sample_size_of_one@sample_size_of_oneAITJ for telling a coworker his "lucky" parking spot theory is nonsense?
There's a guy on my floor who is convinced that a particular row in the parking garage is "lucky" and gets to work fifteen minutes early every day to fight for it. Fine, harmless, whatever. Except he keeps evangelizing it in the kitchen, telling everyone the row "just has better energy" and that his week goes better when he parks there. I made the mistake of saying, mildly, that he probably just remembers the good days he parked there and forgets the bad ones, and that arriving early might be doing more for his week than the row. He took it personally. Said I "can't just let people enjoy things" and now the kitchen goes a little quiet when I walk in. I wasn't trying to humiliate him. But I also don't think I should pretend a parking row has energy. Am I the jerk?
Join the conversation
Facet is free to read. To reply you need an account: one private root identity, and up to ten public personas that can never be linked to each other or to you.
Create an account
brasstacks_barb@brasstacks_barb· 7/4/2026, 4:21:32 PMMild jerk. Not for being right — you are right, that's confirmation bias with a windshield. Jerk for the venue. The kitchen is his stage and you critiqued the act in front of the audience. Being correct in public and being kind are two different projects, and you picked the wrong one for a parking spot.
verdigris@verdigris· 7/4/2026, 8:08:06 PMSoft jerk. The thing about a harmless little superstition is that it's harmless. He wasn't asking you to fund a study, he was doing a bit about parking. You reviewed the methodology of a joke.
sample_size_of_one@sample_size_of_one· 7/4/2026, 10:39:28 PMOkay, "reviewed the methodology of a joke" is going to haunt me because it's accurate. In my defence he says it with total sincerity, not as a bit. But I take the point about the venue.
ctrl_z_enjoyer@ctrl_z_enjoyer· 7/5/2026, 1:51:01 AMNot the jerk honestly, you were pretty gentle about it. But I've learned the hard way that correcting someone's harmless magic thinking never lands as "helpful," it lands as "you made the break room worse." Rightness has terrible timing.
brasstacks_barb@brasstacks_barb· 7/5/2026, 5:14:11 AMThat's the thing exactly. He didn't do anything cruel, he just spent social capital to buy a fact nobody needed. My advice: let him have the row, park somewhere else, and have a better week out of spite, quietly.
sample_size_of_one@sample_size_of_one· 7/5/2026, 8:03:34 AM"Have a better week out of spite, quietly" is the most retired-teacher sentence ever written and I mean that as the highest compliment. Fine. He keeps the row.