The other day I was obliged to briefly leave my vehicle inside the concrete parking structure adjacent to JFK’s Terminal 4. The entrance gates will pass you through if you have a plastic EZ Pass device, but the scanner couldn’t read mine (I tried for a full minute…nothing…faulty tech) so I pushed a button and got through with a paper ticket.
When I was attempting to exit the structure there were four or five drivers who were logjammed at the gates because two drivers in the front of a pair of exit lanes were having trouble getting out. (More faulty tech.) People were annoyed and honking, but I saw no parking attendants.
And then suddenly two young male attendants appeared. I rolled down my window and said, “What’s with the gates? I tried using my EZ Pass and the gate wouldn’t rise…I was forced to pay.” One of the guys said, “You probably didn’t scan it right.”
I asked, “Why don’t you go down and help those people who can’t get out?” The bros didn’t seem interested in offering any immediate service (one of them half-chuckled) but at that very moment I noticed a third parking attendant — an overweight woman of color — duck-walking to the exit gates. There was obvious driver frustration galore but this chick refused to move with the slightest amount of haste. She didn’t run, slow-jog, speed-march or even walk with a purposeful stride…she waddled her way down there.
If I was a Terminal 4 parking attendant I would have definitely hurried down to the gates, if for no other reason than to offer a theatrical gesture that would convey to the angry drivers that I feel their pain and will be down there tout suite…”sorry for the trouble, guys…I’m comin’, I’m comin’…we’ll figure this out.” But this chick could have been pushing a food cart through the produce section of a supermarket. In so doing she was basically saying, body-language-wise, “I’m not an Olympics runner…I’ll be there when I get there…hold your horses.”
Okay, I take it all back. The parking attendant girl ran like the wind to help the trapped drivers. She was down there in a flash, in the blink of an eyelash. She was like a fat Supergirl.