I work at a sports stadium. I usually get there much earlier than the crowds to set up and such. But for reasons I was arriving at the same time as the crowds. Employee parking is hidden behind the VIP section.

There's a cop up ahead who's not usually there. Usually it's just a parking staff guy in a lawn chair. Anyway this cop is waving all the porches and BMWs through and he stops me in my beater of a car and says to me "Can I help you, buddy". I'm a grown ass man, but I admit I look young. Those kinds of small comments always rub me the wrong way though.

I start to tell him I'm trying to turn this way into the VIP parking and he interrupts me and firmly declares that I can't park there and that I have to turn around and leave. I thought it was weird that he didn't ask me for a pass. Just a straight up no.

I start explaining the whole employee parking situation and he interrupts again tells me there's no need to get worked up. That's the point where my mood actually did change, after he said that. Anyway he now asks to see my pass, which has been displayed on my vehicle dashboard this whole time. He looks at it pretending like he's aware of what the various passes are, pretending like he knows what the fuck he's doing. Pretending his post isn't redundant even though the actual parking staff are 10 feet behind him at the actual entrance to the VIP lot.

It's not a big deal, but it ruined my mood for that night. I thought about everything I could've done to make that interaction go smoother, but every change would have required me to know the future.