Monday, June 17, 2013

Accepting responsibility for your actions

June 17, 2013

It started out as any other Monday. I got up, went through my morning routine, drove to work, parked my car in my usual spot, and went inside to take care of business. I didn't get far.

I barely had the computer booted up when our custodian came into my office (a very excitable fellow on a good day and this was not) and said there'd been an accident in the parking lot involving my car.

Excuse me? My car?? My car was parked. I left her sitting in the sun, soaking up the rays, her pristine silver finish glistening with flawless perfection. When I parked her this morning she had not a scratch on her.

Then a woman driving a Ford Explorer somehow backed into my car. She cut across the parking lot and then backed up. And she backed up into the side of my car. Did I mention the lot I park in can accommodate seventy-five cars, but at 8:00 AM only three cars are on the lot? Mine, the custodian’s, and director’s. We’re the early birds - in early and out early.

Three cars in a huge lot and this careless woman can’t avoid them. 

Luckily for me the custodian and the financial director were in the parking lot at the time and saw it happen. Unluckily for her she wasn't able to rabbit out here, which by all reports was her first impulse.

What's wrong with people anyway? You make a careless mistake in your first impulse is to run and hide and try get away with it? Is that really where we’re going in this country?

I don't know why she thought she could run. Why would she want to bother trying to get away? How was this going to ruin HER day?

She's not the one who had to spend several hours on the phone with insurance companies. She's not the one who had to leave work and go to the body shop and get an estimate. She's not the one who had to go to the claims office and process a bunch paperwork. She's not the one who’s going to be driving some shit piece of rental car crap for four days. She simply thanked the police officer and merrily drove away. It's just not right.

I was minding my business. I was legally parked on my employer’s lot. She was on private property that doesn’t belong to her. And now I've lost a morning's work, my car is damaged, and I'm the one inconvenienced all the way around. And the person whose careless inattention caused the accident gets to drive away like nothing ever happened. It's just not right.

Just not right.

KC

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