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Free parking? Not in this 'monopoly'

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by I Should Coco, Oct 19, 2017.

  1. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    Not necessarily a journalism topic, but something that affects many of us who work in media: the financial woes of having to park on the street.

    Besides racking up plenty of tickets and/or having to drop everything to move your car every couple hours, had my car in the shop for an oil change last week and the mechanic noticed more strut, ball joint and sidewall tire damage on the two right wheels of my car.

    Hmmm ... I wonder who has to parallel park his car constantly, on streets with old, 10-inch high curbs?

    Now maybe I could be more careful when I parallel park several times a shift, but as we were discussing in my shop, department heads and management sure don't have that type of car damage as they park in the handful of reserved, off-street spaces near our downtown newsroom and production building.

    Thought about putting this in the "irksome" thread, but figured quite a few of us have this problem.

    Thanks for letting me vent!
     
  2. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Park better.
     
  3. I Should Coco

    I Should Coco Well-Known Member

    The correct answer is "don't drive to work." Hopefully, someday, in my post-newspaper career that will be true.
     
  4. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    What a coincidence. I took my car in for a repair about six weeks ago and they said the tie-rods were going. Which I knew because it's on the general maintenance schedule from years ago and I still had the originals in there. I'm sure they would have lasted longer, but I let them do the front ones.

    Then I had to get front brakes done last week, and of course I received an estimate for a grand more of work I needed done, like back brakes going and I need all new struts, too! (Same as tie-rods, were on maintenance schedule, still working fine, will ride it out, etc.)

    But what a shock they find all that work that needs done beside what actually does need to be done.
     
  5. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    Not a problem when you don't work at a metro!
     
    MNgremlin likes this.
  6. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    This is more from the tickets side of street parking. Worked part-time on a sports staff for nearly two years in a mid-sized city and got a little reckless with the unpaid tickets. Finally snagged a full-time job several states away and was within 10 days of moving -- heh, heh, too bad, meter maids! -- when a squad car and tow truck pulled up outside my residence. Took the car to the impound lot, I had to go to traffic court and immediately went belly-up when the judge said anyone paying their entire ticket balance on the spot would have them reduced to their original amount (this was a place where the fines doubled after 10 days unpaid and quadrupled after 28 days). Made sure I had proper parking from that point forward -- until I went on beats where I could justify hardly going into the newsroom at all.
     
  7. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

  8. MNgremlin

    MNgremlin Active Member

    Yeah, what's this about paying for parking?

    We've got a 50-spot lot, with maybe 20-25 cars max on a normal weekday.
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2017
    Doc Holliday likes this.
  9. CD Boogie

    CD Boogie Well-Known Member

    There was no designated lot for us. And our paper was located downtown in a high-volume commercial district where parking spaces were at a premium. We used to have to move our car every two hours, which was fine if you were going out for assignments. But a lot of times you were on deadline and simply forgot to move your car or feed the meter, which had its own risks.

    Paper gave us a weekly allowance for paying the parking fees, but that didn't come close to covering the cost of tickets. It was like $25 per ticket. $50 if you got caught feeding the meter. And yeah, those meter maid humps would chalk tires. Then, of course, there was the inevitable boot that came after racking up like $300 in tickets. It was a fucking racket and meter maids are lower than scum IMHO. Unrelated, but the new job I've taken and will start in two weeks is back in this same town. Luckily at my new gig there is designated parking.
     
    I Should Coco likes this.
  10. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    When I was in college, it was the same way, with little parking for students, and it was a racket with the school counting on it as a major source of income and the meter maids chalking the tires to catch you five seconds after the time was up. And there were no actual meters, just the maids' own watches.

    So, I would go out, pull the car out of the spot, then pull it back in, park again, and rub out the chalk on the tire with my foot. A couple of times, I caught the meter maids starting to write me up and I told them that I had driven the car away, and that the same spot was still available when I got back.

    It was funny to see the looks on their faces when they'd go to point out the chalk marks only to see that there wasn't any.
     
  11. UPChip

    UPChip Well-Known Member

    When I got here two years ago, the paper lost almost all of its spots to the construction of a six-story office building behind us (good move by a retail clothing company). Since that was completed about 18 months ago, we have about 15 spaces in the garage, but those of us who aren't managers or people with at least 20 years of seniority are SOL. Building is right downtown across the street from City Hall but there's some street parking if there aren't a bunch of city vehicles hanging around. Since I'm on desk, I only have to pay from 3:30 to when they stop checking the meters around 5, and then only four days a week (I typically work Tuesday-Saturday). Comes out to $6 a week, which is annoying, mostly because I constantly have to have quarters on hand for that and the coin-operated laundry in my apartment building.
     
  12. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    My senior year of college, the student newspaper office was right across the street from the basketball arena and there as a small parking lot (15-20 spaces) next to it. Next closest lot was about a half-mile walk. The closer lot had a gate, though, where you had to pay to park between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. It was common practice among some of the newspaper staff to wait until after 5 to leave the office so they didn't have to pay.
     
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