Annoying Rent-a-cop

It has been snowing for the past couple of days here in the Seattle area, which means hazardous driving conditions (since so few people here remain sane or intelligent on the road when it snows). I realize this, and thus have driven more cautiously on the roads between home and work. And I have safely arrived everywhere that I intended to go during this whole stretch of bad weather.

This morning, when I got to work, I was in a good mood. So I went to the part of our parking lot with no cars in it, but with an inch or two of snow on the ground, and then I proceeded to do a couple of emergency-brake slides around corners. Mind you, I never broke 10mph in these slides. So after one loop sliding around corners, I pulled into a parking space with a smile on my face.

Then the rent-a-cop who works for one of the other companies in my building pulls up behind my car and starts getting all condescending, saying "I'm asking you to be VERY careful when you pull into this parking lot."

Knowing full well that (1) this rent-a-cop has absolutely no authority over me or the parking lot and (2) that I was completely by myself while sliding around the deserted corners in the empty part of the parking lot, I had no patience for her lecture. She said, "If you hit another car, you would be reliable." At which point, I interrupted her and said, "No, actually, I would be liable. " And she countered with, "Well, you would be both."

I pointed out that I was nowhere near any other cars, and then just plain got fed up with her. So I said, "Whatever," and walked away to go in and do my job. My department manager had just parked his car and saw that the rent-a-cop was harassing me, so he stopped to talk to her after I walked away.

After he came into the building, he came over and said, laughingly, "So you ruffled the feathers of that security guard, eh?" I recounted her lecture to me, along with my retort, and he laughed some more. Apparently, she has hassled him about stuff over which she has no authority, too. Today, she told him that she is "just trying to get people home safe." To which, my manager said, "But we all just got here." He chuckled a little more and as he walked away from me, he said, "At least you woke her up."

I don't know why people think that being a security guard gives them any authority whatsoever over what people do. After all, they aren't even allowed to confront people who are breaking into cars in the parking lot. All they can do is call the actual police to deal with that. So instead, they just harass people like me and think that they are doing something important.