Rachel has an appointment downtown at 9:30am. She arrived a few minutes early and was thrilled to find a metered parking spot on Main Street, right outside of the office building.
Rachel walked to the meter and saw that the parking fees were only in effect from 10am-8pm. Her appointment would last at least 1 hour, so although she wasn’t required to pay until 10am, she attempted to pay early. In her mind, it was smarter to pay a $0.75 extra now, and completely avoid a parking ticket.
She inserted her credit card, but saw the following message: “Meter starts at 10:00am.” She ran across and down the street, trying two other meters. All gave the same error message. Try as she might, the meters would not begin accepting money until exactly 10am – the time when fees would be enforced.
Rachel was frustrated. She remembered back to her friends’ tales of parking tickets past and was trying to avoid the same fate. At that point, her appointment was about to start and instead of moving her car to a side street without meters, she made the decision to leave her car there, without paying. She made a mental note to excuse herself from the meeting at 10am to pay the parking meter.
The meeting went very well! In fact, the team was so engaged that Rachel didn’t look at her watch the entire time. She forgot all about the parking meter drama and emerged from the office building an hour later. There was a parking ticket waiting on her windshield; it was written at 10:11am.
Just Culture Breakdown
Rachel wanted to pay the meter, and she had intended to, but she forgot. She became mentally immersed in the meeting. It’s not as if she remembered the meter at 10am but made the decision to stay. Rather, she became immersed in her work and completely forgot. Rachel’s experience was that of human error. If Rachel has to return to this area, she could consider setting an alarm to remind herself of the time. She could also locate an alternative parking solution.
But that’s also not the full story. This issue was also partially due to an underlying system failure. If parking meters were to accept payment prior to the fine/ticket time, patrons could pay in advance and enter neighboring businesses prior to 10am without having to worry about tickets and fees.
