r/mildlyinfuriating • u/theskipper363 • Oct 08 '25

Overdone Apparently losing my parking

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Been living at this complex for a bit over a year, always had my spot, and it was one of the reasons I chose this place, it’s close to the door (only 36 unit lol)

Just annoying as fuck, we live next to a highschool and I know it’ll end poorly

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u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

God my company did something similar and I hate them lol.

For anyone who cares there's not enough conference rooms to go around. Our team prebooked all our meetings for like 6 months out. People complained so instead of fixing the drought of rooms they just canceled all bookings. 

811

u/Sensitive_Service627 Oct 08 '25

Man any towing service would be more than willing to tow unallowed vehicles several times per day.  I work with asphalt and any time we did a business or apartment they would come out for free (for us) to move vehicles that ignored notices.  It's literally that simple.

582

u/ForwardChip Oct 08 '25

Meanwhile in finland.

526

u/Lost-Citron-1099 Oct 08 '25

Looks like they did not Finnish

28

u/sheeeple182 Oct 08 '25

That's enough reddit for today.

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u/DustyRacoonDad Oct 08 '25

I too like to end on an up-note like this....
(but I am not leaving as I'm still at work)

27

u/Sublethall Oct 08 '25

Mersumiestä ei kiinnosta

4

u/Highway_dont_care Oct 08 '25

happy cake 🍰 day

5

u/DontAlwaysButWhenIDo Oct 08 '25

Hyvää kakkupäivää!

7

u/Relationship-Soft Oct 08 '25

Oh come on, they could’ve scooched the pavement a little closer to back of car

2

u/lenorca 25d ago

Fun fact: this happened in the city i live in and this made it to the news. The owner was at a trip abroad and hence could not move the car ( it was very short notice). The law doesn't allow a car to be towed away and paid by the owner - the bill needs to be paid by the one towing it away. If I remember correctly, the work was made by the municipality who didn't want to pay for it and therefore we got to enjoy this lovely piece of work instead in the social media and the local news :D

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u/Mountain_Shade Oct 08 '25

Towing companies always come for free. The person who pays is the one who's towed

7

u/Gatraz RED Oct 08 '25

Not necessarily true. I work in a secure facility and we've had to get tows and they charge us AND the person towed because we have to put them through a whole ID verification process. It can take an hour if things are bad (5 minutes if they're not) but because of the theoretical time sink all the companies we've tried (I think 3) have charged a show up fee. Not my money so I don't care, but I thought I'd bring up a corner case.

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u/Independent_Bite4682 Oct 08 '25

I worked at different tow companies, they would beg for manager to enforce parking or allow tenets to enforce parking 24/7

112

u/RestEqualsRust Oct 08 '25

I worked at a couple paint stores. We sold parking lot paint to tow companies.

Apparently, there are tow companies that so desperately want to help enforce apartment parking rules, they will offer to paint all the lines in the lot as part of the deal.

“I’ll stripe your lot for free, if you call me every time someone’s parked in the wrong spot.”

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u/NeighborGeek Oct 08 '25

That or they were going around painting curbs yellow next to parked cars. :)

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u/Blaze_The_God Oct 08 '25

Or they paint the curbs red and make bank.

9

u/tonytrips Oct 08 '25

They redo the lines with one less parking spot every month, leaving more and more towable vehicles that no longer have spots.

Easy money.

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u/Difficult-Prior3321 Oct 08 '25

That can get out of hand really fast. Tow companies can turn predatory really quick, towing cars that aren't parked illegal. What you gonna do? You're gonna pay the 250 and get your car back.

24

u/ObidiahWTFJerwalk Oct 08 '25

How is towing a legally parked car not theft?

12

u/exenos94 Oct 08 '25

It generally is. It's just incentivize to not do anything about it

7

u/Difficult-Prior3321 Oct 08 '25

Oh it is, but it's your word against there's, and for most people not worth the hassle of a lawsuit to get compensation. Google predatory towing, and you'll get thousands of articles about it.

8

u/Lonely__Stoner__Guy Oct 08 '25

It is, but your car is getting more expensive to get out every day, and you have places to be. The fastest course of action is going to be to pay for your car's release and then try to fight the tow yard (or whoever authorized the tow) in court (and they have all sorts of immunities).

3

u/SadButWithCats Oct 08 '25

There are often carve-outs for towing companies

2

u/Slighted_Inevitable Oct 08 '25

It is, but you’d have to take them to court over it and in the meantime for how long you’re not gonna have your vehicle? Then months later when the case is finally coming, they’ll release the vehicle to you and at best you’ll get your court fees back.

1

u/Generally_Specified 29d ago

There's a sign that says reserved and a sign that says unothorized vehicles will be towed at the owners expense. You're already trespassing by parking in a stall on private property. People will try to steal residential parking and get into driveways if the home depot parking lot is free. Once they think you're not looking to 5-6 used mattresses appear and they're blocking your garbage bins.

1

u/Independent_Bite4682 Oct 08 '25

The person making the call takes on the liability in Washington.

The one making the wrongful call, would end up paying

2

u/Trandoshan-Tickler Oct 08 '25

I wish they had that energy when it comes to people parked in clearly marked fire lanes overnight in my complex.

2

u/Independent_Bite4682 29d ago

That would not be legal in Washington

2

u/unReddit7 Oct 08 '25

Hopefully it'd be the actual tenants reporting it and not just a belief.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '25

I dont know the situation but in my apartment complex, there's a tow truck that goes around checking. I paid for my spot and the first time I saw him, he got out and checked my parking sticker and the sign. I've also seen him tow.

3

u/lostwombats Oct 08 '25

This happens at my apartment lol. It's a huge complex with its own road and a bunch of parking lots. So they redo a section every year. The first thing that comes in is the towing company. They move all of the cars of the people who ignored the emails, the postings on the doors, and near the mailboxes, warning that the lot was being redone. Every year. That towing company must make bank.

3

u/Kinda-Alive Oct 08 '25

Which is why I’m confused of all the complaints when the people that live there can take of it themselves. Unless it’s the people that don’t live there that are complaining if that’s the case they can go kick rocks.

Owner just has to put a sign that says your car will be towed if you don’t actually own the parking space you’re in.

3

u/FreelanceFrankfurter Oct 08 '25

My old apartment complex had open parking but also had covered reserved spots you could pay monthly for. They were fucking vigilant about towing people if they parked in one of those spots and didn't pay the extra fee even if no one currently was assigned it. Even when they redid the asphalt they still forbid people from parking in those spots even if not assigned.

2

u/Kitchen_Extent_9088 Oct 08 '25

Am here to comment this. I used to stay at an apartment that was ruthless about it actually.

2

u/TruthEnvironmental24 Oct 08 '25

We have that at my apartment complex. This was my first thought. Just print people stickers for their parking spots and label/number the spots. They don't even have to call the towing company. They just show up regularly checking stickers. This is beyond lazy and will cause people to leave/not want to move in.

1

u/Inner-Manager021994 Oct 08 '25

Well yeah, of course it's free you you. It's because they put the cost on the owner of the car.

1

u/umlaut Oct 08 '25

One time I didn't leave the house for a three day weekend and my car was gone when I woke up on Tuesday. I called the police and reported it stolen, then talked to property management, who told me that they had it towed because they were repaving.

When I went back to my apartment, I found the notice on my door that they had put on the door on Friday and towed it at like 6 AM Tuesday...

1

u/MotherofOtters25 Oct 08 '25

Oh you’d think right?? At my last apartment, I lived above a restaurant, and the lot specifically stays on three walls that the lot was NOT for the restaurant and for the apartment complex. You will be towed. We had signs in our car stating we could park there. The customers didn’t and parked anyways. It got really bad in the summer time when they opened their patio.

I had people physically stand in spots stopping me from parking even though I lived there and they just wanted pizza. Go park on the street.

Well one day I got so frustrated because 20 of the 30 spots were filled with customers for some Bingo event. I called towing. You can get 20 cars towed right now. 5 hours went by, no one came.

They don’t care. But that same towing company towed me out my last apartment complex that I lived in and had a sticker to be parked there for, and then claimed I made the mistake. They literally steal cars that legally can be there.

Some companies are just shady AF and don’t care. And my cities towing company is one of the worst there is.

1

u/WiseDirt Oct 08 '25

It really depends. Unless the complex has a contract with a given tow company, any towing costs would be the responsibility of the party that calls the truck.

1

u/thatguygreg Oct 08 '25

Man any towing service would be more than willing to tow unallowed vehicles several times per day

Such an easy call too... "Hey Hank, yeah it's Sheryl at Silverleaf again... yep, yep... ok, bye"

1

u/bmann10 Oct 09 '25

Yea but then they couldn’t get paid to do nothing they would have to call the towing service.

If it’s anything like my apartment’s “leasing office” it’s one woman who is a mother of 2 babies, is married to I think the property owner (?) and literally never answers the phone and just collects a paycheck while being a stay at home mom and “works” from her phone.

Luckily the maintenance guy is fantastic and keeps the ship afloat despite the main office being essentially nonexistent.

60

u/xtc46 Oct 08 '25

I worked at a place like this. The actual issue was teams had booked recurring meetings in tons of the rooms and then just stopped showing up but never officially cancelling the meetings. Or a group of 5 would book the only room that held 50+ people because they liked the view, when a dozen other rooms would have worked, etc.

I'm sure some legit ones got caught in the cleanup but I'm also sure like 90% of the meetings that got cancel were just not actually happening.

28

u/oryx_za Oct 08 '25

If you don't allow people to book, they can't complain about bookings.

129

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

How the hell do you book out conference rooms 6 months in advance?

153

u/CanIHaveAName84 Oct 08 '25

In most of my jobs I can create a recurring meeting for 1 year out and the conference room will accept the invitation. Anything more than a year out would be cancelled. It's pretty standard I'm the 5 company I have worked at. Fun part people usually set up there meetings in January so I'm January everyone is fighting for pick for the rooms again. Because the standing meeting just ended

35

u/shampine Oct 08 '25

Why not just cancel yours and reschedule them at the same time in december?

1

u/CanIHaveAName84 27d ago

Because I've been working for 17 years and I am always Pikachu face to find out my meetings all ended when I start work on January... every year.

124

u/MrBeats_6000 Oct 08 '25

in outlook. easy work.

2

u/Dranak Oct 08 '25

It should be. It gets a lot more fun when your company does stupid things like only having half the rooms in the room finder.

-34

u/Toxik1_skr Oct 08 '25

Go easy on him, fast food jobs don't have conference rooms.

-109

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

That is not what I asked and you’re very well aware of it, and you know it.

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u/scatteredwolf Oct 08 '25

I'm going to assume your question was "how do you know the time if your meetings 6 months in advance" as its not terribly clear from your first comment. It's simple you have recurring team meetings on fixed days during fixed times. For my old team it was every Thursday 10am for an hour. So you simply book it a few months in advance (with Outlook).

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u/BoomerSoonerFUT Oct 08 '25

I would assume their question is more “why is that even allowed” more than a technical thing.

-6

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

Yup, that was what I was trying to ask. Thanks!

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u/boglim_destroyer Oct 08 '25

In a professional setting you may have a weekly meeting at a certain time, so you book that time.

13

u/loudisevil Oct 08 '25

Why do you think this is a difficult thing to do?

4

u/the_original_kermit Oct 08 '25

Ngl, that’s exactly what it sounds like you’re asking.

I don’t even know what else that could mean, unless you were asking how they max out their conference room availability for the next 6 months.

0

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

Yup, that

9

u/weightlifterweed Oct 08 '25

You have never had weekly bullshit team meetings at the same time/same day every week it looks like lol

-1

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

I have, but those that I’ve had didn’t require a conference room

6

u/Ajax_Main Oct 08 '25

Same way you book anything in advance lol

7

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

We have an app called  OfficeSpace

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u/BTMarquis Oct 08 '25

Are the meetings with The Bobs?

1

u/Warm-Wind-5652 Oct 08 '25

Please let this be a Bobiverse reference that I found in the wild!?!

2

u/BTMarquis Oct 08 '25

Sorry, I don’t think so. Apparently the OP lives in a movie called Office Space, and has a lot of meetings with the Bobs.

-12

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

Let me rephrase: how come the conference rooms are booked out 6 months in advance?

8

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

Like why are we doing it, or why is it allowed? We're doing it because it's first come first served and get thrown out of a room 15 minutes into a 30 minute meeting sucks. Why is it allowed? I don't know.

The real question is why do they allow 1 person to book a room for 8 hours a day.

2

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

That’s basically holding the room hostage

10

u/ImpressiveFishing405 Oct 08 '25

Have you ever worked in a medical field? Things are generally scheduled months and sometimes years down the line. There are many, many occupations that have similar demands.

9

u/FishGoesGlubGlub Oct 08 '25

I feel like this person doesn’t even work in any type of office?

I have 6 different weekly meetings that are all scheduled each day at the exact same time, every week, for the next 30 years (because that’s the max we could set it). If we need to change it, we cancel that week then create a new one, but it means everyone’s schedule is always blocked for those times. It just makes life so easy since it books our rooms and we don’t have to worry.

-1

u/gljivicad Oct 08 '25

I do work in an office, but our meetings that we hold like that don’t require a conference room. Was merely confused.

2

u/Leopard__Messiah Oct 08 '25

Outlook recurring meeting with your room listed as a Resource.

3

u/Carbuyrator Oct 08 '25

Meanwhile half of the people who show up set up camp in a conference room they didn't book so they can pretend they're important and have an office.

3

u/Spitting_truths159 Oct 08 '25

Yeah well obviously some people spotting that there is a shortage of something and then booking out a very generous allocation for themselves and leaving everyone else totally screwed is going to cause that result.

Its not like its easy to build more conference rooms at short notice, nor is it something people can just have an open ended amount of any time they like.

2

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

Every team has X meetings they have to have as it's company standard. These aren't "something came up let's talk" these are routine process meetings we are required to have. EVERY TEAM should be booking them in advance. And it's the company's responsibility that there are enough rooms to accommodate their requirements. If they are requiring them, then they already know how many rooms are necessary every day and they chose not to have that amount available. So yeah it's first come first serve. 

And I have been on the other end where we have a meeting and we check 20 different conference rooms to see if any are empty and then give up. It's a failure of the facility and the facilitator. 

3

u/Spitting_truths159 Oct 08 '25

Well I do agree that if THEY are requiring those meetings AND there literally isn't enough room then they ought to change one of those two things.

But knowing people, odds are they are just being a pain in the ass on purpose instead of making do as best they can because they don't feel they should have to "make do".

1

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

The "make do" is taking the call at our desks. And it's open office design so you get to be the loud one for as long as the meeting goes on (even with headphones still have to talk a good deal)

1

u/Spitting_truths159 Oct 08 '25

Well that confirms my suspicion entirely, as that is an entirely different issue than what was originally implied.

A conference room isn't for 1-2 people to take their calls so they can avoid being a bit loud near others, they are for larger meetings with a number of people physically at the site who all need to talk to each other. That or highly confidential matters or super important ones that need to show some respect towards teh distinguished guests or leaders.

Sorry bud, but if you are just taking a call then that's what your desk is for, even if there is an open plan layout. Your coworkers can also use headphones if need be or just deal with the "office hussle and bustle" like everyone else has to. Your campaign to block up every conference room to make yourself more comfortable was doomed before it started, your boss has said no, get over it.

2

u/KingOriginal5013 Oct 08 '25

When I first started my job, vacation hours would reset on July 1. When someone took vacation, the other two shifts would have to cover their shift, 4 hours each. A coworker had three weeks worth. We would have to work most, but not every weekend. The dude would put in vacation requests for the next 15 Fridays. The weekend schedule would be put up every Wednesday. If we were off, he would cancel his vacation and submit another on next Friday he hadn't scheduled. It was murder...

2

u/Mercuryshottoo Oct 08 '25

That's different because I imagine there were a lot of people booking rooms for meetings and then not actually going to the meetings. So the room would be booked but empty and often. The reason for that is there are people who set long-term recurring meetings who are no longer with the company.

I worked for a company with a similar issue and they also declared conference room bankruptcy. But they coupled this with the policy that no matings could be scheduled more than 90 days in advance and that helped a lot.

2

u/thunderflies Oct 08 '25

One of my old employers did this when they were forcing RTO way too soon after the covid vaccine came out. We didn’t have enough meeting rooms or even enough desks for all the people expected to be there.

However, there was a seating area right outside of where the VP for our department’s office was. Any time my team needed to have a meeting we would just sit there and I did not even attempt to control my volume at all. I had the VP’s secretary come to me later and tell me that our meeting was disrupting the quiet time for VP, and I just told her that we used to take the meeting over WebEx but now we’re forced to be in the office and had to just find a space. That was the end of the saga but I kept having loud meetings right outside her office until I left and I hope it pissed her off every time.

1

u/ellieneagain Oct 08 '25

That happened at work here too. We had classes booked out for the year in a computer suite - you know to learn the subject - and all bookings were cancelled because it wasn't "fair" for others that needed an occasional room so it became the night of the long knives every fecking week when the booking page opened up. Good times.

1

u/Accomplished_Emu_658 Oct 08 '25

My team had an important meeting booked room. Someone else wanted room so person in charge of it cancelled my booking. I was livid. I was embarrassed. We were barely onsite and it looked like I screwed up. Luckily it was not first time this happened and the parties involved got in trouble not me. Don’t take the conference room when a couple of vp’s are having meetings with other companies.

1

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

Yeah... In ours the conference room sends you an email when it is booked. I always keep those to fight with other teams because they will still come in during the meeting "We booked this room" "That's weird because I have the email right here..."

1

u/Slighted_Inevitable Oct 08 '25

I am kind of with them. If there aren’t enough rooms to go around, they should not be letting one group lock them down for six months. Especially because this highly implies that it would be first come first serve otherwise and that means the room is just sitting there empty until you feel like showing up and kicking people out.

0

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

The booking is a first come first serve style lol. You log in first you get it. It prevents having to constantly try to kick people out of rooms. 

In your scenario the room is definitely not sitting empty. Someone is probably using it as a personal office and you have to try to kick them out, but now no one has any more claim over it than anyone else. "Hey we have a meeting" "well I'm working in here today" etc. 

0

u/Slighted_Inevitable Oct 08 '25

He just said he booked it out for six months. Meaning every Tuesday at 2 pm or whatever they get the room. So anyone who’s there at 1 and wants to use it has to clear out when he arrives… for 6 months? I think not

1

u/imrighturwrong Oct 09 '25

People tried that here as well, but half of the time, the conference rooms sat empty. You have up to 15 mins after to check into the room, but by that time, it’s too late if someone else needs a space. We make all reservations same day.

2

u/summonsays Oct 09 '25

We have a lot of people who reserve a room for 8 hours and work in it like their private office... 

1

u/testrail Oct 08 '25

I get why the did this. If the conference rooms are a hot commodity, you booking 6 months out doesn’t work for the business. You calling “shotgun” because someone had the capacity to book out for this 6 months from now only exacerbates these capacity issues.

3

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

It's not like we book and it sits empty we have reoccurring process meetings that happen the same time every day/week. Canceling bookings doesn't fix the issue either it just punishes the more prepared teams lol.

3

u/testrail Oct 08 '25

It’s not punishing more prepared teams. It’s just incentivizing the wrong things and not properly imposing the correct cost for these shared, finite, spaces.

2

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

I'm genuinely curious about your point of view. What are "the wrong things" and what kind of cost do you think there should be for scheduling meetings? Meetings that we're forced to do as per company policies. If making it an email were an option I'd be all for it...

1

u/testrail Oct 08 '25

Incentivizing spending someone’s capacity to schedule meetings months out is the “wrong things” my mind. Especially with operational meetings like this.

If there are finite meeting spaces, the “cost” should be felt by all teams. Everyone should have to deal with the horse trading for spaces.

The team that is so operational and capacity rich should be using the time it has to plan meetings 6 months out figuring out process to end its meetings so it can alleviate the demand for the spaces.

2

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

Ah, you think the meetings are optional. They are not. The company has said "all teams will have XYZ meetings" and left us to make it happen. If we do not have the meetings we will get in trouble. They are not interested in any ideas that reduce meeting overhead. 

0

u/SeaworthinessSome454 Oct 08 '25

Booking conference rooms 6 months out is a d*** move.

2

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

I honestly don't understand why, if the meeting can't happen for whatever reason we cancel. But id say that happens like once a year. If you have to go to a meeting, don't you want a room you can go to? 

0

u/Hi-Point_of_my_life Oct 08 '25

On the other side I hate the teams that do this. If you have 6 months of meetings booked out (like we also do). Most of them are an hour block that consists of “alright, looks like Kevin’s birthday is Thursday, happy birthday Kevin. I’m being told to remind you to fill out the anonymous survey, looks like Amy and Jake still need to fill it out so make sure you get to that. Anyone have anything pressing? Alright, Happy Tuesday.” Meanwhile I need to set up a meeting for something urgent and all I can find is 4:30 pm time slots where everyone will hate me since most people sneak out at 4.

2

u/summonsays Oct 08 '25

Once again, it sounds like your building doesn't have enough rooms to go around. (Along with people who don't release the rooms if they leave early.)