When you lease space in a building, you are generally given access to a set number of parking spots, so that all the employees will have somewhere to park.

What would you do if another tenant in the building got upset when you used one of their parking spots even though her employees and customers regularly used a bunch of yours?

That is what happened to the business owner in this story, so he installed gated access to his parking spots, causing a huge problem for the other business.

Daycare wants my office to park in our reserved spaces while they use ours too. We did.

My partner and I own a small 8-person company that shares a building with only a daycare.

This seems like a good company to work for.

Our company consists almost exclusively of higher-level professionals (a couple lawyers, CPAs, etc.), so most have their own large office plus, a couple of common areas, conference rooms, a nice kitchen.

All in all, it’s about 3,500 sqft which is obviously a lot for 8 people, but necessary for our line of work.

I’m betting the parking spots are granted based on the square footage rented.

Due to the size of the office, the lease has a parking provision which grants us exclusive rights to all 24 parking spots. This is somewhat important (to the story not our work we only need 8 + clients). Also, important is the daycare’s parking lot only consisting of about 10 spots in front of the building.

The parents would use our lot to drop off as the daycare’s lot would be mostly full with their staff’s cars and even some of their staff would park in our lot.

If they aren’t using the spots, it doesn’t hurt anything to share them.

I didn’t mind at all. We had over a dozen empty spots each day, and it was nice to have the (mostly) happy children around in the mornings/afternoon.

Until a month ago.

Daycare parking lots are a mess at drop-off time.

I started coming in a bit later at the same time as daycare drop off. Our lot was crazy with parents/kids walking and parking, so I used their lot like they have done with ours for years.

First day, no issue. Second day, the manager saw me get out and gave me a piercing stare.

What!? They didn’t even come talk to him!?

A week later or so, I did it again, and my car was towed. Not a warning or word from the manager/anyone at the daycare to me or our office.

I went to the daycare to ask if they knew it was my car (it is a very distinctive old blue truck) and if some kind of mistake had been made.

Wow, that manager is way out of line.

The manager came out and said it was not a mistake, and in a very rude demeaning tone her exact words were along the lines of “unfortunately we can’t have the liability of non-staff and parents within our lot and I’m sure the parents don’t appreciate having to walk further either or an unknown adult like you in the lot” she looks me up and down and I am a totally normal looking 30 year old male, I think at least. “Don’t you have some reserve spots in the back? You should really park there and let us park here.”

With an eye-roll, she walked off.

I would be mad too. Getting his car back took some money and hassle for sure.

I was happy I held my tongue in front of the children considering how angry I was, knowing it was not the time for that conversation.

A couple days later I told the manager, while we were outside the office that I wished she would have come to me before towing my car and costing me $600, asked for an apology, and said since we share the backlot and the parents take up almost all of our spots in the morning and afternoon, can I park in the front lot the occasional morning the timelines align.

She is not budging on this. I bet she’ll regret it.

She flatly said no – and basically gave me the same speech she gave last time, at least not commenting on my appearance this time.

I left things for a week, thinking it was over. Until again, I had nowhere to park one morning. Having to wait 10 minutes for parents to filter out of our lot lest my car be towed, and who do I see but the manager getting a spot in my lot before me even.

Oh, she is not going to like this.

I decided to comply with the manager’s wishes then and developed a plan. I contacted the building owner and said (or more accurately lied) that due to compliance reasons with a state license we’re applying for, we need to have a gate installed with employee/guest pass access only on our parking lot.

Our company would of course cover the cost. Same day approval from landlord. Installed two weeks later.

I kind of feel bad for the parents.

I drove in early that first day after install. I tell you the mayhem was well worth it. Watching from the corner window gave me a perfect view of it all.

It started with daycare staff pressing all sorts of keys on the gate to try and get in; trying to park where they have for months, years even.

This is going to be a huge mess.

Then their lot filled up completely. Parents started arriving. A staff member had to stand at the gate telling parents there was now no access.

Their parking lot was basically congested with parent’s double parked taking their children in. Other parents parked a quarter mile down in another lot at the park our office overlooks.

Oh, this would have been so satisfying.

I eventually went down, to give the manager a nice little wave and walked back up to my office. She gave me a piercing stare that just made me grin ear to ear.

I guess she sent the owner a rather angry email about parking rights to the backlot afterwards and how it’s crazy one small office gets the entire thing. Apparently, she did not know we had all of it.

The building owner wants to keep everyone happy.

He told him and I may have to discuss the parking provision in the future, and he also did not know the lease gave the entire back lot, but it’s not a big deal to him. (Not sure why he let me put the gate in)

Regardless, I still have 2 years left on my lease with another option to extend an additional 5. So, no plans on moving anytime soon from the office or my 24 parking spots.

I bet that the manager of the daycare regrets making this into an issue!

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Sadly, a lot of people act just like this.

This is where I thought the story was going too.

Yup, she should have kept her mouth shut.

Here is a genius idea.

This would have been a great response.

She started it, he finished it.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.