reposting my favorite own experience (previously posted on the SDMB) Toilet Dessert
Since then, the dude outdid himself. I and another coworker saw him eating a big sloppy italian sub (Jimmy John’s, maybe?) while at the urinal.
I don’t understand my coworker’s parking habits.
I work on a college campus and of course parking is tight. There are precious few official parking lots anywhere within a mile, so most (including me) just park on the street rather than paying for an inconvenient parking permit. Of course street parking isn’t straightforward. Within a few blocks of campus, street parking has a vigorously enforced two or three hour time limit. A few more blocks away and it’s no parking 8-10 am, probably meant specifically to discourage employees and students. But just a few more blocks away there are residential areas with no restrictions on parking. This is where I park – about a 10 minute walk from my lab.
But most campus employees think that’s too far, so in the morning they park on the nearby 2-hour limit streets. And then they all run out to re-park their cars once more street parking opens up at 10 am.
So to avoid 20 minutes of walking… they instead park nearby, walk 3 minutes to their building, drop whatever they’re doing at 9:40, walk 3 minutes back to the car, drive for 5-10 minutes to find a good spot (in heavy traffic because so many people do the same), sit with the car idling for 10 minutes (because the close-by spots are claimed well before 10 am), and then finally walk 5 minutes’ back to work. And then at the end of the day they leave and walk 5 minutes back to the car.
Which works out to half an hour wasted every morning to save a few blocks’ walk. I don’t have a clue why – many of the car shufflers are 20-something able-bodied grad students.
I had a ‘Really?!?!?!’ moment at my wedding when a stunned bitch showed up wearing sweatpants and Uggs with an uninvited tag-along guest and then got in a snit because she didn’t like the table I was going to put her and her uninvited guest at.
“REALLY?!?!?”
One bus route I use to go to work makes a figure eight for a section of the route. It covers a few office buildings and is pretty much the “clean up” route convenient to many buildings. A lady gets on the bus approximately at the intersection of the figure eight. We travel approximately four miles and the bus returns to the intersection. She gets off about 50 feet away from where she got on, but on the cross street. 
The bus was stopped at the red light, so we sat there for a bit. THEN I watched as she crossed the street to get to the bus stop directly across the street from where she originally got on the bus.
The only other thing I can figure out is that she knew the bus number, but not which side of the street to go in her direction. She might have gotten on at the wrong spot, so the bus was going the wrong way. Or she was just loopy.
I get really confused by people who just stand on moving walkways in airports. If you WALK on the moving WALKWAY, it saves you time. If you stand there, yes, you don’t have to exert yourself, but it will also take you 10 minutes to travel 100 feet and you will be passed by little old ladies in wheelchairs and people crawling on hands and knees pushing their luggage with their nose. That is how slow those things move.
A more positive what the fuck moment:
I work part time at a hardware store, and one of the things we have on pallets out front is water softener salt. This little 5’ nothing slip of a 72 year old lady comes in and buys a bag of the pellets, which weighs 40 lbs. As I’m taking the information on her check (drivers license lets me know her age), I ask her “can I help you out to your car with that ma’am”. She says no, and that she can get it. I don’t believe that, but I let her go walk to the pallet out front as I finalize the paperwork for the check.
So I walk outside to help her and tell her “let me get that for you ma’am”. But this 72 year old, 5’ nothing, 105 lb soaking wet, very sweet lady says, in the sweetest way possible, “I can get it”.
And then she flips that bag over her shoulder like it was filled with feathers. WTF?!
I follow her to her car, clueless as to what to do. And then she gives me a dollar tip! I refused it, but she insisted because… quote… “You were a lot of help”
WTF, I didn’t do a damn thing!
I see you’ve driven in boston.
Well, maybe you’ve also been traveling since 6 AM and are just fine with the walkway carrying you. Also maybe you hurt your leg cleaning out a gorilla cage. Also fuck you for your judgment, I stood on the right.
ETA - this was, perhaps obviously, in response to airport moving walkways.
How did you know I was thinking murderous, judgmental thoughts about people who stand in the middle and strew their luggage everywhere as I typed that post? That’s uncanny.
Hey now. I like to park as close as possible at my gym because (a) when I actually make it there I work out like a beast and can barely make it up the stairs from the dressing room, and (b) I’m probably wet (and I live in Denver, so it’s probably chilly). I already resent the 10 handicapped spaces I’ll have to walk past in the freezing weather. I’ve only ever seen ONE vehicle parked there, in all the time I’ve been going to the gym. (Special bonus: in the summertime, in the heat of the day, these are the ONLY spaces that get shade. I actually don’t care about that but there are people who do.)
My WTF moment happened this afternoon. I was the third car in line at a red light and while we were waiting I started messing with a shoe that was rubbing me wrong, while watching the light. Because it was my right shoe, I put the car in park, which of course the guy behind me noticed. As soon as the light turned green he honked at me - the truck in front of me hadn’t moved and I really doubt the car in front of him had time to move either before this guy honked. How about you wait until I can actually go somewhere before you get impatient with my not moving??
Maybe he was honking the first car in line.
Agreed. Good for you for taking the deserved shredding. Many kudos.
Sounds like the three of you need a swift and detailed introduction to the magical and fantastic world of invisible disabilities.
But I have neither the time nor energy so I’ll simply say: you have no way of knowing what challenges people face in walking distances, pushing heavy doors, walking with luggage or other physical activities by looking at them.
And honestly, you are in no way hurt if the bus stops at every stop, if someone else opens an automatic door or if someone stands on a walkway (so long as they’re off to one side) so why does it even ping on your radar?
And that’s MY WTF – people who get all judgmental about things other people do that have zero impact upon their lives.
Two weeks ago one yelled at me that I’m a cunt and the daughter of a whore, after I’d said I wasn’t carrying any money (which by the way happened to be true). My mother turned around, opened her arms wide and said “that’s me!” with a grin that would have scared away a mad clown. We were giggling about it for hours, dude certainly doesn’t have much of a sales technique…
Maybe those people who don’t walk on walkways have as their primary language one in which those moving parts of the hallway are not called WALKway. It would never have occurred to me that they could be called that, or that you might be supposed to walk on them unless you happen to be in a hurry (you know, like in elevators); I rarely see people try to do such a thing, actually. If I’m going to walk, I do it outside that part, as it’s likely to be faster (people outside the “mechanical hallway” normally walk briskly and have luggage they can manage easily, while those on the “mechanical hallway” tend to not merely stand but lounge and often have luggage carts).
(In Spain: elevator, escalera mecánica, mechanical staircase —> walkway, pasillo mecánico, mechanical hallway)
My WTF moment happens all day long. Why does my cube-mate, a 40-some year old woman, feel it necessary to announce, “I have to go potty” every single mother-humpin’ time?!
It’s wrong, it’s annoying, it’s stupid and it’s driving me insane.
I blogged this one a few years back:
http://www.mindrepanda.com/stockholm/people-of-stockholm-your-attention-please-part-3
The relevant part: basically whilst not huge I am tall. I’m 6’2". If there are loads of other seats free, for fuck’s sake sit in those instead of the one right opposite me on the train, because that means I have to pull my legs in in quite an uncomfortable fashion and end up getting off the train with my legs aching.
Another one is at the checkout in a supermarket. Two types of people, firstly those that stand at the furthest point from the register (ie. the end of the belt) whilst their stuff is processed, meaning that no-one can start putting their other stuff down until they have had all their stuff processed. Then there’s the fuckers that are buying one thing, say a packet of cigarettes, and insist on holding them instead of putting them on the belt and then the little divider thing behind it so other people can start putting their stuff down. What the fuck is that all about?
Yesterday afternoon in my office I walked past three people having a meeting – complete with laptops – in the stairway. Really??! You couldn’t find any better place to congregate in a whole 4-story building full of desks and conference rooms and break rooms than in the stairway?
FWIW, I feel safe “ripping people to shreds” no matter where I am or what the medium. I don’t hide behind pseudonyms or use the internet as a security blanket.