In what circumstances will you knowingly inconvenience others for your own reasons?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I can understand why some people are chronically late. What I don’t understand is people who don’t care about it.

I’m rarely late, but it’s often true that I’m not giving myself as much time as I want. It’s not uncommon for me to plan to leave early for something so I can get gas or pick up a prescription on the way, and then totally forget to build that into my schedule, so I end up missing the errand.

But I have known people who would go ahead and do the errand, even knowing it was going to make them late. That I don’t really understand.

22

I believe you. I didn’t intend you any distress. I’m sure we’ve met on this issue before on these boards. What you experience (and I believe you) is just so vastly different from what I experience, that I find it hard to comprehend. And asing questions - even repeatedly - is the best way I can better comprehend.

As you know, I also tend towards the cynical end of the spectrum such that I believe that at least SOME number of persons who claim they CANNOT do something simply do not care to or never learned how to exert the effort necessary to.

But I fully accept that you experience what you describe. I think what I experience is somewhat milder of what you do. For example, my sister and I often bike, and at ties someone - a driver, pedestrian, other biker - will yell at us that we did something wrong. Mys sister and I then spend the next few miles questioning whether we DID do anything wrong, and what we could have done differently or could do differently in the future. A good portion of the time, we conclude the other person was being unreasonable, and whatever transgression we committed did not merit their yelling.

That is another example that might fit in Eyebrows’ questioning WRT convenience. Sure, I know there is a speed limit. But hanging in the fast lane driving right at the limit - or even 5-10 below - if pretty darned rude and self absorbed IMO.

I tend to hang in the left lane just because I generally wish to go a little faster than the drivers in the slower lanes. But I am NEVER the fastest on the road. I readily pull over for faster drivers coming up behind me. Sometimes I might not see them immediately - sometimes they seem to appear awfully darned quickly. But when I do see them, I gladly move over. Don’t even mind if they flash their lights.

What I dislike is when they try to pass me on the right - which might be challenging if there is much traffic. But by doing so, they make it harder for me to move over and let them by. Adds confusion and potential danger into an already potentially dangerous situation/activity.

23

I’m the kind of idiot who feels like he is late if he gets somewhere just on time. One of my greatest dislikes is if I had something planned, then something else comes up than makes getting to the original thing tighter. Like the other day, I was supposed to be at an orchestra rehearsal at 7. I usually leave home at 6:20 to give myself plenty of time to drive and get set up. But I chipped a tooth and the dentist fit me in at 4:30 - and then things ran late. It really didn’t matter if I was late or even missed the rehearsal. But just sitting there from 4:30 through 6L30, wondering if I was going to make the rehearsal or how late I would be, was quite unpleasant.

24

I wasn’t too distressed. Sorry if that came off harsher than I intended.

I’m just saying people like me exist. In my case I have diagnosed ADHD. There appear to be a lot of us. We don’t all have the exact same problems but we seem to share a universally poor self-concept because some things that come easy to other people do not come easy to us. As an intelligent person who wants to be viewed as intelligent, it sucks, it wears on the self-esteem, and it especially sucks when people assume you did it on purpose. I just have these times where I’m thinking so deeply about something that I don’t perceive the details of my environment very well. I get lost in my own head a lot.

That said, I make great efforts not to repeat the same mistakes. Or other people’s mistakes. So I’ll be mindful of parking in front of garbage cans in the future.

25

In answer to the OP I’ll post this :wink:

Though in my defense my kids aren’t that badly behaved. And here in MD a lot of the breweries are set up specifically for families with kids, with playgrounds, etc

26

I don’t understand what you are saying here.

27

this is exactly what it sounded like to me and what I was trying to say. I just think its different from your headline and what it seemed to me you were trying to describe in the OP (knowingly inconveniencing others). Maybe a distinction without much of a difference but worth pointing out I thought. I think we both agree though that the workers were inconsiderate at best to park there in the first place, and then kind of jerks for not moving it once it became apparent it was inconveniencing the kids.

28

What I’m saying is that there are three schools within walking distance of my house, so these kids don’t need to be driven because it is too far to walk. They are being driven because it’s more convenient for whatever reason.

29

I understand why they do this. Many drivers won’t pull over one lane to let faster drivers by, so they get in the habit of automatically passing on the right when they can. Often they are going so much faster than the car in the fast lane, they have already pulled over to the right to pass before the other driver is aware of them. This is really a case of (the faster driver) inconveniencing others for their own desire to drive at the speed they want as long as possible.

It’s even worse when they behave like this on an urban freeway with frequent splits (e.g. 2 lanes staying as the current freeway, the other 2 lanes splitting into or joining another freeway) where, in my opinion, left lane being the fast lane does not apply. In my city, if I want to take the nearest freeway from the southern part of the city and end up in the northern part of the city, I have to go through two splits like this in the space of maybe 4 miles. In both cases, I want the left split, so I am spending my driving time in the left lanes. There are often other cars who want to go faster than I do (which is generally at speed limit or a little higher if traffic allows) but I’m not moving over so they can do so. In this case, I am hewing to my own interest (safely making the next split in the direction I need to go) over their interest in going faster. (eta: I know this probably sounds tame to people who live in So. Cal. or other freeway-heavy metropolises, but to me it’s typical urban freeway driving basics).

30

If I’m passing several closely spaced vehicles on the Interstate which are traveling in the right lane under the speed limit, and you come roaring up behind me in the passing lane at 90 mph, I’m not going to speed up to 90, regardless of your gesticulating and flashing lights at me.

I don’t exist for the convenience of dickheads.

31

but how is it relevant how close the schools are to your house? How do you know where the kids who are getting rides live and how far it is from their house to their school?

32

I wondered the same thing. My son’s school is in a quiet residential neighborhood within walking distance of many of the homes there. But we live 25 minutes away.

33

Clarification: 25 driving minutes?

34

Yes, driving minutes. It’s kind of hilarious if you look at the public school map. There’s all the neighborhoods around the school and then way the hell north just our little subdivision.

35

Point of Parliamentary procedure: is the movie “Melania” or is it something else?

I liked @susan 's reference to conscientiousness (, though it seems we’re talking here about a narrow segment of it – perfectly fine).

Whether or not it’s a wholly positive trait, I do go out of my way to … go out of my way: help an old lady cross the street, return another’s shopping cart from the shopping center hinterlands, hold a door open, return my neighbor’s trash/recyclable totes after trash day to help them avoid a fine, shovel my neighbors’ walks when I shovel my own, etc.

I think you asked once about a dead animal on the sidewalk – how long would it stay there if the sidewalk were yours. I’ve probably snagged up a half-dozen carcasses from other parts of my neighborhood. I’d see them on a walk with my dog and bring a contractor’s trash bag around next time to collect them. When walking Sam, I also developed a (OCD?) habit of stopping when he stopped, and then kicking stray landscape rocks back from whence they came/to whence they belong.

[Some of them were surely trying to escape difficult circumstances, but … y’know … fuckem’. I’m being my authentic conscientious self]

It definitely translates to my driving and cycling. If I’m cycling by a cyclist apparently engaged in a road/trailside maintenance procedure, I’ll habitually ask, “Ya’ got everything you need?” That seems to elicit more positive responses than “Ya’ need any help?” I engaged Rasmussen and Quinnipiac for polling to help me gain clarity on that one :wink:

I tend to think about this saying (though the ‘conscientious’ thing predates my having heard it by … nearly my entire lifetime):

“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.”

I like to believe that the tiny niceties that I can choose to do can lift another’s spirits in much the same way that the seemingly inconsequential acts of inconsideration or thoughtlessness can detract from another’s day.

I hope I’m not sanctimonious about it. If I’m not (ask my wife and family), then I wish more people had this quality to a greater degree.

36

My point was not that there is one single school within walking distance of my house. There are three. That means they are very close to each other and the other two schools are certainly within walking distance of the one down the block from my house. But just to be clear , I live in a city and there are so many elementary schools that I doubt very much if there is anyone who doesn’t live within walking distance of at least one. There are about 40 elementary schools in my district and around 30 districts in the city.

37

A friend used to say, “If you’ve never missed a flight because you got to the airport too late, you’re spending too much time at the gate”. Not my ethos but hey, you do you. And he was single at the time, which might make a big difference.

38

Though if you don’t have checked baggage that’s really not inconveniencing anyone except yourself.

FWIW I’m with you and never understood that attitude. Though I think an hour spent reading a book at a bar next to the gate is perfectly pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

39

Which means he then has to wait possibly hours at the gate for the next flight. :roll_eyes:

40

In my mother’s case, there was some narcissism, and some OCD, believe it or not. She couldn’t leave anything at the house undone, so we might be late because she had to load the dishwasher, straighten up the family room, take the dog out (even if we wouldn’t be gone long).

It wasn’t that she thought people would wait for her-- it was that she thought being late was her own business. If she missed something, she missed it. That people might have waited a bit, or her coming in late might have been disruptive never crossed her mind.

Some school systems will no longer dismiss a child on their own until high school. My son’s didn’t. He could have walked home from his elementary school, and he wanted to ride his bike, but he wouldn’t be dismissed to do that. He would only be dismissed to his bus, or an authorized pick-up, which was me, his father, or someone his father or I had authorized by filling out and signing a form, and the person’s ID was checked and photocopied.

I started biking in with him, biking home alone, biking back to the school, then home with him. He was 8, and it was his first experience on the city streets, so it was just as well. But he was a big kid with a 24" bike, that I put an orange flag on anyway, and got him a brand new helmet, and put a loud bell and a small rearview mirror on his handlebars, so he could see me if he were in front (I got one too).

We did it every nice day from 3rd to 6th grade, then middle school was much farther away. The elementary school was 5 blocks, but if he walked, he would have to cross one 4-lane street that was very busy, and did not have a crossing guard.

I apparently inconvenienced the “carpool,” which is what a long line of parents waiting to pick up kids is now called, by pulling up to the door on the sidewalk on my bike as soon as pick up started, and not getting in the carpool with my bike-- I was not going to breathe exhaust for 20 minutes for protocol, and there was no walk/bike line. There was a woman who lived across the street from the school, and also came directly to the door.

I think the benefit trade off to me and the boychik was worth inconveniencing carpool. Besides, I always got there just as they opened, and they had him ready to go, first in line.

If I showed up variously, sometimes early, sometimes late, sometimes in the middle, I think they be justified in being grumpy, but I did my best, and the regular teachers, were actually quite nice about it. Any time it was someone different, I got a lecture on “Everyone else uses a car.” One teacher even asked me if I’d lost my license (meaning, had it revoked), or couldn’t get one.

Some people perceive just being different as inconvenient.