Vent & advice needed

[snugglegirl05]

"Missy", who works in the Parking office as a Parking clerk has a habit of calling me on her cell phone either when she goes down to the Visitor Parking garage to get the tokens the customers insert into the slot at the exit gate or when she arrives at work to tell me how many open spots are in the garage & to tell me that no one else can park. But when I go into the garage, I count more open spots than she did. Why she says to not let no one else to park in the garage, I do not know.

This morning when she got to work around 9 a.m. she calls me on her cell phone to tell me the garage looks full & to not let anymore students park in the garage. After a while I go into the garage, & I see several open parking spots. Plus the open sign is on, & so I do not see how I can justify not letting students park. I do not want to get a complaint regarding that. "Andrea", the Director of Parking & Transportation, is her direct supervisor. A couple of weeks ago several spaces had to be reserved for some job fairs being held at the university later in the afternoon. Due to the number of other spots needing to be reserved, Visitor Parking had to be reserved mid morning. "Andrea" called me the day after the second job fair to let me know that I am reserving the garage to early & that Visitor Parking is losing revenue because of this. She said that students should be exiting Visitor Parking before for job fair begins. There was another the job fair the day after she called.

I do not want to keep on getting phone calls from "Missy". She already knows that "Andrea" does not want Visitor Parking to be reserved when it does not need to be & that the Parking office is losing revenue when this happens.

I am a contract parking attendant, & according to my employer I am not to go through the client, "Andrea". So what is the best way to handle this?

[r2cagle]

I think you need this stuff in writing... if Missy is going to tell you something that is getting you in 'hot water', then she needs to email it to you, or write it down. Otherwise, you have to go by the information given to you by Andrea.

If Missy is still going to make phone calls to you to reserve the parking area, cheerfully say... "Sure, can you send me an email to make that official or type it up for the log book? Thanks so much"... then wait. If you don't have it in writing, you're not doing it.

Clear it back through your proper chain of command first. Explain that you keep getting conflicting information from Andrea and the people in her department and you want to ask for all daily changes/reservations to be sent in writing. Or find out how they want you to document it. Either way, make them act professional to you, so that you can CYA in writing. After all, you can't do a proper job if they don't give you the tools and information to do it right. Reservation information is a tool, and that needs to be documented for your log and theirs.