This isn’t as much about bad usability as good idea gone bad. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do.
Our company found itself with an available prime parking space at our four-building campus. The parking space was previously reserved for our retired CEO. Someone had the great idea to use the parking space as an incentive for our job referral program. The parking space would be reserved for a lucky employee randomly selected from a list of employee-referral winners.
Here’s where the story gets good. The first parking-space winner works in building 2. The parking space is in front of building 1. The “lucky” employee who won the space would have to walk across an extra large parking lot from building 1 to building 2 to take advantage of the front-door parking space.
I can just hear the conversation.
Facilities - “What do you want to do with the extra parking space?”
HR - “Let’s use it to promote our Employee Referral Program.”
Corporate Communications - “Sounds good. We’ll put together a publicity campaign for it. We’ll brand it by using the Monopoly ‘Free Parking Space’ logo for a sign. Everyone will love it.”
Facilities - “Of course, it will be open only to employees who work in building 1. Right?”
HR - “Oh, I didn’t think about that. It has to be open to all employees. Otherwise it would’t be fair.”
Facilities - “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone from building 2, 3 or 4 want a building 1 parking space?”
Corporate Communications - “It doesn’t matter to us as long as we get to brand it by making a cute parking space sign.”
HR - “Fair is fair. ”
And so it goes. The parking space has remained empty for almost a month now. When you live in a politically-correct world, “fair” conquers common sense every time.