There was a woman in my grocery store a few weeks ago at self check out with two little boys, MAYBE ages 2 and 3. The little boys were running back and forth, scanning items them running back and scanning them again. The lady was literally in tears. Seriously, was it worth the “joy” of letting little Hunter and Connor “help” in the grocery store when you end up having a nervous breakdown about it? I’ve had plenty of tearful moments with my 5-year old which is why I never use self-checkout with him around. Too much temptation for him and I can’t properly watch my small child while I’m scanning groceries.
Well. Here’s what I think.
If you’re in a situation where there is a line of people behind you waiting for you to finish whatever you are doing, as in the example of the ATM which started this thread, then you certainly should not dawdle, but do your business in an efficient, businesslike way.
However, that doesn’t mean you need to move faster than you are physically or mentally capable. I know when I’m rushed I make mistakes, and the task ends up taking even longer.
By all means… if it’s not busy, I don’t see the harm either. If there’s an open terminal, I’m not going to be waiting behind you anyways. But to the brainless masses who don’t grasp the concept of common courtesy… I will say something, in the (fruitless?) hope that maybe it’ll make 'em think next time.
If I have to wait for them, due directly to their obnoxiousness, then I have all the time I need to let them know that I don’t appreciate rudeness.
Oh, it would be so wonderful if the airlines could print that up on a laminated card, hand it to the clueless and ask them to read it while they step to the side…
I don’t know how to break this to you, but most people’s deadlines are not self-imposed–they’re imposed by others because we’re not important. I mean, really, if I were all that important, I could show up to work or appointments or whatever as late as I damn well pleased and everybody would just have to suck it if they didn’t like waiting for me. But I’m not important, which means I don’t get to set my own schedule; if I’m late for work/appointments/whatever because you’re driving 15 miles under the limit on a road with no place to pass or are trying to pay a bill with a live goat and get your change in chickens or whatever, there are going to be unpleasant consequences for me.
And yeah, I like smelling the roses, they’re part of what makes life worth living. I got plenty of roses…at home, where I can’t be because I’m standing in line or sitting in traffic because Pokey Snailswoth-McTurtleson can’t or won’t get his goddamn shit together and get on with it already.
Oh, they’d step to the side, all right–about six inches, while leaving their luggage square in the space the next person needs to step into.
I’m a grandmother now, but back when my children were in day care, we had to pay fines for being late in picking up our children. I was living on a strict budget, and one or two fines could wreck my life. Seriously.
I took the bus to the subway and the subway to work and if someone held the train doors open to allow dawdlers to get on (the nice:dubious: person), I might be stuck paying a fine that day. If people blocked the subway entrance holding a conversation (smelling the roses) I might be stuck paying a fine that day. If the car in front of the bus drove too slowly, the bus might get stuck at a couple of long traffic lights and I might get stuck paying a fine that day.
Even if there were no fines, I never wanted my children to be the last at school to go home.
Later, as my mother was failing, I had to rush home from work to relieve the person I paid to sit with her during the day. My helper had a family and needed to get home and I couldn’t afford the time and a half for overtime.
Because some of you might not have these types of committments and responsibilities you may not understand the need to rush. Please stop lecturing those who do.
And you aren’t half as good at dispensing sage advice as you seem to think you are.
This thread makes me curious. Other than withdrawing money and depositing money, what is there you can do at an ATM that you can’t do online?
People who are really timed to the minute are always going to feel stressed, and never going to stop finding themselves made late, even if everybody around them (improbably enough) is making their best possible efforts to be simply and courteously efficient.
In most circumstances, I am much more conscious of being in anyone’s way than seems typical, and I am not the one who is holding y’all up at the ATM or the subway doors or any number of other places that people gripe about being held up.
But I will say this: if you are always late, or risking lateness, or feeling stressed about risking lateness–it’s you. Not everybody else. You made the life that is requiring you to live this way.
No, actually, I don’t think people choose to be poor, or have ill family members, or some of the things that make lateness have terrible consequences. People freak out about being late because in a lot of cases it costs money, or inconvenience at the least, and some people don’t have a lot of money to spare.
Ironically, the ability to be consistently on time gets easier the more money you throw at it-- I get to work on time because I sleep well on clean sheets in a cool quiet house, wake up to my trusty alarm clock, and drive there in my reliable pickup. Someone who has a mattress on the floor and an overtaxed window A/C blaring may have trouble getting up in enough time to limp their jalopy to work. And yet if both of us oversleep and we’re half an hour late, and pay gets docked? I’ll be more embarrassed about being late and letting my boss down than I’ll feel anxious about losing the money, but that half-hour’s pay to someone else may mean the day’s groceries or part of the gas budget-- the person who can least afford to be late is the most likely to be late because of their circumstances.
You’d be amazed how many people A) Don’t have internet access, B) Can’t use their internet access for anything more complicated that Facebook and E-mail (and that’s because their kids set the accounts up for them and walked them through it in step-by-step detail) or C) Don’t trust the security on online banking.
Since I got my new job, I’ve only been late once and that’s because there was a massive fire in the subway system and thousands of people were held up.
Otherwise, even though I don’t have to, I leave at a time such that I’m generally at work by 9:00, 9:05, even though I don’t have to be there until 9:30. I do this so I (a) can enjoy my coffee/breakfast and not feel stressed starting my workday; and (b) can stop off at the bank (yes the ATM) or do an errand before going in to work if I want to and be on time but still not have to rush.
Just because I have this cushion of time didn’t mean I want it squandered by people who’ve decided I should slow down and smell the roses. I move at a brisk pace most of the time and will go around people if I have to. Most of the people with problems are talking about those who do things in a way that needlessly affect other people, or who aren’t aware enough of their surroundings and other people to impinge on their movements and that is what their legitimate issues is with them.
Maybe this is what those people are doing?
AHA! Well, now we know.