[AtLast]

Originally Posted by theoddz

Okay....on the subject of access and discrimination, here's one I'll throw out there.

As many of you know, I work at a federal facility that's on a military base. It's a hospital, and one that is shared between the Air Force (which also has its outpatient clinics located inside the facility) and the VA, which I work for. Parking is always a crunch, and there are 5 parking lots that surround the hospital. There is an "Employee Only" lot that is significantly further from the building, and my office, than another couple of lots, which are designated for visitors. Both have ADA parking spaces, though not enough, of course. Recently, the facilities management department stationed personnel out in the visitor lots in the morning, for the purpose of redirecting staff members to move their cars to the employee lot. While this would normally be fine, I have a problem with it. I have ADA parking plates that say I can park in any ADA designated parking place. I CHOOSE to park my truck in the lot, which just so happens to be a "visitor" lot because it is closer to my office. I have 2 (totally) titanium knees and, although I do walk a lot with my job, by the time I get off of a 12 hour shift, I'm fighting pain. Parking in the employee lot would mean that I'd have to walk across the hospital and then out to a back parking lot, which does have ADA parking spaces, but it's significantly farther for me to have to walk. That's why I park in the visitor lot ADA spaces.

One of these facility management guys stood and argued with me one morning, even after I explained why I needed to park where I do. Oh, and there is a lady I know who works in the hospital IT office. She rides an electric scooter and has an O2 tank. They badgered her, too, about how she needed to park in the employee lot. There's only about 6 ADA spaces in that employee lot and lots of times, I see visitors taking those spaces because they are more convenient to the Air Force outpatient clinics. Why, WHY do they hassle folks?? Why not just let differently abled folks just park where they need to park (in legally designated ADA parking places), as long as we have ADA plates/placards?? I may look like I can walk okay, but no one can judge how much pain I'm in when I do it. It just pisses me the hell off when someone looks at me and says, "Well, you look okay. It's looks like you can <insert activity here>."

Jeesh.....your tax dollars hard at work, folks!!!

~Theo~ .....who is counting down the last 5 years until retirement!!!

[COLOR="Navy"]I get the you look OK thing quite often. Sometimes, if I am going to be at a place for a long period of time and know that I am going into a pain/inflammation cycle, I will park in a handicapped space with my placard. Sometimes, when iIfloating disability, as it floats from being conspicious to me looking completely able-bodied.

I have overheard statements to the effect that I look fine why do I have a handicapped placard....

When I know I am OK and most likely I am not going to have problems, I don't use my placard and park elsewhere. The reason is that at that particular time, I might be taking a space that someone else needs more than me. I also try not to use the van acessible spaces at all. I don't need those and have certainlt seen other people that do struggling with getting their chairs out of their vans in regilar handicapped spaces. There arn't enough handicapped spaces overall.

LOL... I took action into my own hands when for about the 5th time, the same car with the same able-bodied teens (no placard/plates) was in a space outside of a local store I go to. I was in pain and had it!

I parked my truck behind their car, blocking them. I called the police on my cell, went and did what I was going to do and then just waited for the cops to arrive, then filled out the complaint. They got a ticket for $285 and now in CA that has gone up. Pissed they were... but I have never had this problem again at that business. I have walked up to people getting out of cars in handicapped spaces not showing a placard or decal on the plates and asked them if they have a placard. They move, if they don't and thank me if they just happened to forget to put their placard on the dash/window.

Oh, and I remember having people make comments about how I was too young to have arthritis...Tell that to all of the kids with various forms of childhood arthritis, including RA./COLOR]