Jennifer's purse contains many of the normal things that a woman carries on her person, such as a wallet and house keys. But after working at the same seniors' home for more than a decade, she has added another must-have item: slips of paper on which she has printed the same terse-yet-professional message to anyone who dares steal her work parking spot.
"This parking space is a designated and reserved spot as you will notice by the parking sign indicator," it reads. "Or you have taken up the space of two parking spots by parking incorrectly. Please be more considerate."
Jennifer, who asked that she not be identified for fear of losing her parking privileges, tucks the note under the vehicle's windshield wiper and proceeds into the building, where she sometimes has the owner paged to move the car.
"When I confront them they say, 'Oh, I'm so sorry, I thought it was only going to be for 10 minutes,' " she says. "But it's quite an inconvenience because I have to go out and move my car back into my spot."
Jennifer may seem more calculating than the average driver when it comes to dealing with spot thieves, but office parking lots have long been a source of workplace disputes. Executives who receive a spot by the front door are often the target of resentment. Jennifer recalls how a maintenance worker at her workplace was once asked to clear out an executive's spot after a snowstorm, but no one else's.
Then there's the issue of parking space theft. Nobody would think to set up shop in another person's office. Yet a parking space is often fair game and, at least in Hollywood's interpretation, worth fighting over.
Joe Somebody, an otherwise forgettable 2001 comedy starring Tim Allen, used an office parking spot as a key plot point. Joe, Mr. Allen's character, is pulling into a space when it's suddenly stolen by the reigning office bully. Not wanting to lose face in front of his daughter, who is with him for Take Your Daughter to Work Day, Joe stands up to the bully and ends up pounded into the painted pavement.
Back in the real world, competition and prices for downtown office parking have increased in recent years because many landlords no longer offer free parking as part of an office lease. Companies are also looking to cultivate a more egalitarian workplace culture, which means few will pay to reserve spots for specific employees.
"I've been in the parking business for 20 years and [the number of reserved spots] has been going down ever since I started," says Mickey Narun, president of Standard Parking of Canada, which manages parking in office buildings and other facilities in Ontario and Alberta. Those two provinces are home to some of the most expensive office parking in Canada. Parking inside a major downtown office building can run as high as $600 a month in Calgary.
Mr. Narun says the norm today is that office garages are "a free for all" - meaning free for none and no reserved parking. Many public lots and building garages have waiting lists.
Alan Hancock was used to paying £8 ($16) an hour for parking when he lived in London, so he didn't balk at the $21 daily charge at his office tower in Vancouver. "But once I started adjusting to Vancouver prices, I realized I should be finding somewhere that wasn't so much," the interior designer says.
Mr. Hancock found a less expensive lot nearby, but that too has come at a cost. Thanks to the lot's lax security, his sport utility vehicle was broken into two weeks ago. Now on a waiting list for a different lot near his office, he's back paying more than $400 a month for parking.
Outside the downtown core, however, office parking is plentiful, and companies are playing up their parking resources as a workplace benefit.
"We offer free parking as a perk to all our employees and consultants," says Shafiq Jamal, director of corporate communications for Best Buy Canada in Burnaby, B.C. "There is no special designation for [executives and managers]."
Though that's not to say Best Buy is blind to the value of a plum spot. It reserves the best spaces for expectant mothers and employees who win its Outstanding Associate of the Month award. Along with use of the parking spot, they receive company-wide recognition and a gift card.
Colin Picard, a Best Buy benefits specialist, recently shared the honour for his department, which gave rise to an unexpected issue: How do two people who keep the same hours share one parking spot? Truly a dilemma worthy of King Solomon.
"We decided to auction the spot and give the proceeds to Big Brothers Big Sisters," Mr. Picard says. "We got $75. I was shocked at how much we got." Yes, even in a lot filled with free spaces, someone was eager to open their wallet for a better place (and, one imagines, for charity).
Meanwhile, Jennifer has come up with a new tactic to combat parking scofflaws.
"Sometimes I'll park my car right behind theirs and inconvenience the inconveniencer," she says, noting that this requires the person to locate her in order to extricate their vehicle. Is it working?
"I don't know," she says. "Maybe they don't come and take my spot again; they take someone else's."
