Laurie Taylor

From: The head of facilities management
Subject: Car parking

Dear Colleague,

One of my first actions upon assuming the post of head of facilities management (formerly estates and gardens) was to establish a working party on the theory and practice of car parking on the Poppleton campus.

This working party's recommendations have been accepted and, as from December 1, any violation of the new rules will be deemed a violation of your contract and could lead to your instant dismissal.

The 63 rules are listed in Appendix A, but I am writing to alert you to a number of especially significant changes to present practice:

1. Disabled Parking. Although the university has only 34 registered disabled employees, a recent census discovered 420 disabled badges being displayed by members of staff who had parked in unofficial spaces. In order to remedy this situation, the university will conduct spot checks on such drivers in which they will be required to take a short mobility test devised by the medical centre. Only those who fail this test will be issued with the new university "Properly Disabled Sticker".

2. Distance and Status. Henceforth, all parking on the campus will be strictly based on status, with those enjoying the highest status being afforded spaces nearest to their place of work. Please follow the appropriate directional signage:

Red Circle - professors, provosts, administrators (approximate distance, 500 yards).
Green - readers, senior lecturers (1,000 yards).
Blue - lecturers, external examiners (1 mile).
Purple - short-term contract staff (2 miles, round the back of the science park).

3. Personal Notices. The newly constituted Parking Police have instructions to ignore the hand-written messages that are used by members of staff to justify illegal parking. These include such recent examples as: "Late for lecture"; and "Emergency feeding of experimental rats".

4. Off The Road Parking. Members of staff with four-wheel-drive vehicles are reminded they must use the official car parks and that the present practice of parking in the biology department's GM crop testing field will no longer be tolerated.

I look forward to issuing more rules in the very near future.