A Fancy Parking Garage

I worked another event at Climate Pledge Arena today. The Kraken played the Vancouver Canucks. For those of you keeping track at home this was my third day in a row working an event which I think is a record for me. This job involves so much time on my feet that they hurt pretty bad the next morning. It turns out it's a cumulative effect.

I don't usually get stationed in the VIP parking garage but I actually kind of like it. There are less people around to tell you what to do, and it's the easiest work. You pretty much just stand around, ask people what seat they're headed to, and radio it to a person who will then escort them to their seat if they wish. At this point the regulars already know where they're going so they usually decline this offer. The players park here as well so I get to see them pretty regularly. Not because I can recognize many of their faces but because they all dress in fancy clothes and have the same shaggy haircut.

After the game I saw a new event: the TSA set up a little security station next to the team bus to check the Canadians out before they left the country.

Part of this assignment is also BSing with the valets. I told them I didn't know any of the players and they whipped out a nice little cheat sheet. They are really living the life out here. There's so little for them to do once the game starts that they had a little laptop they were watching a movie on.

Today I spoke briefly to Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. You can tell he's the fanciest of them all because he has a driver/bodyguard sort of dude who follows him around, he has a fancy... I want to say Mercedes SUV with a light up hood ornament. His driver also doesn't park the car in an actual spot, he just sort of parks it next to the wall almost blocking everyone else. He also always lets out his passengers then wheels it around so that it is facing toward the exit. I wonder if that's some sort of tactical thing so he can escape quicker if necessary. I had assumed that he was just there because Amazon is the naming sponsor of the arena and Amazon also rents out a couple of the suites, but it turns out he's also a minority owner of the team.

It was really cold out there in the garage, and one guest refused to come out and get her car, so I just kept waiting. Eventually even the valets left so I took that as my sign to leave too. When I got back to where the rest of my team was I realized that they were all gone and had forgotten about me. Nice.