Since I get to work pretty early, I don't generally have to worry about finding a parking spot. It's pretty easy to park wherever you want when there aren't too many folks around. I actually tend to park far away since that forces me to walk a little bit farther, but that's not the point of this post. The point is that parking is highly dependent on what time you arrive. I suppose that isn't really a surprise, but this has some pretty interesting implications.
First of all, this all happens because the parking lot closest to the building is only so big. So if you're amongst the early crowd, you can park in that lot. Mind you, "early" doesn't necessarily mean the crack of dawn. You can still find spots there if you show up around 8 or 9AM. However, there is a bit of a linear progression between what time you show up and how many spots are available; you can't show up late and expect to park there.
The flip side of this, however, is far more interesting. You can tell roughly what time someone arrived based on where they parked. Sure, there are the occasional oddballs who throw this off (like me, for example). But for the most part, you can tell whether someone showed up to work at 7AM or 8AM based on where they parked. In fact, I've made a rough mental model of this, so that in my mind, there are "6:30 spots" and "8AM spots."
This is even more interesting if you know who drives the car. I've got some friends who work in the same building as I do, and I know what kind of cars they drive. So, I usually know when my friends are late to work. It's not like I go out there to check on people, but if I walk by their car and it's parked a lot farther away then usual, I know they were late that morning.
Now some of you might be thinking that this plan gets foiled by people leaving in the middle of the day for lunch. That leads me to my next point: there is also a time hierarchy for lunch. It's the same basic principle, only it works backwards. Around noon or so, it's next to impossible to find a spot in that lot. Some people don't leave the office for lunch, so parking spots are at even more of a premium.
However, people who show up really early in the day also leave really early in the day. And incidentally, the people who show up really early tend to park really close to the building. So, if you take a late lunch, there are very good odds that you will find a parking spot close to the building. The later the lunch, the more likely you will find a good spot. Again, there are exceptions to the rule, but as a broad generality, it seems to describe the world fairly well.
Of course, people are creatures of habit. So most everyone takes lunch at more or less the same time every day. Again, this is a generalization, but assume for the moment that people usually take lunch at the same time every day. So, let's connect some dots. The car parked in the early spot in the afternoon most likely got back to the office late. If we assume that the person left for lunch at their usual time, that must mean that the person took a long lunch. You can basically see who was less productive that day based on the parking alone.
My favorite is when I see someone in one of the late spots in the morning, and then parked really close to the building in the afternoon. There might be a very rational, responsible reason for this behavior, but I like to imagine that it's someone having a much more interesting day than me. I usually chuckle just a bit, since I feel like I'm in on an inside joke.
See? Parking spots can be fun.
First of all, this all happens because the parking lot closest to the building is only so big. So if you're amongst the early crowd, you can park in that lot. Mind you, "early" doesn't necessarily mean the crack of dawn. You can still find spots there if you show up around 8 or 9AM. However, there is a bit of a linear progression between what time you show up and how many spots are available; you can't show up late and expect to park there.
The flip side of this, however, is far more interesting. You can tell roughly what time someone arrived based on where they parked. Sure, there are the occasional oddballs who throw this off (like me, for example). But for the most part, you can tell whether someone showed up to work at 7AM or 8AM based on where they parked. In fact, I've made a rough mental model of this, so that in my mind, there are "6:30 spots" and "8AM spots."
This is even more interesting if you know who drives the car. I've got some friends who work in the same building as I do, and I know what kind of cars they drive. So, I usually know when my friends are late to work. It's not like I go out there to check on people, but if I walk by their car and it's parked a lot farther away then usual, I know they were late that morning.
Now some of you might be thinking that this plan gets foiled by people leaving in the middle of the day for lunch. That leads me to my next point: there is also a time hierarchy for lunch. It's the same basic principle, only it works backwards. Around noon or so, it's next to impossible to find a spot in that lot. Some people don't leave the office for lunch, so parking spots are at even more of a premium.
However, people who show up really early in the day also leave really early in the day. And incidentally, the people who show up really early tend to park really close to the building. So, if you take a late lunch, there are very good odds that you will find a parking spot close to the building. The later the lunch, the more likely you will find a good spot. Again, there are exceptions to the rule, but as a broad generality, it seems to describe the world fairly well.
Of course, people are creatures of habit. So most everyone takes lunch at more or less the same time every day. Again, this is a generalization, but assume for the moment that people usually take lunch at the same time every day. So, let's connect some dots. The car parked in the early spot in the afternoon most likely got back to the office late. If we assume that the person left for lunch at their usual time, that must mean that the person took a long lunch. You can basically see who was less productive that day based on the parking alone.
My favorite is when I see someone in one of the late spots in the morning, and then parked really close to the building in the afternoon. There might be a very rational, responsible reason for this behavior, but I like to imagine that it's someone having a much more interesting day than me. I usually chuckle just a bit, since I feel like I'm in on an inside joke.
See? Parking spots can be fun.
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