The past few days I went to work I managed to get right behind someone who thought they were important. Probably most of us in the techie community have some kind of security at the front gate where we work, assuming we work at a corporation. These gates are typically controlled by a proximity badge more commonly known as RFID. Everyone at the site is issued one. In fact, you need to have it to get in and out of certain places even within the facility. Swipe cards exist for the most secure areas, in combination with other protection. Anyway, my point is that everyone has one of these cards, and it doubles as your photo ID badge.
These too important people drive up to the entrance gate and just sit there waiting. I can almost hear their thoughts as they sit there. “Don’t they know who I am?” “Why aren’t they opening the gate for me?” So we sit and sit and finally a guard notices that someone is being an idiot and pushes the button. Hopefully the guard did know who the person was, although I wouldn’t be surprised if sometimes they just push the button without checking.
When it is my turn I have my window down, drive up to the sensor and almost without stopping swipe and up goes the gate. There’s even a nice structure built overhead to protect me if it happens to be raining.
The second part to this is speed limits. Where I work there is a network of roads where the speed limit varies from 5-15 MPH. Now 15 MPH is awfully slow in a car and 5 MPH feels like you could easily walk faster. Obviously there are very few people who follow these limits, however they were put there on purpose so that people would at least be reasonable. That and when you kill someone it is obviously your fault and not the company’s fault. The important people, of course, are the ones who break the speed limit constantly. I’m walking from one building to another, crossing a parking lot, with a computer or switch under my arm and nearly get run over. Or I’m driving around keeping my speed to a reasonable 20 MPH and I get someone riding my tail. What’s with these people?
A week or two ago someone rode my tail all the way up to my parking lot and then parked right across from me. After getting out of her vehicle I gave her a pretty hard look. “What?” she said. “I just expected you to start running after the way you were driving.” She didn’t say anything but just kept walking.
I’m sure I’m not the only person to work somewhere where there is an elite set of people who think they are above the system…
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