Some parking lots have certain areas where employees are supposed to park and other areas where customers are supposed to park. If you weren’t an employee but were mistaken for an employee by someone who worked at the parking lot, what would you do?

In this story, a construction engineer is in this exact situation, but the guy working at the parking lot refuses to believe her. His attempts to prove her wrong and prevent her from leaving get more and more nutty!

Keep reading for all the details.

“Park in Employee parking!” vs “I’m not an employee!!”

I’m female and was 24 at the time.

This happened over the course of a few weeks about 2 years ago. I was working as a construction/design engineer for hospitals (plumbing and air conditioning), I work for a company that’s hired by the hospital, not for the hospital itself.

My company had been hired to do an ER renovation on an old hospital and the plans for the existing building were really old/damaged or just didn’t exist anymore.

When did she sleep???

As low man on the totem pole I got the fun job of going out to the hospital to document/investigate the existing building (lots of going up on ladders and looking above the ceiling to track down pipes and ducts and such).

Because this was an ER and therefore 24hrs/day we had to time our investigation for non-busy times namely 3am-7am in the middle of the week, I was also working my normal office hours (because my job offered overtime or in-lieu hours, and I needed the overtime pay, college loans lol!) so for all these interactions I was exhausted and just didn’t give a care.

So on to the story.

When she had the chance, she took a nap.

I had to park in the hospital parking garage, on the top floor to be out of the way of patients and visitors.

I had finished early because an emergency had come into the ER and I had to get out of the way.

I had some extra time so decided to close my eyes for a bit before driving to the office, when I was woken up by a tapping on my window, a man was peering in the window, we will call him Parking Dude (PD) .

I waved at him thinking he was just making sure I was alright (I was sleeping in a hospital parking lot).

But he wasn’t worried about her health.

PD gestured for me to roll down my window, so I cracked it to hear him better.

He gruffly declared that “employees are to park in the back lot or on the street if that’s full, next time I’ll have you towed”

He then turned and marched back to his golf cart, which he blocked me in with, as I called out “I don’t work here!!”

He left, I left and went to work thinking it was a one time deal, little did I know.

There were lots of “parking tickets.”

Over the next few visits, I came back to my car to find increasingly angry “parking tickets” about parking in employee parking from now on! They were printed on 4A and very obviously homemade, with a blurry hospital logo and word art “parking enforcement” across the top.

The notes threatened booting, towing, and demands for my supervisor’s name so I could be reported.

My coworkers and I had quite a laugh over them.

I even left a note on my dash saying I wasn’t an employee, and the next “ticket” had a rant about lying and that “You will be written up for lying, once I get your supervisors name!”

The next time was different.

Then one morning I came out to find PD waiting for me. He had blocked my car with his golf cart and was grinning at me like a cat who got the cream.

I walked up to him and PD said “Employees have to park in the back lot! You are in so much trouble, I demand to speak to your manager! (yes he really said it), give me their name and number and the department you work for! I wont let you leave until you give me your managers name!”

He did have my car blocked in.

I tried to explain that I wasn’t an employee, I pointed out my outfit (work boots, jeans, safety glasses, and a toolbelt with flashlights, tape measures, lasers, and a clipboard with my drawn plans) and told him that this is where hospital admin had told us to park.

The parking guy still didn’t believe her.

But he insisted that my disguise wasn’t going to trick him and demanded to speak to my manager.

I was so exhausted and wasn’t really up to arguing, so I just pulled out my business card, and my boss’s card, and handed them over. (I had told my boss about this, and he just told me to ignore it, as he had confirmed with the hospital that’s where I was supposed to park.)

This dude pulled out his phone and called my boss and reported me.

She later talked to her boss about the phone call.

My boss (an older gentleman, who is also president of the company) later told me he had told PD that he had to let me leave or he was calling the police.

When the dude hung up, he told me “I’m letting you leave this time, but next time you park here I’ll boot your car and find your real managers number and report you! Some trick with your friend wont work!” He got in his golf cart and zoomed away.

Luckily my boss found this whole thing hilarious.

Here’s what happened the next time she parked there…

It was about a week before I went back (bad weather=busy ER=no work for me) and I was almost done with my task (I would be back after construction started, but its all on hold now because of covid) I had finished for the day once again and headed out to my car, to find he had -sort of- done what he had threatened.

There was a thick chain looped through the handle of my driver side rear door and a cinderblock all tied together with a large padlock.

I knew this guy was a bit nutty, but I also had figured out he didn’t have any real authority, so to find this half clever half poorly thought-out ball and chain attached to my car, was a bit of a surprise.

She wasn’t going to let a cinderblock stop her.

Now I got into engineering because I like solving problems (I actually don’t really like math even if I’m not half bad at it), and this wasn’t a particularly complex problem.

I simply rolled my back window down and lifted the cinderblock and excess chain into my car, and then drove away. I passed PD on my way out.

To say he was shocked was an understatement and I gave him a jaunty wave as I drove by.

It was a cold drive back to my office with the window open, but it was worth the look on his face.

When I got to the office, I had to go in and sign out the bolt cutters and was followed out by a parade of my coworkers to see it for themselves.

The next time she parked there, she was prepared.

I had to go back one more time, I was eager to see what PD might do after his last plan failed.

I came out to find he had tried the chain and cinderblock bit again. This time he had wrapped the chain around the bottom of the wheel a few times, and had the cinderblock tied pretty close to the wheel and the chain through the handle again.

It was definitely chained in a way that would take a lot more ingenuity to get out of…. Or a pair of bolt cutters I hadn’t returned to the office, you know, just in case.

I cut through the chain, unchained the car, and then loaded the whole lot into my trunk.

I love her response when the parking guy confronts her!

PD must have been harassing some other person, because he only pulled up as I was backing out of the spot.

He blocked my car (again!) with his cart and jumped out. He came to my window and I did roll it down just to see what he had to say. “Hey, Hey!!! Where are the chains!! How did you get loose! This is stealing! (is it stealing to take stuff he attached to my car?) I will have your job for this!”

I never did hear the rest of the rant, as I yelled “Magic and I‘m not an employee!!” during a pause for breath and drove around his cart and away.

It was the most dramatic exit of my life and will probably never be topped.

That was the last encounter with the parking guy.

It was my last day there (for now) and I’ve since gotten a new car so I’m not sure if ill run into PD again.

I’d like to think he is still puzzled over how I managed to unchain my car.

My boss did lodge a complaint, but I don’t think anything came of it.

That guy was certainly on an ego trip. Why would he think a hospital employee would wear a disguise to avoid parking in the correct part of the parking garage? He was clearly nutty.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I love her response too!

Here’s another way she could’ve handled it.

Two can play the makeshift note game!

Here’s another suggestion.

Some people will never admit defeat!

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.