I used to work for a valet company that would contract its employees out to venues needing to host a large number of guests with a limited amount of parking.
We typically worked short-staffed because the company would always have more contracts to fill than valets available. This night was no different, with only three of us staffed for a party on a cold January night next to a lake.
We usually would only find out the details of the party when we arrived for the shift, so showing up early was always worth it to help with planning. Tonight seemed simple on the surface: a party of about 100 people. Since people tended to carpool more often than not, that translated to only about fifty to sixty vehicles we’d have to park. For the three of us, it was looking like an easy shift.
Unfortunately, the weather turned very quickly, and before any guests had even arrived, it began pouring down frozen rain with high winds blowing inland from the lake. This meant that we were having trouble with our key storage, and more importantly, our sign indicating where guests should pull in and expect valet. To make things worse, everyone decided to show up at exactly the same time, meaning that one of us had to stay up front to greet the guests in the driveway while the other two rushed as fast as possible to move their cars up to let the next group of cars into the driveway.
The traffic was terrible and there was about a fifteen-minute wait for people just to enter the driveway. This caused people to start becoming impatient, and the two lines of cars started to get out of control.
In the midst of all this, the wind had blown our sign over into the driveway, leaving the bolts that held the sign to the post sticking up. None of us had noticed this since we were too busy just trying to help people get to their party. That is until this one customer approached the valet stand in a particularly sour mood.
Customer: “Your sign punctured my tire, and it went flat while I tried to pull in!”
Me: *Surprised and confused* “How did the sign puncture your tire?”
Customer: “I ran it over cause you left it in the middle of the driveway! You’re buying me a new tire!”
I was still trying to get other guests in around his now-stricken truck as we spoke.
Me: “Why would you run it over, though?”
Another guest now chimed in.
Customer #2: “Yeah, we had to run it over, too; there was nowhere to go.”
Me: “Okay, well, I’m not sure what you want me to do. No one told you to run over the sign so if you want any help, you’ll have to wait until I’m finished helping the other guests.”
Customer: “This is unacceptable! Your sign popped my tire; you have to replace it and call me a tow truck!”
I had now had enough of this guy’s attitude and told him I’d call my manager for advice. Thankfully, my manager is amazing and doesn’t take anyone’s BS. After I explained the situation to him, he stopped me.
Manager: “Wait. So, he ran over the sign, which was his own decision, and thinks it’s our fault that he couldn’t drive around it?”
Me: “Yep.”
Manager: “So, that’s his own problem. Tell him tough luck, he should learn how to drive, and we’re not responsible for what he does before he even gets to you!”
I returned to the customer with this information and told him that in no way would my boss be reimbursing him for his mistake and that he could talk to the venue about it if he wanted to. He did, and my coworkers and I finished with the incoming guests. About twenty minutes later, the guy came out, defeated, mounted his own spare tire, and went home.
I’m still baffled by the choice of multiple people to just run over an object in the road and risk damage to their own cars.
