Actually, that’s not quite true. On weekends while working at The Store, it was possible to sneak into the parking garage of a nearby office building. Sometimes, this included lying to the parking attendants about my parking pass being somewhere upstairs. But often as not, I could smile and wave and drive right in like I owned the place. On weekends.
On weekdays, Associates of The Store had to park in the mall garage. In addition to being unbearably crowded, the mall garage was absurdly expensive. As you entered the garage, you took a ticket that was stamped with the time. You had three hours from that time to exit the garage without having to pay. If you stayed in the garage more than three hours, the charge to exit quickly became $7, then $11, then finally the maximum $21. If you worked an eight-hour shift, you would pay $21, or more than two hours' wages. So basically, the last two hours of your shift you worked for free.
Dodger Stadium also gave The Careerist a free meal, if you will recall. While there was no such thing as a free lunch at The Store, there was such a thing as a regular lunch break. And while there was no such thing as free parking, once again California laws eased the burden. Every Associate at the mall was entitled to a fifteen-minute break after every few hours on the job. With a little luck, careful planning, and watchful anxiety, a Store Associate could time her breaks to occur just as her three hours of free parking expired, allowing her to rush to her car and drive it out of the garage and then right back into the garage before having to pay anything.
The Moving of the Car was a regular activity for each Associate, and each Manager had to help time the breaks so that everyone got a chance to not spend money on their job. (Since we were not interns, we rightly supposed that we should not be required to purchase our employment.) It became a very tricky Game, but before long, I had learned all the Ins and Outs of Parking, even if In and Out Parking was technically not allowed. Should you ever find yourself working at the mall and in need of parking advice, here are some Game Cheats.
If you are scheduled for an eight-hour shift, you get an hour for lunch and two fifteens. Your car will need to be parked for a total of nine hours, counting the lunch break. So if you are really smart about it, you will only have to move your car twice—during your first fifteen and at the very end of your lunch break, leaving you free to (gasp!) actually take a break during your last fifteen. This only works if your lunch break takes place exactly five hours after your shift begins, which the managers rarely allow since they are terrified of giving you a paid lunch.
There are kiosks in the parking garage where you can pay for your parking before you go to your car. This system encourages people to avoid paying at the exits, and therefore keeps the traffic flowing. If you are on the verge of going over your three hours, you can put your parking ticket in the kiosk, where it will be marked as paid. Then you have an extra ten minutes or so to get to your car and exit the garage! If you hustle, you could whirl through the mall supermarket and pick up some string cheese and a Gatorade in that amount of time. Just hope that the supermarket express checkout is clear of people with more than ten items.
I still can’t believe how this could be, but it’s true. Even though the sign says that only your first three hours are free, they don’t immediately start charging you after three hours. I am such a tightfisted maniac that I never risked going over three hours until months into my employment at The Store. The first time I was a minute late and didn’t get charged, I thought I had been lucky. But I did not press my luck, and never imagined that I could have had even more time if I wanted it. I had probably worked there for nine months before someone told me that I could go as much as ten minutes over without getting charged. This was astonishing. But The Associates had to wonder…how far would the kiosk machine let us go? Minute by minute, we tested our limits. The parking system at The Mall allowed us to go up to eighteen minutes over before charging us. Combine Cheat #3 and Cheat #2 and you have just bought yourself almost half an hour of extra parking time, which is extremely helpful in accomplishing Cheat #1.
Sometimes other, more foolish people will leave their parking tickets lying about in a fitting room or on the ground. Check every singe one of them! If the time on the found parking ticket is sufficiently later than yours, you might even buy yourself a full hour-long lunch break by not having to move your car until your final fifteen. Bonus!
If you are one of the foolish people who dropped her parking ticket, woe unto you. A lack of a parking ticket means you have to pay the maximum $21. However, it is possible to sneak out of the parking lot behind another car as it exits, while the arm is still up. Note--this maneuver must be timed perfectly and is generally only to be attempted by ballsy types.
There are alternatives, of course. A couple Associates biked to work. There’s also the bus. But this is only an option if you don’t live on the other side of a mountain, in a place so far away that it is called “The Valley.” And there’s free street parking about half a mile away on Blessed, Blessed Beverly Glen Boulevard. This option requires extra time to make it to work, and extra time to get home. But that extra time in fact buys you two full fifteen minute breaks during which you may eat a snack and use the bathroom (glory!), a full hour of lunch, and an entire shift sans parking concerns. Just be careful about where you park on street-sweeping days. Parking tickets cost far more than $21.
Don’t get in fistfights over parking spaces during the holiday season, no matter how infuriated you are by the Beverly Hills housewife in the Audi SUV. Remember, as an Associate of The Store, you are a professional, and the shoppers are just amateurs. Remain aloof.
