Valet Olympics
Yes. Seriously. A competition for parking valets.
I’ve long been in awe of the skill of parking attendants in city lots, although I don’t have much experience with other forms of valet parking. I can parallel park well enough (after all, I grew up in NY), but let’s just say that I’d never make it as a parking valet.
I hired my last receptionist away from where I met her, which was the local Subway sandwich shop.
I liked her positive, friendly personality. You can always learn the typing part – but the people skills have to be inborn. (I read somewhere: I think it might have been on your site, Neo, that Apple stores recruit the same way).
Found out later that she had competed in the Subway stores’ national “sandwich artiste” competition.
I think these sorts of things, although they sound a bit weird, are fun, positive things that allow people devoted to excellence to showcase their skills- especially for occupations that attract the younger crowd.
For current parking valet contestants, the bad news is that the reigning champ is just unbeatable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMe7mlRv8UE
We have a California nephew who grew up in St. Helena, rowed for U Cal San Dieago and his first year out of college worked in the L.A. area as a Parking Valet for parties and events. He had a lot of neat adventures but two of them that he shared stand out. This was in the early 1990’s, he was a bit over 6 ft tall with great long hair down to his waist and not bad looking at all.
One adventure is when he opened the door of a real high end sports car and Pamela Anderson stepped out wearing a tiny little bit of a leather outfit and when nephew tried to give her the valet parking receipt, she shrugged her shoulders and asked him to keep it for her and remember who she was. She said she could remember him and she had no where on her outfit to keep a receipt. He took care of her.
Then there was the time when nephew was working for a rich and famous party in Beverly Hills and when a very expensive car pulled up he opened the passenger door to help the lady out. The passenger kind of squealed and hugged nephew very hard because his mom was her best friend and she had become an East Coast editor for a magazine. When nephew realized who was hugging he picked her up and whirled her around a few times while all the other arriving guests were trying to figure out while a valet was mauling a guest.
Hey, in Minnesota they have a statewide competition for grocery baggers. They still have them, in the small town independent stores. It’s kind of like watching the bartenders throw bottles.
We have simple pleasures.
A competition showcasing all those parking skills and not a single video. Feh.
I can see the romantic appeal of the valet calling, though.
This post on vehicle handling skills reminds me of my experience with a moving van driver. When I was hitching between Florida and New England, a moving van picked me up. Mayflower, perhaps. The driver told me that in exchange for helping him unload the truck, he would drive me to NYC. Fair deal.
We unloaded in suburban Maryland and in rural Pennsylvania. The driveway in Pennsylvania was long, narrow, curved, and uphill. He backed up that hill very slowly. And safely. He had to back up because there was no room to turn around at the house at the top of the hill.
While I have never paid for a professional moving company’s services, that experience convinced me that if I did pay for one, I would consider the fee quite reasonable.
The skill in valet parking reminds me that there are very few jobs these days that do not involve specialized skills of knowledge that most of us do not have.
And, judging from the TV commercials, cars can now parallel park their own damned selves. Another skill my prospective grandkids will never have.
Never say never. Practice makes perfect or at least optimal.