Besides the War, Bush and Religion, perhaps nothing gets people as riled up as those threads about slow drivers and “bumbling pedestrians”. Nothing seems to excite as much anger and spitting fury as people who either drive too slowly, walk too slowly, or who just seem to get in the way. Now I’d certainly agree that anyone causing a hazard deserves a pitting, be they reckless drivers or oblivious pedestrians, but there also seems to be a hell of a lot of impatience too. Some people seem to feel that they have a god-given right to drive as fast as they like or to curse out anyone who slows them down even a little. It’s this “Get the FUCK out of my way” attitude that I have a problem with.
In some of the pedestrian threads I’ve seen, some posters have even gone so far as to say things like “I’m going that way. If you can see that I’m going that way and you don’t get out of my way, I’m going to push you out of the way. And I can do it too, because I’m a big guy and if you have a problem with that then you can go fuck yourself.”
Am I the only one that has a problem with this? Unless your wife is in labour or you’re bleeding to death and racing to the ER, why are you in such a perpetual rush? Instead of fuming and cursing the people who haplessly slow you down or dare to get in your way, how about relaxing for a while and realising that even taking an extra 30 seconds to get where you’re headed isn’t going to ruin your day (and nor should you let it). If someone is blocking you, saying “excuse me” works wonders. Repeat if necessary. If someone really is being too slow and you have to overtake them, just wait for the first opportunity and do so without running them off the road or barging them out of the way or telling them to go fuck themselves.
Take deep breaths, people. A bit of patience and common courtesy will make everybody’s lives easier and less stressful, including your own
What bothers me is the obliviousness of some people - they just don’t pay attention to what people around them are doing. I try to be vigilant, so that I don’t impede people unnecessarily. That’s all I really ask of anyone else…
You are. No, probably not, probably others will come to support you. But I take my leisure time when I feel like it, not at your provenance. (I think that’s the right word. If not, sue me.) Anyway, I absolutely despise people who stop to talk in the middle of a aisle, or hallway, never realizing people are trying to get by. Or block up the road.
Excuse me does not always work, and that’s crap and you know it. Sometimes it works, and the person says “Oh sorry!” and moves their cart or whatever. Sometimes they don’t hear you, or ignore you, or worse yet, shoot you a nasty look.
What my point is, is why do I have to interrupt you to say excuse me? Why can’t you (generic you) be considerate in the first place, and be aware of your surroundings. Sometimes i want to yell OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EYES! You’re in the only path, blocking up the whole aisle, whatever.
When I go to the grocery store I am careful to move my cart off to the side when I stop it. I drive in the right lane except for passing. When I stop to talk I gently draw whomever I am talking to out of the lane. This happens about 90% of the time. Sometimes I forget, and I am always careful to apologize.
Why can’t other people be aware of their surroundings? Why do I have to make accomodations for them?
Nope. I think there’s too much hostility for too many things. I think that people’s senses of entitlement are far over the top and their demands to have their ‘rights’ (which extend to everything these days, quite unlike what the authors of the idea of rights had in mind) respected even if that means steamrolling over others’ rights.
A lot of people have just become far too aggressive. It’s not a good thing.
No, you’re not, but keep in mind that a lot of people who say stuff like what you mentioned in your second paragraph are just blowing off steam.
I try to be patient, and I’m pretty good with slow pokes. The only ones that’ll make me blow my top are the ones who are just plain rude. You say “excuse me,” and they just look at you. You try again, and they ignore you. That, more than anything, would make me more likely to push someone out of the way or yell at them.
The other night I was trying to exit a pizzeria and was blocked by a bunch of people coming in. Which is to be expected, but man oh man were they ever taking their sweet time about it. But I stood there patiently. When they were finally all in I once again attemted egress. But there were about seven other people standing outside the door. Really close to the door. So close I could barely open it. When I finally managed to squeeze my way through, my path was blocked by The Young and the Clueless. I asked the subgenius blocking me to excuse me. Four times. The last one was shouted almost directly into his ear.
You’re not making an accomodation for them, you’re politely letting them know that you’re there and that you need to get past them. Yes, in an ideal world, people wouldn’t be too engrossed in conversations to notice that they’re in your way, but these things happen. Saying “excuse me” only takes a second and I’d guess that 99% of the time people will get out of the way if they hear you.
There might be the odd jerk who hears you and continues to ignore you, but that’s an altogether different level of jerkishness. Such people may very well feel that *they * shouldn’t have to make allowances for you. I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what was running through their minds.
I guess my point is that the amount of rage engendered by these all-too common encounters is entirely disproportionate to the inconvenience actually caused.
And kudos to you for not losing your temper and swearing at him or pushing him out of the way. That kind of self-posession and patience is exactly what’s needed. You undoubtedly got where you were going at a loss of maybe 20-30 seconds and nobody’s day was ruined.
More and more people seem to act like they are The Only Person in the World. We must accommodate them, wait for them to move out the aisle in the grocery store, or out of the doorway.
A sub-group of this is the people that fail to realize that walking works SO MUCH better when you are actually using the eyes in your head to look where the holy fuck you are going!!!
These are the ones that, from a standing start, take their first couple steps either backwards, or looking in a totally different direction.
They get the death ray, and I never have to see them again.
While driving in a city, most people are in a hurry to get to…wait at the next red light. And to accelerate just to get to the next red light faster not only unnecessarily wears down your engine, but your brakes as wear. On the sidewalk, however, I can see where someone might be late for work or something, and a group of three or four people are walking side-by-side—completely blocking the way–at an unusually slow pace. It’s annoying because they’re just so completely oblivious to other people.
If there’s no reasonable expectation that they should get out of my way — e.g., we’re in a queue to buy movie tickets and the folks in front of me can’t proceed until the folks in front of them are done, etc — no impatience (at least not with the folks in front of me) and no hostility.
If the people in question are impaired or incapacitated, and/or there are simply too many people in too small a space to be able to get out of my way, again no impatience and no hostility.
If, on the other hand, people are plodding their bovine stoopid slow-moving selves directly into my path despite me being in plain sight and in motion, or occupying an inappropriate bit of real estate for a nearly-motionless person to occupy (like smack dab in the middle of the stairs or one foot inside the train doors), yes, they piss me off to no end, it’s selfish and inconsiderate of them. They have the right to stand still or move slowly; they bloody well don’t have the right to be obstacles and interfere with other folks’ freedom of motion.
I tend to agree more with Anaamika than Book Monster on this one, but largely because Book Monster is describing a large range of interactions that make it hard for me to figure out who I should be mad at. Should I be mad at the hyper, eye-bulging rage fueled driver riding on my ass? Sure, I can get behind that.
But I can’t stand being held up because someone else wants to dawdle, particularly people who are oblivious of others and decide to have a big conversation right in the main entryway or aisle. I know it isn’t hard to have a bit of common courtesy and steer your group to the side, because I regularly do it myself.
(An associated phenomenon that we’ve discussed here previously are the three-abreast women who can’t be bothered to re-orient their cohort as they wander down the sidewalk, so that others can negotiate around them.)
Also, having just traveled again recently, I have to shout out a little reminder: When on a moving walkway, attend to the goddamn signs - walk on the left, stand on the right. As an addendum, if you’re standing on the right, fine, but get your shit out of the way.
I have to say that I experience a great deal more inconsiderate dawdlers, gawkers and gabbers than I do eye-bulging angry bustlers, so perhaps that has something to do with my feeling inclined against the OP.
I just don’t like rude people in general, whether they are blocking the sidewalk or shouting at people to move the fuck out of the way. Both piss me off. But like Hentor says, I see a lot more of the former than the latter. On campus, people are generally moving pretty quickly so there’s not much of a problem, but downtown, I really just want to punch those tourists who find it necessary to walk five abreast at a snail’s pace. Or people who abruptly stop in the middle of the sidewalk. You wouldn’t do that while driving a car. Just step to the side if you need to take the time to be confused.
