I don’t have any direct knowledge of the situation in the North 40 this year or the parties involved, but I am a parking chairman in the homebuilt area, and I have a few thoughts about this situation. I guess that means I’m dumb enough to be in charge of the folks who are dumb enough to get roped into this hot, thankless job. As several have noted, the majority of the volunteers are friendly and helpful, as it should be. As always there are a few bad apples, and since the volunteers mostly work with loose supervision, it is important that we get feedback on how people are performing. This year in particular I had several new volunteers and the feedback I got from pilots helped me to coach my charges along in the right direction. On the other hand, just like Cool Hand Luke, there are some men you just can’t reach, and I’ve had to un-invite volunteers from our ranks. Yes it does happen.

That said, before rushing to any snap judgments, I’d really like to hear the other side of this one. With all respect to the OP, while his descriptions of this volunteers’ actions are over the top, his account is clearly written in the light most favorable to himself. There are always two sides to every story. While we (the parking crews) try to make every reasonable effort to accommodate special requests, there are times when it just ain’t going to work. There can be a number of reasons for this, and when things are busy there isn’t time to get into a lengthy discussion about it. This is the World’s-Busiest-and-Most-Crowded-Airport, not the pancake breakfast at Peapatch Airport. There needs to be standardization, and things need to work in a certain way, in order to make everything work safely and efficiently. This applies to ground operations and parking just as much as it does to the Fisk arrival. When I see pilots who can’t follow simple hand signals or directions, I often wonder if they are the same ones who can’t seem to follow a simple 90kt conga line up the train tracks?

The method behind the madness may not be obvious or even make sense to you, with your limited perspective, but there are reasons for everything we do. And, some times that runs up against your desire to receive special treatment. While we try to accommodate as many people as possible, we also realize that, “there ain’t no making everybody happy.” However, we do take feedback like this and look for ways to improve on things for next year. Realize though, that one person’s “improvement” is another person’s step in the wrong direction.

To the OP and anyone else who has a grievance with the procedures- I strongly encourage you to seek out the appropriate person and make your complaint known. If there are any lingering gripes out there about the homebuilt area, I’d like to know about it (yes I know we need more showers, we’re working on that.) However, understand that the paid staff at HQ actually has very little to do with the parking operations, which are run and managed entirely by the volunteer corps.