Another parking problem

My new job comes with a parking spot in the basement. Great!

The building manager sent the security guy to inform my secretary that I’m not allowed to park my motorbike in it.

My immediate response was “Tell him to fuck off”, but this attitude will probably not be very helpful when the issue is raised again in the near future. Nevertheless, as the man who authorizes the cheques, I’m paying not only for the space but also for the ‘management’ that is telling me I can’t use the space I pay for.

Any suggestions on ways to deal with this without getting into grief?

baseball bat… and an army of whities :laughing:

threaten to withhold their payment? or get some form of sticker from them for your scooter.

there must be a simple way to allow this - try the old “wo dong bu ting, ting wo bu dong, wo ting dong bu!” you get the idea… :wink:

Someone or other is sure to suggest that you buy a car, but let that person not be me. :smiley:

Yours is not so much a parking problem as a “stupid rules that must be enforced no matter what the logic is”. Good luck. Locals can’t get past this kind of thinking… “But - it’s a RULE!”

When the locals see a perfectly good car parking spot taken up by a motorcycle, they get pissed off. After all, you could park your motorcycle somewhere else like in someones driveway or doorway :laughing: Attitudes that come from being overcrowded in 16th century city planning :laughing: :laughing:

Rent the spot out to someone who has a car and pocket some extra bux for beer. Park your bike on the sidewalk in front of the manager’s favorite bar or strip joint.

excellent idea!

i should do that for my driveway! :smiley:

We’ll see.

The building manager showed up just now to talk to me, which is a start as I had decided to get pissy about being expected to deal with the security guard. I authorise the cheques for these people, and I expect to be accorded a certain amount of respect. I told her to make an appointment to come and see me at a convenient time like anyone else would.

I have also requested a copy of the rules I have apparently agreed to. I guess if there is something on paper and previously agreed to then I’m screwed? It woulld be best to maintain good relations and apologise for inadvertantly breaching an agreement. I’ll still make it clear that I can’t see any sense in the agreement and I’m seriously unhappy though.

On the other hand, maybe I should write to the management company’s head office to complain and ask what possible rationale they can possible have for making my life difficult. They ostensibly exist to serve the tenants, after all.

The only reason I can see is that there will be some ‘makes the place look bad’ bullshit.

[quote=“stragbasher”]
I have also requested a copy of the rules I have apparently agreed to. I guess if there is something on paper and previously agreed to then I’m screwed? [/quote]
Uh, why don’t you already have your own copy? When you say “apparently agreed to,” does that mean that you actually signed something? If so, why haven’t you kept a copy of that agreement?

There will be a copy somewhere, either here or at head office, but why should I look for it?

I don’t have a problem with putting my moto in a space designed for a car. If someone else wants to tell me that it’s against the rules then it’s up to them to produce a copy of the relevant rule. Until they do, it’s my space.

I have a feeling they have just deactivated my garage door key. It’s one of those infrared things, and I just sat outside futilely pressing the bloody button until someone else happened to leave and the door opened. Could be just my paranoia, but if they have acted pre-emptively, when I have asked them to come and sit down and explain their problem, there is going to be hell to pay.

I don’t need this shit.

Buy a Harley. They’ll let you park that in the space.

And…you have a secretary and authorize payments to people and you are driving around on a podunk scooter?

And…the connection between you being authorized to pay them and parking escapes me.
“They won’t let me park there even though I have a mole on my butt!”

[quote=“stragbasher”]I have a feeling they have just deactivated my garage door key. It’s one of those infrared things, and I just sat outside futilely pressing the bloody button until someone else happened to leave and the door opened. Could be just my paranoia, but if they have acted pre-emptively, when I have asked them to come and sit down and explain their problem, there is going to be hell to pay.

I don’t need this shit.[/quote]

It could be, but I doubt that all the garage door openers have a personal code. That usually happens with magnetic keys. The controller could have gotten wet or have a low battery, it used to happen to me all the time. We used to have free spaces for motorbikes in our basement.

I’m driving around on a mini-Harley (OK, it’s a kymco.) which is as big as I need in the city, and a sight more convenient than any car. I’ll drive whatever I like, and no fucking clerk (or escaped lupus) is going to tell me otherwise.

The point about the payment is that they are not paid by me to make my life difficult. They are paid to provide a service to me. If their idea of service is to tell me that I should drive around every morning in search of a space, and rent my space out to someone else, then we have a serious difference of opinion.

Incidentally, the rules have just arrived. The relevant one is nice and ambiguous and tells me that I am only allowed to park one car in the space. At least, that’s how it was translated to me. Anybody have a different opinion?

每一约定专用停车位,以停放汽车乙辆为限.

I would interpret that as meaning that I can’t try and squeeze car, bike, motos etc for all the staff into a small space because it would inconvenience everyone else around me. Fair enough. But she’s interpreting it, unreasonably in my view, to mean that I can’t park anything at all there except for a car.

I think we’ll have to go and have a chat, to determine whether she (the building manager) wants me to take this further, or whether she would rather just revise her opinion of what the rule means.

i for one am with you stragbasher… this kind of lowbrow, pedantic enforcement of trivial and illogical “rules” is maddening… whilst the “rule” does say that “the agreement states that each parking space may be used to park a maximum of one car” it’s pretty ambiguous… but it does stipulate 汽車 which in the strictest tranlsation does mean car, not bike… regardless, since the agreement is between you and managment, any rights to park anything at all in said spot, as limited by small minded mini-beurocrats as they may be, are yours and yours alone…

not sure why the original was in simplified chinese, but here it is in traditional…
每一約定專用停車位,以停放汽車乙輛為限

As I understand it: Strictly speaking it says you can only park one car, not two, three etc. there. It does not say it’s ONLY for cars. I would argue that a bike does not violate the MAXIMUM since it’s smaller than a car.

Good luck!

I don’t do chinese so someone who wasn’t familiar with the system typed it in for me. The original was in traditional chinese, and I’m surprised that it somehow got simplified. Whatever.

If it says ‘a maximum of one car’ then one motorbike is less than the maximum, right?

One of the girls went down to the building manager’s cave in the basement, for a long chat. She explained that her psycho boss is going crazy about this and is ready to take it to court if necessary. (ie stop paying the management fee on the grounds that I’m not getting the service I pay for, and make a serious issue of something that is best never mentioned again.)

To avoid a confrontation the matter is now being passed up the chain of command. In the meantime I am ‘allowed’ to keep using my space. I don’t know if the issue is the building manager getting too big for her boots, or her boss putting her in a difficult situation.)

We got an admission that I’m not legally obliged to only park a car here, but that ‘this is the way we do things’. The reasons given have to do with my safety(grrr!), people copying me and getting hurt, and basically me not conforming to their view of what kind of vehicle or behaviour is suitable. It makes the place look bad, and sets a dangerous precedent. One of the examples given as justification was of foreigners going swimming in the sea, and Taiwanese drowning while trying to emulate them.

She also, and this really pissed me off, said that if she has to park in the street then why couldn’t I? I think it’s worth making the point that they’re causing me to lose face by treating me like I’m a fucking peasant.

Want to guess that the next step will be for them to contact my employers and ask them to make me see ‘reason’? That’ll be fun to deal with. Mr Stragbasher’s getting really bloody snarly, and is ready to start ripping new arseholes for anyone straying within range.

The sales manager here is jumping up and down saying “let me do it, please, please, lemme, can I, can I?”

Be careful. Venting at people works sometimes as a traveler in China, but it can lead you down the road to long-term bad blood here as a semi-permanent resident.

Wrong. I completely sympathize with you… however, “maximum” refers to “one”… not to “car”. The agreement stipulates explicitly that the thing to be parked is a “car”. The attorneys at my office all scratched their heads and decided that management can interpret the stipulation as they please, within reason. They can point to the wording of the agreement, and to the custom and economics (of space) of using parking spaces for cars only.

Sorry. It is stupid.

But its not really a legal issue. And given the wording of the agreement and local custom, the management is entitled to insist that only cars park in the space. But, who knows, maybe they’ll let you slide.

She’s feeling uncomfortable getting in this, when in fact, she thinks you’re being unreasonable.

Good luck. Sound advice from Wolf above.

[quote]She’s feeling uncomfortable getting in this, when in fact, she thinks you’re being unreasonable.
[/quote]

I’m sure she is, and thinks I am. On the other hand, I think she’s/they’re being unreasonable in trying to dictate what kind of vehicle I drive. It comes down to “Is it reasonable to insist that someone who pays for a parking space, and pays you, only park a car in that space when it makes fuck all real difference to you or anyone else?”

And if pissing people off unnecessarily creates situations that make you uncomfortable then the lesson is clear. Don’t piss people off unnecessarily. This issue is a completely pointless waste of everyone’s time and the best way to avoid any further discomfort is to let the matter drop.

Wolf, I agree with you completely. I vent here at Forumosa, let my frustrations show while discussing this in the office, and have done my damnedest to avoid getting into it face-to-face myself. Like I said, I sent one of the girls down to have a reasonable discussion and I think (OK, hope) ‘they’ now understand the problem from my perspective. Whether or not they’re sympathetic or not is a different matter, but I don’t think I can make them be sympathetic by provoking a confrontation. I’m trying to avoid a confrontation, but I’m sticking to my guns on this.

I met the building manager on the stairs this morning, and she was pleasant and cheery enough to my face. I have no idea what was going on behind the smile, but I’m an eternal optimist and try to take people at face value. I’m trying to present this as me being annoyed about a stupid rule, rather than being annoyed at her for just doing her job. Hopefully by letting her kick the problem up the ladder (or pretend to, but actually just let it drop) we can maintain a decent enough relationship here.

If not, then we do have a mess on our hands. [quote]the custom and economics (of space) of using parking spaces for cars only.[/quote]If they want to argue that I should pay for a space and leave it empty then the ‘economics of space’ are absurd and unacceptable. And I’m afraid that where I come from it’s customary for the person who pays for something to do what the hell he pleases with it as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else.

The bottom line is “What are you going to do if I continue to exercise my right as I see it?” What can they do? Have it towed? Trash it? Have me evicted from the building? These are all serious steps for people that are supposed to be looking after the tenants. I’ll be recording that conversation if it happens, but hope that it can be avoided.

What I’m looking for is some way to make them just accept that I’m going to park in my parking space, without anyone having to get nasty. There needs to be a compelling reason for them to change their interpretation of the rules, and I am aware that having some uncouth hairy foreigner yelling at them in English is not going to do the trick.

Heelllppp!!

Yet.

If my bike gets towed or damaged, or if I stop paying the management fee, then it’s either fisticuffs or court. I would rather avoid any of that crap and be able to just get on with my job without having to think about this ever again.