Business Trip

I took a trip to Oakland, CA, last week for my new job to train with the office people who have been doing my job so that I can now do my job. I work for DPW Parking, and offshoot of Douglas Parking headquartered in Oakland. My brother Luke is their Denver Regional manager, and I’m the Denver office manager/account manager/assistant [to the] regional manager. The girls in the Oakland office taught me how to use their system to do invoicing and billing for all the monthly parking accounts in Denver. (You don’t need to understand what that means.)


In case you didn’t know, parking management is big business. I didn’t know until I got this job. (In passing, I realize I have a habit of doing things with knowing exaclty what I'm getting into.  I think it makes life exciting.)  David Douglas, one of the company owners, picked me up after I flew in and took me on a mini-tour of downtown. He pointed out unique features and buildings of Oakland…and their associated parking facilities that Douglas Parking manages. It’s very interesting to be around people in parking. They always notice parking lots: who runs them, how full they are, rates. It’s similar to watching a sport with someone who plays the game. They will always notice technique and mistakes that the untrained spectator will not. A player doesn’t just see the touchdown; he sees the awesome block by the offensive line that opened the hole for the tight end to run through.

I have discovered that parking management is an exercise in predicting human behavior. And it’s kind of fascinating. Not the managing part, but observing the people who do the managing. They don’t just see a place to park. They see how full lots are, and if they aren’t full, why not? If some lot is usually full, why isn’t it full today?  Where are people parking instead?  How can we change that?  An empty lot is an anomaly, and anomalies can seem paralyzing. Where is the miscommunication? Do we need a sign? What kind of sign? Will people understand the sign? Initiate panic mode! (Not really…but sometimes.) They are trying to predict human behavior—predict where people will park and why they will park and for how long—and when their prediction is wrong they are in a flutter to rectify their worldview. 

I use this information to understand how to communicate effectively.  I have to evaluate what people tell me, why they tell me, and what they don't tell me (what they don't tell me is presumably what I should already know).  I do not have a parking manager's brain (and I don't really want one; don't take it personally, Luke) but I do want to understand the parking manager's brain.  Actually, I must if I want to keep my job.


For those of you who wonder when and where I will ever use my anthropology, the answer is I already do, all the time, everywhere.