And thus you will forever be a meter maid - The inconsiderate absolute rule observer

I walked out of Satellite Coffee shop this afternoon and noted a parking attendant chatting with a couple of women sitting in front of the shop.  I overhead him say "This is the first day that I am ticketing these spaces. They just put these signs in."

Now, to be clear, I wasn't parked in one of the 'reserved' spaces, and generally I am not against metered parking, or ticketing so long as it is consistent, fair, and serves the purpose of preventing misuse of parking spaces.  This is especially important for the areas surrounding college campuses.  Without parking enforcement the local populace would have no place to park. (Whether we should or should not have automobiles at all is another debate!)  My problem in this situation was a blatant inconsistency between the business's understanding of the rules and the enforcement.

So, somewhat incredulous due to some previously obtained advice I had received mere hours prior, I stopped and stated, "You know that I was just told by the barista that patrons of the coffee shop could park in these spots if the other spaces were full."  The barista had made it clear that the coffee shop had an agreement with the Hospital Services folks who own the reserved spaces.

In return I received the "Well, too bad, they are wrong.  I'm just doing my job, and the sign says no parking, so I am ignoring what you are saying because my job is to follow rules and write parking tickets".  He wasn't listening to my plea to be considerate to the business and patrons who had been told different.  He knew he was right because he was following the rules.  

This is the heart of the problem.  Rule-following behavior is not equivalent to ethical behavior.   The perspective of "I am doing the right thing because I am following the rules" is just a mockery of ethics.  Following the rules for the sake of following the rules and acting righteous is just that and nothing more.  And quite often such behavior is used to justify injustice or act with legally justified malice.

City Ordinance People, Parking Attendants, Law Enforcers, Religionists, Policalists, Corporationists, and all form of Authoritarians.  Nobody is ethical when blindly following rules.  The rules must be considered in context and the enforcement considerate.

Simply following the rules of the sovereign doesn't create a healthy ethics.  Ethical behavior arises in spite of laws and rules which govern.  Ethics is about using your own best decision making, perhaps guided by rules, in the context of their application.   And when contradictions arise or when there are no rules to follow we need to choose on our own how to proceed and justify them with sound logic.   We sometimes even need to discredit and discard rules entirely in contexts where they were not written to apply.  Absolutism and traditionalism for their part in defining ethics (whether it be corporate bylaws, religious doctrine, or parking-meter signage) will always eventually fail. 

We have all seen this same pattern again and again.  Individuals following rules, by rote, without a care as to the consequences of their intolerable stupidity.  This ethical FAIL is widespread, endemic in all places I have ever travelled.  It arises in any situation where a rule of law or custom can be misapplied, misinterpreted, or used with malice.

So, miffed by the presence of yet another "Inconsiderate absolute rule observer", I snapped "and thus you will forever be a parking maid", and walked away.  With all impunity, a righteous FAIL deserves a righteous WIN.

Some definitions:

• righteous - morally virtuous
• absolute - complete and without question
• inconsiderate - without regard for others
• impunity - without fear of punishment