A reader named Tim Wadlow writes in with an interesting theory:
I spent about 10 years as a operations management consultant, working with dirty, dull, and dangerous manufacturing companies.
After spending time at roughly 100 manufacturing locations around the world, I noticed an odd trend: the direction that employees parked in their parking spots highly correlated with employee morale and satisfaction with their jobs. Most of the cars parked forward? A good company to work for, with employees who want to get to work. Most cars backwards? It seems as though the moment that the employee got to work, he or she was planning a quick exit.
Next time you drive by a manufacturing company check it out.
Maybe CEO’s should study Google Earth maps of their parking lots to determine if they are changing a companies culture?
I love Tim’s thinking and would love to see someone test the idea empirically even though I have my doubts. The forward/reverse parking metric strikes me as too crude and too binary to tell us much of anything. But maybe I’m wrong.
One other thought: drug use is a big problem in some manufacturing plants; maybe employees who get to work stoned are more likely to park forward; and maybe that’s why companies with a lot of forward-parked cars tend to seem happier?
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I also recall seeing somewhere that people of different races tend to park differently. Also, when I go to a sporting event that I really want to see, and leaving the lot may take time, I make sure to park backwards so I can get out quicker. That does not mean that I’m less excited about going to that game. So maybe some plants just have shifts where everyone’s getting out at the same time rather than staggered and people want to get home and spend time with families.
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I heard that it was an economic factor, which way one parks. Comedian Todd Glass does a bit about things the poor do vs things the rich do. Pulling one’s car in backwards is a ‘poor’ action, generally.
Another part of Mr. Glass’ bit was that rich people don’t leave dish soap on the sink; they put it away when they’re done using it. I’m not rich by a long shot, but now I do that
Cars that are parked backward could also have been the result of pulling through two empty spaces….that’s when I’m happiest parking, anyway–no backing up required!
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I have another theory: the cleanliness of the bathrooms in an office (i.e. the amount of respect employees give their fellow employees by keeping it clean) is indicative of morale. The uglier the bathroom, the worse the morale. You heard it here first.
http://www.bobbycalise.wordpress.com
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Difficult to tell causality there. Do the dirty bathrooms indicate or cause low morale?
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My parking lot metric relates to where the executives park. Bosses park in a reserved space by the front door and it says “Me first!” Bosses park in the back row and it says “Customers and visitors are important to our success.”
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Yeah, I buy into this theory. People who take the time to back into their parking spaces (for work) are generally eager to get the heck out of there and that thought is often in their minds as they pull into the lot in the mornings.
My default parking choice is to back in. The main reason I don’t back in is that I’m running late. My logic is that if I’m at my destination early enough I can invest the time to back up now and then it’s one less thing to slow me down when I’m moving on to my next destination.
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One thing this observation overlooks is that some companies (especially in the Petrochemical industries) encourage, or may even require, employees to reverse park, in order to reduce the number of accidents that happen in their parking lots. In these cases reverse parking may have nothing to do with the attitudes of the employees, and instead lie in the attitudes of the management regarding safety.
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how does reverse parking reduce the number of accidents?
Reverse parking is a basic defensive driving maneuver. If you’re backing INTO a parking space, the surrounding cars are not moving. You start out in the aisle, so you can clearly see (and avoid) any cars that are coming along the aisle as you reverse into the space. If you park forward and reverse OUT of the parking space, you can’t see what’s coming along the aisle or backing out of the space opposite yours.
Perhaps the correlation isn’t between the way the people are parking, but the fact that the company may encourage or require defensive driving courses to be taken by employees, which might indicate that the company cares about the safety & well-being of the employees?
It also depends on how the parking lot is designed; if I can drive ‘though’ one spot to be facing forward, without ever having to shift into reverse (like in most shopping malls), then it would be foolish not to do so. But if the rows of the lot are only one car deep, then normally I wouldn’t back into the spot only to save 5 seconds later. Unless I really disliked where I was going, and wanted to ensure a speedy exit.
Huh. I’m relatively new to a huge state government building where at least half the cars ‘back in’ to their spots. At my previous large government employers in the same town, no one does this. Many of the folks in the present building are law enforcement; I was beginning to think *that* was the difference – that it’s a “cop thing.” Maybe not, though… it is a thoroughly dysfunctional place.
I’ve heard (maybe someone can confirm this) that backing into the space is statistically safer. Perhaps this “safety-mindness” is reflective of certain types of jobs?
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I would figure that too : backing into an empty space is safer than backing towards potentially oncoming traffic. In France, you’re taught this in driving school, so most French people park like this. Its the norm, rather than a preference that could indicate how fast you want to get out of the place you’re parking
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