award that is supposed to make nurses feel better about their jobs. What little enthusiasm I had for being on this committee diminished when I discovered Nazi Nurse joined it as well.

So today, I get up early. Just to remind the general public: I don't get out of bed before 0900 unless my apartment is on fire. I shower, I get all cute and stuff because we are supposed to look somewhat professional when we go to committee meetings. I even leave early. I stop at Starbucks for my drink du jour, and I have an hour to spare. It only takes me 15-20 minutes to get to work. I'm going to actually be on time for a meeting!

I enter the garage. I can park there without retribution because I have a parking card. I realize immediately that it's not going to have a good outcome because the Asian lady in the car ahead of me blocks all other cars from entering the garage because she is debating whether she should park in the little spot with a big, red NO PARKING sign. She apparently notices the sign after 5 minutes because she goes onward. We creep into the garage at 2 miles an hour. Round the corner...and are immediately held up again because some shmuck is waiting for some old lady to get into her car, to back out, so they can take her spot.

I hate people who do that.

It happened at my last job. I would get choice parking because I worked nights, and in the morning, some asshole would follow me, in their car, as I walked to my truck. Then, they would sit there and wait for me to pull out. I would sit in my truck and wait for it to warm up before leaving. In the cold weather, it was warranted because I had Oprah, and like any old girl...and it would take a while to get warmed up. Because I am also an asshole, sometimes I would sit there even when the truck didn't need that much warming up because it's downright creepy to follow someone in your car. One snowy day, a man annoyingly knocked on my window and asked me to move my truck so he could park there. I suddenly remembered that I forgot something, so I got out of my truck and walked back into the hospital and had breakfast.

Anyway, today I spent 40 minutes trapped in the parking garage, no spots to be had. I ultimately ended up behind a teal-colored car with it's rear window secured in place by duct tape. Disgusted, I gave up and made it out of the garage, drove around the hospital campus for an additional 20 minutes before saying "screw it" and just going home. Wasted almost a quarter of a tank of gas that I paid $2.29 per gallon for.

Bastards.

However, I was not going to waste the time I spent making myself cute and professional-looking just to go home and blog, so I stopped at a Quick Lube and got the oil changed on my car first.

I was the nicest looking one at that garage. I think I even smelled better, too.