I agree with this. I was employed on a contractor basis for the first year and a half in my current job, for a Global 500 tech company (software engineer), and there is a professional atmosphere. We have public-facing and business to business elements so image is important. Since there were no bicycle commuters and never had been, walking through the lobby doors in sweat-soaked biking regalia was not on my agenda. I felt like I needed to show that there was no downside, no compromises or special accommodations necessary. I went so far as to change shoes at the bike rack, and if I was wearing warm-ups over my slacks those came off as well. I wanted to walk in with a professional appearance.

There are several ways to do this and I won't go into them, but I just want to emphasize CrankyOne's point that we don't really need any special accommodations for a 10 mile commute. As a regular employee now the situation is different and they've improved my parking also but in the final analysis, just do what it takes and work on improvements along the way.