Parked Out To Pasture

When I first started work 12 years ago, I had to park my truck some distance away far enough where the city didn't keep track of time limits.

A few years later, the company gave me a spot on an abandoned gravel lot. I had to pay a small fee for it, but it was much less than what I paid in parking fines.

Then, I got a spot on the building grounds. Then, a year or so later, a closer spot.

When I started, the newspaper was hiring. By the time I was moved onto company property, the hiring had begun to dry up. When they moved me the second time, it was when they were laying people off.

The place everyone wants to be, ultimately, is in the garage under the building. You don't have to worry as much if you forget to lock your door - and your gym clothes don't get wet if you accidentally leave them in the truck bed.

This is no merit-based system.

It is based solely on the number of years you've worked at the company.

For years, I'd see these folks swipe their badges and pull into that garage.

Older folks. Maybe middle-aged. Usually grey hair.

Good for them, I thought. Commitment to a place. Fruits of a career.

Soon, however, the layoffs swept through in waves. And every time, it seemed, somebody I knew was getting an email about an upgrade to their parking spot.

Mine didn't change. It was about as close as you get - but not in the garage.

The latest move was to offer early-retirement packages to older employees, in an effort to trim large salaries and expensive benefits carried over before the newspaper was bought from another company.

The majority of the people who accepted the offer weren't ready to call it quits - but they played the odds. It was a better deal than if they were to later get laid off. They're holding on - posting on Twitter the news of things they were once paid to write about.

The Friday of their retirements, the company sent an email to me to ask if I wanted a spot under the garage.

The retirees hadn't even left yet.

I went to look at the spot. There was a small, white Tacoma parked there. A bumper sticker extolling the virtues of giving to the United Way.

An unassuming vehicle.

I had a guess at who it was, and I was right.

I spoke to the man. He was in his late 50s. The truck had 300,000-plus miles on it. It was a former newspaper delivery truck, the ones the company puts on auction.

He tells me the truck's been good to him. I tell him I've got a Tacoma, too. And I hope it lasts as long.

I told him to be assured that I would take great care of his space.

He wasn't ready to leave. He told me that he had a 14-year-old daughter and that he wasn't sure if he was making the right choice for her. What if he couldn't find anything? What if things turned around and they never laid off another soul?

I told him I understood how difficult it must be to know if you've made the right decision.

He told me that, in the old days, an employee would have to work 20 years to get a parking space under the garage.

What I've done isn't an accomplishment. At age 38, I'm just young enough to be considered an asset not too expensive to keep and just old enough to be somebody who knows what I'm doing.

All I've done is wake up, come to work, write some stories with people whose names I don't remember, go home, paper comes out and in two days is forgotten and used to potty train a puppy, have a weekend, come to work, take a vacation in the summer, take a week off around Christmas.

Just live.

It's an odd feeling: At my age, I've just met an end of the line.

There will be no new parking space for me. I've made it as far as I'm going to on that little journey.

I will be here - in the dark recesses in Private #40 - until I'm here no more.

Will that be on my terms? If so, will it have been the right decision? If not, will it have been the right decision?

And how many miles will be left?