Author: Doug Rutherford

I vaguely remember learning how to drive and dealing with the concept of parking. It wasn’t an abstract concept at all. You put your car in the areas you’re allowed to and during the time you’re allowed to. Yes, you can try to say, “But my name is Noah Parking and I’m the only one allowed to put my car here between midnight and 4 AM.” Good luck with that, by the way.

But at work, parking seems to be on the level of calculus when it comes to comprehension of the, oddly enough, very few rules involved. Staff are allowed to put their vehicles in some places. Students are allowed to put theirs in others. Contractors, etc., also have places to put theirs. And, interestingly enough, there are signs indicating who can park where.

This being said, the rules don’t seem to apply to anyone… or, at least, most people who seem to think that rules are a completely unnecessary thing foisted upon them to make their lives miserable. And, as such, I am constantly amazed at how people seem to interpret the rules. Its a double whammy for me since:

1. I am a firm believer that, since its a relatively easy component of a more complicated system, if you can’t park, why would we trust you driving.
2. The staff parking area behind my office is far closer to it than any of the handicapped parking spaces, which I need until I get knee surgery. The nearest handicapped spot is about a 500 m walk from my office.

For example, one of our staff members, part of the job of his department being reporting parking offences, doesn’t want anyone parking next to his new car so he parks in a two spot parking area diagonally. Students on short term courses, who of course aren’t there for the full semester so aren’t “students,” park in the staff lot. One student had to be told five times in one week not to park in the staff lot, so he moved his truck to the fire lane in front of a hydrant and security asked him, daily, every day for the next week not to do that either. No, they didn’t have him towed, although if the fire department came up the hill for any reason during that week, they would do so automatically.

Despite the fact that we have parking regulations, we don’t enforce them. Not only that, we hired 24/7 security staff at substantial expense (no, these are not rented security but staff members with salaries and benefits), part of which to do parking supervision. However, the head of security has no interest in enforcing parking. And, despite signage to the contrary, management will not order a tow truck because they don’t want to offend people.

So, in short, parking here is a free-for-all. And, I’m not totally sure why since, I’m not sure how you got into this post-secondary educational institution when you can’t determine what the words “No Parking” mean. Don’t make me give you my explanation for why you can’t occupy a single parking spot at a time…

Someone explain to me why housecleaning is important. I mean, really important. I’m certain that most people have far more important things to do than clean the house. I work all day. I cook. I shop for groceries. I have things I do outside work. Why do I have to clean the house?

Yes, I know people are coming over. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that they, too, have lives and would be far happier taking the housecleaning thing and throwing it on the back burner. So, when you come to their place, you don’t think their house is untidy. You think, “Wow, what fulfilling lives they have” or something equally profound. “They do far more neat things than housecleaning.” Let’s be honest. Shouldn’t a really clean house be the sign of someone with no life.

My cousin Alma’s husband in Northern Ireland sent me an e-mail that sums up how to deal with it. Go to the store and buy a get well card and put a bunch of  illegible signatures on the bottom of it. A whole pile of signatures. Next, place it somewhere on the shelf where no company could possibly miss it. They’ll see it and think, “Hey, he’s been too sick to clean…”

I’ll admit that the weather this morning wasn’t too awful. It was raining. We haven’t seen rain since the fall so it was refreshing.

However, on the way to work this morning, that changed. It started to snow. I mean really snow. It was downright depressing.

But, the snow has since melted and it got up to 5° today. So, I decided to barbeque a few steaks for dinner tonight. It started hailing. What’s with this?

By the way, in the last 70 years, it has snowed and accumulated 50 of those years in the month of May. It isn’t new. It just sucks.

Oh, by the way. Its supposed to snow tonight…

I feel like an expectant father. This weekend, I’m having the first read through for my play. This will be my first chance to actually hear how it will sound done by actors. Not only do I get to hear but I’ve managed to come up with three really good people to do it as well. 

This will give me a chance to hear it so I can make my last edits before sending it on to a dramaturg. Nakai and Gwaandak theatre companies are bring someone up to do dramaturgy in June and this will probably represent the last big edit before running it in the Homegrown festival next May.

I’ve finallized the reading version and have sent the script on to two of the actors. I need the e-mail address for the third but have sent him a Facebook message and am waiting to hear back. Onwards and upwards…