Specifically the overly-self-important and overly-litigious kind of cheap street trash that I hate to deal with.
A little background perhaps?
There's a small apartment complex we do that offers about 50 spaces, and just 3 visitor spots.
That's it.
That's all the owners saw fit to provide when they divvied up the lot.
If you are not a resident, you must use visitors, if visitors is full, you have to burn up a few neural pathways and THINK of SOMEPLACE ELSE to go. This is a chore indeed, since the road immediately out front does not allow parking at all, but, there are curbside places where it's legal a few blocks away, and, you'd think your guest would alert you to such before you arrived so you could plan ahead and... ho, ho ha ... ha ha ha.. BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Sorry, couldn't keep a straight face through that one.
I think you get the picture?
I've been called and complained to about this lot on numerous occasions, in that the person calling me wants to park there, but can't, because it's full, and there must be SOMETHING *hint* *hint* I can do about that. As in, tow someone away to make a space because there simply CAN'T be no spaces left, why, if the lot is full, SOMEONE must not belong! Or this red car that's in the visitors isn't really visiting, because, it's BEEN THERE ALL DAY!! (there is no time limit, posted, inferred or otherwise) And, prey tell, if I do tow them away, how long were YOU planning on staying? Hummmm? Uh huh.. that's what I thought.
Or maybe their asking if they can ignore the posted "VISITORS MUST PARK BETWEEN SIGNS" rules, where one sign with a happy little arrow pointing left and one with a happy arrow pointing right clearly mark the happy little spaces inbetween where you must park your happy little car, and nowhere else, happy camper.
Sorry, no can do it's first come, first serve.
And when it's full, it's full.
You don't get to make your own spaces.
So, naturally, what do people do here when they come in and find the three spaces occupied? They make their own, a fourth space.
Besides being CLEARLY outside where the ARROWS say "step over this line and yer a dead man", this puts them RIGHT IN FRONT of the complex's dumpster. That ALSO has two warning signs stuck to it. "DO NOT BLOCK DUMPSTER" and "NO PARKING VIOLATORS TOWED" , for the obvious reason that, well, despite what YOUR apartment looks like, the owners of THIS ONE have decided that sanitation is important.
And you can just imagine what happens when we find these innovative creators of additional parking spaces and tow them away, can't you?
Why, nothing happens at all, they usually are quite diplomatic and admit that they knew they were wrong, and , uh, ah , ha ha ha ha, BWAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!! Oh lordy, I have TEARS in my eyes over that one!
No, they always say the same darn thing, a la' "I'm moving in" guy:
"I was just VISITING my *random family member* WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? THERE WAS NOWHERE ELSE TO PARK!"
Yes, we know, the fact you put your car in front of the dumpster proves that. As noted above, when it's full, it's full. When the hotel is full, you can't set up your own room in the lobby, when the flight is booked, you can't take the Captain's seat (or the FO's) OR go sit on the wing, and when you got 10 tons of crap, you can shovel it into a five ton dumpster.
No means no
Booked means booked
No vacancy means no vacancy
And Full means full means fool if you try and "test" that notion
Well, we scooped up the most vile of these specimens recently, as the angry phone call came about 10 minutes after we'd removed his Volvo from in front of said dumpster, 2nd person that day to get the hook for such, the first person had already come and picked up their car, while telling us:
"This is BULLS*IT! You don't tell ME where to park!"
Obviously not, since you ignored about four signs telling you where to stick it.
Ah, but Darth Volvo did him one better, while on the phone with us trying to find if we had his car, he blew up with the "usual" excuses, there was no where to park, he was just visiting his kid, there are no signs, old hat, you know.
When we informed him he was wrong, and in fact suffering from fractal wrongness as each and every one of his points was incorrect, that's when he decided to go full lawyer on us.
You NEVER go full lawyer.
Yes, see, at that VERY moment, this gentleman would have us believe his lawyer was drafting a very nasty nasty LETTER, and would be SENDING this to us.
"Okay" we said
He was a bit shocked we didn't really seem to care... didn't we hear him? He's having his lawyer send us a letter, RIGHT NOW!
Okay, we'll read it when it gets here, in the meantime, for every 24 hours he doesn't pick up the car, it'll be an extra $37 a day. (yeah, the new rates on storage don't round to 5, don't know why, I think the Borough WANTS us to get yelled at a bit more, dissuade those who don't have the guts to do it from towing, perhaps?)
Apparently, we still don't "get" it as far as he's concerned.
See, because his LAWYER is writing us a letter, we CAN'T charge him anything! And that car comes back NOW! Because he's got to be at work tomorrow... and remember what he said earlier? That LETTER is coming! And a LAWYER wrote it!
We tell him our address and again that he can do pretty much whatever the heck he and his lawyer please, but, until he shows up with $130 and photo ID, the car isn't moving from where it is right now, in the impound yard.
He cursed a lot and hung up.
15 minutes later he was in the office, paying to pick it up, still a bit confused as to why we weren't quaking in our boots over that letter....
We're still waiting for it.
I don't think it's ever going to come.
I really wonder sometimes, do these kinds of people threaten everyone they meet with a lawyer? And, if so, do the threatened parties ever really cave? It must work on at least ONE group of people out there, otherwise they wouldn't keep trying it? Would they? I really would like to know.
A little background perhaps?
There's a small apartment complex we do that offers about 50 spaces, and just 3 visitor spots.
That's it.
That's all the owners saw fit to provide when they divvied up the lot.
If you are not a resident, you must use visitors, if visitors is full, you have to burn up a few neural pathways and THINK of SOMEPLACE ELSE to go. This is a chore indeed, since the road immediately out front does not allow parking at all, but, there are curbside places where it's legal a few blocks away, and, you'd think your guest would alert you to such before you arrived so you could plan ahead and... ho, ho ha ... ha ha ha.. BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Sorry, couldn't keep a straight face through that one.
I think you get the picture?
I've been called and complained to about this lot on numerous occasions, in that the person calling me wants to park there, but can't, because it's full, and there must be SOMETHING *hint* *hint* I can do about that. As in, tow someone away to make a space because there simply CAN'T be no spaces left, why, if the lot is full, SOMEONE must not belong! Or this red car that's in the visitors isn't really visiting, because, it's BEEN THERE ALL DAY!! (there is no time limit, posted, inferred or otherwise) And, prey tell, if I do tow them away, how long were YOU planning on staying? Hummmm? Uh huh.. that's what I thought.
Or maybe their asking if they can ignore the posted "VISITORS MUST PARK BETWEEN SIGNS" rules, where one sign with a happy little arrow pointing left and one with a happy arrow pointing right clearly mark the happy little spaces inbetween where you must park your happy little car, and nowhere else, happy camper.
Sorry, no can do it's first come, first serve.
And when it's full, it's full.
You don't get to make your own spaces.
So, naturally, what do people do here when they come in and find the three spaces occupied? They make their own, a fourth space.
Besides being CLEARLY outside where the ARROWS say "step over this line and yer a dead man", this puts them RIGHT IN FRONT of the complex's dumpster. That ALSO has two warning signs stuck to it. "DO NOT BLOCK DUMPSTER" and "NO PARKING VIOLATORS TOWED" , for the obvious reason that, well, despite what YOUR apartment looks like, the owners of THIS ONE have decided that sanitation is important.
And you can just imagine what happens when we find these innovative creators of additional parking spaces and tow them away, can't you?
Why, nothing happens at all, they usually are quite diplomatic and admit that they knew they were wrong, and , uh, ah , ha ha ha ha, BWAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!! Oh lordy, I have TEARS in my eyes over that one!
No, they always say the same darn thing, a la' "I'm moving in" guy:
"I was just VISITING my *random family member* WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? THERE WAS NOWHERE ELSE TO PARK!"
Yes, we know, the fact you put your car in front of the dumpster proves that. As noted above, when it's full, it's full. When the hotel is full, you can't set up your own room in the lobby, when the flight is booked, you can't take the Captain's seat (or the FO's) OR go sit on the wing, and when you got 10 tons of crap, you can shovel it into a five ton dumpster.
No means no
Booked means booked
No vacancy means no vacancy
And Full means full means fool if you try and "test" that notion
Well, we scooped up the most vile of these specimens recently, as the angry phone call came about 10 minutes after we'd removed his Volvo from in front of said dumpster, 2nd person that day to get the hook for such, the first person had already come and picked up their car, while telling us:
"This is BULLS*IT! You don't tell ME where to park!"
Obviously not, since you ignored about four signs telling you where to stick it.
Ah, but Darth Volvo did him one better, while on the phone with us trying to find if we had his car, he blew up with the "usual" excuses, there was no where to park, he was just visiting his kid, there are no signs, old hat, you know.
When we informed him he was wrong, and in fact suffering from fractal wrongness as each and every one of his points was incorrect, that's when he decided to go full lawyer on us.
You NEVER go full lawyer.
Yes, see, at that VERY moment, this gentleman would have us believe his lawyer was drafting a very nasty nasty LETTER, and would be SENDING this to us.
"Okay" we said
He was a bit shocked we didn't really seem to care... didn't we hear him? He's having his lawyer send us a letter, RIGHT NOW!
Okay, we'll read it when it gets here, in the meantime, for every 24 hours he doesn't pick up the car, it'll be an extra $37 a day. (yeah, the new rates on storage don't round to 5, don't know why, I think the Borough WANTS us to get yelled at a bit more, dissuade those who don't have the guts to do it from towing, perhaps?)
Apparently, we still don't "get" it as far as he's concerned.
See, because his LAWYER is writing us a letter, we CAN'T charge him anything! And that car comes back NOW! Because he's got to be at work tomorrow... and remember what he said earlier? That LETTER is coming! And a LAWYER wrote it!
We tell him our address and again that he can do pretty much whatever the heck he and his lawyer please, but, until he shows up with $130 and photo ID, the car isn't moving from where it is right now, in the impound yard.
He cursed a lot and hung up.
15 minutes later he was in the office, paying to pick it up, still a bit confused as to why we weren't quaking in our boots over that letter....
We're still waiting for it.
I don't think it's ever going to come.
I really wonder sometimes, do these kinds of people threaten everyone they meet with a lawyer? And, if so, do the threatened parties ever really cave? It must work on at least ONE group of people out there, otherwise they wouldn't keep trying it? Would they? I really would like to know.
Comment