The plaza's employees and their customers continuously compete for spaces with patrons of other nearby restaurants and shops. And Cardale Evans, who the plaza hired as its parking lot attendant, can attest that the situation is indeed a nightmare. But he loves his job.

"I call it 'playground duty,' " says Evans, who was hired two years ago to monitor the plaza's reserved parking spaces four days a week between the peak hours of 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. His duty is simply to make sure that anyone pulling into the plaza's parking lot's reserved area is either an employee or a customer of the plaza. His standard attire is a shirt and jeans and a pair of sunglasses; he sees no reason to wear a formal uniform that might make him appear more like a parking lot monitor. His focus is not on his appearance but his job.

"I'm out here to protect the employees, the patrons and the post office," Evans said. Protecting means standing near the lot's entryway and waving each driver to stop so he can ask where they plan to go.

"I try to be a little more lenient for people going into the Blockbuster Video," he said, "because I know they're only going to be in there for about 10 minutes."

He usually directs patrons to the proper parking area and rarely is confronted by a disagreeable driver. But there are drivers who have not shown the same amount of patience with him, and occasionally he will have to call a tow truck or even the police.

"I get called a Nazi for enforcing signs that already tell people what to do," he says.

One time a woman going to Aqui wanted to park in the plaza parking area, Evans says.

"I tried to ask her where she was going," he says, "and she pulled down her sun visor." He tried to show her a nearby A-frame sign designating the area as being for plaza customers only, but she ignored him.

"I stepped in front of her, she put the visor down again and stepped on the gas. Ran the sign over, bent it all up, got out, called me a name, parked her car and went to Aqui anyway," he says. "I called the police on her and she even gave the police a hard time."

Evans said the usual challenges come when more cars show up than he can stop and redirect.

Yet Evans has a good attitude about his duties, and some plaza employees give him a lot of credit.

"I would not want to do what he does," says Angela McRoy, who works in one of the plaza's businesses. "But he's the best. Once he was gone for about two months and parking was terrible."

So what is it about this thankless position that makes Evans return to a seemingly hostile parking lot during the busiest hours of the workday?

"I like the people here," he says, "I may get only one angry person a week. But other than that, I know almost everyone who works here."

As for everyone else, including plaza employees who try to park in the 'post office customers only' spots, "If they want to park here illegally, fine," he says. "You have a choice: You can leave your car there and pay for towing—and pay for lunch—or move it." But he frequently follows errant parkers to tell them that they risk having their car towed.

"If I really was a Nazi, there'd be a lot more cars towed," he says.