6 AM

I arrove at work rather early this Tuesday, in fact before security or anyone else in my building, at approximately 6 AM. There were no cars in the parking lot so I gleefully pulled in front of the doorway closest to my building and backed up into a spot.


I was very pleased with myself for being there so early and greeted co-workers as they came by my office that morning. Two and a half hours later, just at 8:30 AM, I received a phone call. Security told me my car was parked inappropriately and needed to be moved. I was irked and stomped outside to see what the problem was in the parking lot.

My car sat between the yellow cones in the parking lot that denote the driveway/street through the parking lot. I literally parked in the middle of the street and left my car there for two and a half hours. Security thought it needed to be towed instead of my sheerly obnoxious stupidity. They had to wait until the DMV opened so they could trace my license plates to my name and contact me to move it. Two officers stopped by my office over the course of the day to make sure I realized that I had not parked in a proper parking spot and handed me faux tickets ("parking reminders").

It was very amusing to all my co-workers. It was a bit embarrassing, but the absurdity of it (not to mention my lack of energy and sleepiness at having arrived so early that day) meant I really could not get my head around how I let something like that happen and the absurdity of how it remained in place for so long before anyone contacted me about it.

So the lesson learned, as a co-worker pointed out, is that I should not plan on making it a habit of coming to work at 6 AM anymore.