Meet the Robbins Parking employee who has outlasted all of his colleagues – except for the company's vice-president.
65-year-old Mike Kinney has manned the lot below the Richmond Medical Building for 30 consecutive years and shows no sign of slowing down.
“Building management doesn't want to see me go, customers don't want to see me go, but they keep asking me when I'm going to retire,” he said. “I haven't got a fixed time yet. I'm still alive, I'm breathing, I'm walking. I've got no serious medical issues, so why not [keep working]?”
Born at the Royal Jubilee Hospital just seconds away from the place he would spend most of his career, Kinney's early life was one of constant change.
He grew up on the Lower Mainland, moving from Surrey to New Westminster and then to North Vancouver. Just eight days after graduating from high school, he found himself over 5,000 kilometres away from the West Coast at the Canadian Forces Base in Cornwallis, N.S., where he learned the art of semaphore – communicating between ships using flags and hand signals.
Donning a new naval uniform, he headed to sea where he spent 15 years working as a signalman – a role that took him to 28 countries, including Japan, Russia, Israel, Fiji and Saudi Arabia.
After sailing his final mission in the Persian Gulf in 1991, Kinney walked his sea legs ashore where he retired from the navy in Victoria. There, the then 31-year-old hopped from job to job until he found one worth sticking around for.
In 1993, he landed a job at Robbins. For the following two years, he worked Saturdays and Sundays at the Victoria Conference Centre parkade while picking up shifts at other Victoria lots – a part-time position that quickly became a full-time job.
“Two months with the company and, all of a sudden, I'm working 21 to 28 days in a row,” he said.
The same year, while manning Robbins’ lots, he snagged another role helping organize the Commonwealth Games, which brought over 2,500 athletes from 65 countries to the Island.
Yet another opportunity came knocking when Robbins offered him the keys to the Richmond Medical Building parkade. The Monday to Friday job meant Kinney would no longer have to work weekends or pick up late-night shifts, so he leapt at the opportunity.
Since then, he has kept the lot in ship-shape order, preserving its "old-school" feel. When cars roll in, Kinney hand-punches tickets, keeps track of licence plate numbers using a pen and paper and only accepts cash.
Kinney quickly became more than an attendant – someone the dozens of people who pull in and out of the lot daily rely on for prompt service, a warm smile and friendly conversation.
“I know pretty much all the staff in the building – all the doctors, a lot of the customers,” he said. “I get a lot of regulars."
From elevator floods to fires to car accidents, Kinney's time there has made for some exciting stories, including one about a haunted parking stall.
“One day, I could smell smoke and ... I looked around, but I couldn't see anything,” he said. “And then it got stronger.”
Within seconds, he spotted flames billowing from below the hood of a parked car. By the time he got to there, the flames had grown too high for him to extinguish. Luckily, the fire department arrived. But one year to the day, another blaze started.
“The same day of the week, same time, same parking spot – I had another car fire,” said Kinney. “Nobody would park there. I would tell people that story, and that would be the only spot nobody would take.”
Aside from flaming cars, Kinney’s time at the lot has largely been peaceful, even though the pharmacy inside the Richmond Medical Building was robbed twice.
"Nobody's ever come down to me. You think I'd be the easiest target, right? But no,” he said. “I don't know if they're scared of me or what the story is.”
With every year he spent at the lot, he picked up more responsibilities outside of his regular parkade duties, and management soon came to rely on him for all things related to the building.
"Everything in the building goes through me,” he said. “I know that building better than the strata council and building management do.”
The never-ending tasks involved in keeping the complex in working order are the reasons Kinney has stayed there all those years.
"I don't get bored, put it that way. Some days are going to be really slow, other days are going to be really busy because you've got building issues to deal with and this, that and the next thing," he said. "It's just something that basically keeps me going."
Outside of work, Kinney stays busy building Lego and following the Montreal Canadiens. He is currently four weeks into constructing a 3.5-foot aircraft carrier, and one of his Lego Star Wars ships can be seen hanging at the Hobby Shop in Hillside Mall. Every Saturday, he meets a friend he has known for over 40 years at Denny’s.
Now at retirement age, he isn’t looking to give up his life for one of leisure – at least not yet.
“I just don't like quitting," he said. "I like to better myself, and this is one way that I actually did."
Retiring would also mean losing the place he has spent much of his life caring for.
"I'm looking at people my age that have retired earlier than me or about my age, and all of a sudden they're bored after two or three years and they're looking for either a part-time job or they want to go back to work," he said. "Why would I want to quit and then return and get something less? Why not just stay where I am and work as long as I can until I can't anymore?"
