That’s of the dumbest analogies I’ve seen on this board.
I would have stayed, made a video of her stuck and screaming like a lunatic, and posted it on YouTube.
Call me cynical, but I also might think it was a ruse of some kind.
Reminds me of this one time I was driving through my neighborhood late one night, and I made a left turn only to see this truck in front of me braking several times, almost like the driver wanted me to rear end him/her. In a split second, a woman jumps out of the passenger side, bangs on my door and says, “Drive, drive!” This all happened so quickly, I’m not sure if I opened the door or if it was unlocked and she opened it. So about 20 seconds I say, “What the hell was going on?” She replies, “He’s crazy, just keep driving.” So I go about half a mile and she says, “This is good, I gotta go,” and hops out.
It’s pretty clear to me that she was escaping an abusive boyfriend, but during that whole time I was scared shitless. What if the guy followed me and tried to bash my head in? What if the girl was hopped up on drugs and tried to take me out? I followed my gut and was lucky, but you never know.
I know of guys who have been beaten up or had their cars stolen in a very similar situation to what I just described. Girl runs to a car seemingly in need of help, then pulls a gun. I don’t think that’s what was planned in my case but you never know.
The situation in the OP was so improbable I think all kinds of warning signals in my head would be going off. She’s probably freaked out, etc. but you never know. If the OP has a family to go home to you have to be very careful of how you proceed in situations like these. Regardless of gender or size, surprise is an equalizer.
It just seems to me someone genuinely seeking out help would not behave this way. If they behave as the OP describes, I would worry about their mental state, or that it was some kind of set up, and if they might do me some harm. I mean, I bet the OP would have tried to pry the window down had she given him the opportunity to get close and figure out what was going on. There’s no way in hell I’d break someone’s window unless the car was on fire or something.
I think I might have moved away to a place where I could observe her, but not too close.
It’s a real shame that the app that would have fixed all this wasn’t one of the ones you’d just downloaded to your IPod.
I wonder what elbow woman took away from all this; that next time it would behoove her to be nicer or, perhaps, that she should scream even louder.
Well, last night for the price of a few (too many) draft beers, a friend answered a bunch of questions re:CYA stuff here. He is my attorney. We are in PA.
He went on at length and I am not a lawyer (and I was, by the end of the evening pretty drunk) so I may get some of this wrong. Basically, I have no criminal concerns in a case like this. The law does not require that I even approach her in this situation. I could have driven off and left her without ever calling the cops and it would not be a criminal act.
Where it might get interesting is civil law. If the way my parking lot is illuminated contributed to her distress, she could sue me. She was not a customer of mine, which helps my situation. However, even in a civil case, I am in good shape insurance-wise. I have an over and above umbrella policy (?) and he told me I shouldn’t sweat it.
He did, however, say that if he fell off his bar-stool and fractured his skull, he’d be seeing me in court.
Well, we only have one side of the story here. Consider that the OP did something he was quasi-chatised about by his GF (at least initially) and then he came here to get our opinions as though seeking a 2nd opinion to validate his course of action. This makes it likely that he has an emotional incentive to present the woman in the worst light possible while presenting himself in the best light. Although I’m not saying he was deliberately lying or anything, I’m not inclined to view his protrayal of the event as the God gospel truth. Bias is a MFer.
Also, it doesn’t sound like he was afraid of her at all. Just pissed off. He was unimpressed by what he perceived was irrational hostility and so he wasn’t willing to do more than the bare minimum for her (in fact, at first he actually contemplated doing nothing at all).
It sounds like both he and the woman were too caught up in their own emotional impulses to react in an manner worth bragging about. If this were a man instead of woman, I don’t think I would have behaved any differently. Calling for help and waiting inside my locked car sounds reasonable in either situation.
Yes, but how would you have been perceived if the worst-case scenario had happened (she was left stranded all night) and it came out that you’d walked away? How well do you think your behavior would have gone over with your colleagues and neighbors? If something bad had happened to her, there’d likely be an investigation and it wouldn’t take a lot of clues to figure out that you were the last person she’d communicated with before her demise.
I think this is the CYA monstro talking about. Breaches of social decorum can be pretty damaging. Lawyers are not the ones to consult with when it comes to ethics.
I have no second thoughts about my ethics in this situation. If I’m happy with how I behaved, my colleagues and neighbors are not a concern.
Then why did you tell us, your girlfriend, and your lawyer friend about this?
If I do something that I have no problem with, I usually don’t find it a big enough deal to talk about it. Especially with multiple people.
Well, it was a (you gotta admit) weird situation. In the evening my gf and I discuss any weird situations that happened over the course of our day.
I posted here curious to see if most people would respond similarly. Just curious.
Some people here mentioned a concern for legal retribution. My lawyer is one of my close friends. We both like beer. When I offered to buy him a few in exchange for some info, he agreed quickly.
(quote: She said she had to use the bathroom and couldn’t wait 30 minutes.)
I’d have stayed just to see if she did it in her panties 
This is what’s most disappointing. It’s one thing to make a hasty decision in a moment of anger or fear.
It’s another thing, having had a few days to think about it and discuss it, to have no second thoughts at all about leaving a panicked, trapped person – regardless of her possible personality defects or the relative merits of her decision-making skills – alone in an isolated area and unashamedly declaring If I do not like someone, my attitude is a solid “fuck you”.
That’s not exactly the kind of outlook I would hope for from any randomly encountered fellow member of a civilized society.
(And I’m someone who had no problem with the rape joke.)
kayaker has a rather impatient and brusque way with those who annoy him.
I get being annoyed at the interviewee but at an employee who had the “nerve” to ask about the interview?
Nor would I expect a member of civilized society to scream and bitch out the only person in a position to help her.
Oh, but she was in a state of panic and using her lizard brain. So she can’t be held responsible for her actions. :dubious: I would hope that, were I ever in a similar situation, I would greet the sight of a potential rescuer with gratitude and relief, no matter how much I might think they should have shown up sooner.
I don’t know. The OP could have done more, perhaps, but I’m hard-pressed to say he did wrong. Providing full and empathetic support in the face of abuse is saintly, not human, and while I aspire to that in myself I expect it of nobody.
And it’s only saintly at best; at worst it’s downright patronizing. I can be patient with a frightened and hurt animal who attacks humans trying to help it, because animals aren’t expected to know any better. The “lizard brain” excuses given in this thread suggest to me that folks think the OP should have been patient with the woman because she couldn’t be expected to know any better. I ascribe more sense to even the dumbest (non-mentally-retarded) humans.
I cannot tell you how it gladdens my heart to know that I am surrounded by so many people that would know exactly how to react with compassion, levelheadedness and above all good taste in this situation. Truly I am in awe.
To be honest, I am not sure that I would have stayed. I would like to think that I would. I would like to think that I would have ignored what the crazy lady was asking for and called the mechanic around the corner that would resolve the situation more quickly. I would like to think that while we were waiting I would try to talk to her and calm her down and do all of that nice global village crap.
But I don’t know. I have a very deep contempt for people that ask for help and then try to dictate the terms of the help. I also tend to view people that panic like she was in an unfavorable light. So I don’t know. I have to face up to the possibility that I might have told her that help was on the way, she was for sure in a better position than she was before I came along and that she should really stop being such a bitch.
Yep. She did annoy me and I did not like her attitude. I would not hire her, as I have said I minimize the time I spend with people I do not like. Should I have wasted her time interviewing her when I knew I would not hire her?
The employee was nervous about asking because of the way the interview went. It was very short. The interviewee walked out, then I walked out and went home. The employee remains an employee/friend.
On an unrelated note (which will no doubt cause a hijack by the perpetually offended and just around here), would I be wrong to assume that this was a middle to upper middle class white woman of a certain age? Perhaps driving a luxury or semi-luxury car?
Muldoonthief’s link clears up a lot and really shows that Kayaker doesn’t merit the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Oh, so it’s tit-for-tat then?
He wasn’t abused and it doesn’t require saintliness. He was not harmed in any way. Saints endure personal deprivation, torture, and death. No one asked that of him.
Then you have little experience of people in distress.
My last criticism was for his current state of mind, not for his in-the-heat-of-the-moment decision.
So anyone needing help deserves help only if they have a very specific way of going about it?
Someone said it before – you don’t have to like someone to help.
I wasn’t thinking legal retribution, but more like “How could this affect my personal and business life?”
This is your business, correct? Would you really want your name, and that of your business, on the 6:00 News over some kind of mess like this?
“This just in…a young woman was found dead this morning in the parking lot of kayaker’s business. Police are not providing specifics about the cause of death at this time…only saying that it appears the woman’s arm was trapped by a passenger-side window in what appears to be a freak accident. The owner of the business has been identified as a Mr. kayaker, who allegedly last saw the deceased struggling in his parking lot around 6:00 pm last evening. Records show that Mr. kayaker did call the police, but that follow-up calls for precise instructions to the location were not answered. Authorities are questioning Mr. kayaker right now for more details and have cordoned off the area. Stay tuned to learn more about this bizarre and very tragic story.”
Yeah, I’d really like to come home to see that on my TV.