We all know that it can be hard to find parking spaces out there, and, when spots are limited, it can get downright ugly from time to time.

In today’s story, a worker at an auto shop talked about what happened when a construction project caused all kinds of parking mayhem.

Let’s take a look!

Hospital expansion causes parking problems.

“Back in the 1990s I worked at the family engine shop downtown.

It was an L shaped building, with a “back lot” that was separated from the street by a brick wall topped with a wrought iron fence, the only access to it was through the shop.

On the other side of the building we had a 20 spot lot that was completely open. The shop was about 3 small blocks from the local hospital.

The hospital decided to remodel and expand, but since they were landlocked at the time, the only place they had to build was their parking garage and lots.

So they immediately changed their policy to only Emergency Room parking on site, they bought or rented several lots around the city and ran a bus (maybe busses) to get everyone to and from the hospital.

From what I gathered, the staff lot was the furthest away and the bus stopped at every lot on its route adding quite some time to the staffs commute. They got very strict that there was no staff parking for any reason in any lot other than the staff lot, this included visiting doctors or specialists, whatever.

You know what’s coming next…

It wasn’t long before our parking lot started filling as we were the closest business with an open lot. At first we simply had any car with a hospital sticker towed.

About two weeks after that we would start getting keys in the drop box with notes like “makes funny noise when turning right, have ready by 2 pm”.

We would take the car around the block for a “test drive” and write some notes if we noticed anything. Of course they never wanted to fix whatever that issue was if we actually found something.

My uncle quickly got tired of these shenanigans and had a glorious solution, use the back lot to store these new “customer” vehicles. He would have me move the cars into the back, behind the customer and shop vehicles right next to the fence so the “customer” could clearly see their vehicle(s).

This was gonna show ’em!

He then charged for a day of storage and for every car we had to move to get the hospital staffs car in and out. I don’t know exactly what he charged, but probably around $100 total for the day. Not only that, but it would take me 40 minutes to an hour to “move everything around” just to get to one of these vehicles out.

Of course the hospital staff would yell and complain over the price and how long it took me to get their vehicles.

My uncle would just smile and if they didn’t want to pay tell me to move slower “take extra care of this important customers car” he’d say while he set up the paperwork to place a mechanics lien on the vehicle.

It didn’t take long for the issue to reduce from a full lot to maybe one when we got to the shop in the morning.”

Reddit users shared their thoughts.

This person weighed in.

Another Reddit user spoke up.

This individual shared a story.

Another reader weighed in.

And this person asked a question.

These folks thought they could park wherever they wanted…and they were wrong!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.