In what HR is calling “an unprecedented but technically distinct employment situation,” The Windy City Dispatch has terminated general assignment reporter Dennis Culpepper for the second time in two weeks.

Culpepper, who was fired on March 10 over an unreturned calculator and then quietly rehired the following Thursday after what managing editor Linda Choi described as “an administrative overcorrection on both sides,” lasted exactly five days in his second stint before being dismissed again Tuesday morning. The reason: he had been parking in Editor-in-Chief Martin Adeyemi’s reserved parking spot every day since his return. Dennis Culpepper does not own a car.

According to building security logs obtained by this reporter, Culpepper arrived each morning at approximately 7:15 a.m. — forty-five minutes before most staff — carrying a folding camping chair, which he set up in the center of Adeyemi’s clearly marked reserved space on the third level of the building’s parking structure. He then sat in the chair, reading the morning edition and drinking coffee from a thermos, until approximately 7:50, at which point he folded the chair, placed it in his backpack, and entered the building through the parking elevator.

When Adeyemi arrived at his usual time of 8:05 a.m. on the first day, he found the space empty but reported “a lingering sense that someone had been there.” By Wednesday, after reviewing security footage, that sense was confirmed.

“I don’t understand the issue,” Culpepper said when confronted by HR on Friday. “The space was empty when I was using it. I left before he got there. If anything, I was keeping it warm.” When informed that parking spaces do not need to be kept warm, Culpepper reportedly replied, “That’s a matter of opinion.”

Culpepper, who takes the Red Line to work and has never held a driver’s license, could not explain why he chose to spend his mornings in a parking garage. “I like the quiet,” he told this reporter. “The newsroom doesn’t open until eight. The garage has good acoustics. I was doing my morning reading. I don’t see how that’s a fireable offense.” He paused. “Is it a fireable offense?”

It was, according to the paper’s HR director, Maureen Stokes, who cited a combination of unauthorized use of reserved facilities and what she described as “a pattern of behavior that, while not malicious, suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of how buildings work.”

This marks the second time in eleven days that Culpepper has been let go from the Dispatch. His first tenure ended over a borrowed calculator; his second, over a parking space he occupied without a vehicle. Colleagues who were present for both hiring and both firing cycles reported a sense of déjà vu that several described as “disorienting.”

Choi, who approved Culpepper’s rehire after his first termination, said she stands by both decisions. “We gave him a second chance because his crosswalk button story did very well and he seemed genuinely remorseful about the calculator,” she said. “We could not have anticipated the parking thing. Nobody could have anticipated the parking thing.”

Culpepper’s second published article, a piece on revolving door hesitation in the Loop, will remain on the website. He said he bears no ill will toward the paper and hopes to return “when the time is right.” He was last seen folding his camping chair into his backpack in the lobby. He took the elevator. He did not take the revolving door.