I’ve noticed that I say “Excuse me” or “I’m sorry” a lot when I’m out shopping, but I never hear it back from any of the people who constantly block my way. What’s worse, recently while patiently waiting for a gaggle of slack jawed teens to move along so I could get into the aisle they were blocking, the loud mouthed moron who seemed to be their leader decided I was “checking out his girl”. He then proceeded to make a huge scene as the whole gang exited the store, carrying on that I was “a lesbo bitch looking at you, she was ****ing looking at you. Stupid ****ing scrag, she shouldn’t have been looking at you!”
I believe this was a new low in bad manners.
I said and did nothing as they left. To be so paranoid, loud and out of touch with reality, he had to be either high or psycho (or both) and either way I don’t care enough about his opinion of me to challenge it. It still shocked me that someone would think the only reason a shopping would look at you when you were taking up an entire aisle was because they were checking you out. Freak.
Ack! I just had an ‘excuse me’ situation that really pisssd me off.
I was in Wal-Mart buying some food. Soup to be exact. I was going down the soup aisle and picked up some stuff. I was near the end of the aisle. While I was getting my stuff this woman bumped into me. Not sure why she did that as I make it a point to leave as much room as possible for other people in the aisle. Anyway, I got my stuff and pu it in my cart. I start to go towards the end of the aisle and the woman who bumped into me has her cart turned so it is blocking the whole aisle while she was picking out some stuff. I said:
“Excuse me”. No response.
“Excuse me.” No response.
“Excuse me.” The woman turned her head and looked at me and went back to picking out what she wanted.
“Excuse me.” Once again no response except a head turn.
“Excuse me! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!”
She got out of the way.
What annoys me the most is that she heard me, knew she was blocking the aisle and the simple act of straightening her cart out seemed to be too hard for the woman.
I hate it when people are clearly in the way of your path. They see you coming down the hall but they remain were they are with one on the left and one on the right blocking the hall and you are forced to interrupt there “what I got for Christmas conversation” by stating “Excuse me” as you squeeze pass between them to continue on your destination.
And, just yesterday I was walking up to enter a building and there were 3 people standing in front of the door in what must have been some deep conversation as they acted as though they did not see me approaching. I guess the eye contact I made with two of them must have been my imagination because as I got closer they still remained in the doorway and I was forced to state “Excuse me” so I would not walk smack dab into them. WTF? GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!
I am not sure which is worse. People that move right in front of you without stating “Excuse me or Pardon me” or the ones that block your movement even though they can clearly see they are in your way and I am forced to state “Excuse me” just so they will fucking move.
(Bolding mine). You’re just as much an asshole. Either say “excuse me” and put the CDs back where they came from or better yet take them over to the manager of the store and explain why you’re not putting them back. Putting them on the floor like a 3 year old having a tantrum really doesn’t solve the problem any more than another employee “accidentally” running into you for showing disregard for their store’s merchandise.
Oh I feel your pain, but if that had been me, after the third “excuse me” I would have taken my cart (if I had one) and slammed it into hers to move it or I would have simply pushed the cart. The key is though, like your response, I would have also made sure she knew. I would have pushed the damn thing hard and made a nasty comment to her as I was moving past.
Wal-Mart seems to be the worst with rude people (big surprise there, hence why I never shop there). One of the millions of new ones popping up all over the country had opened last Christmas. I was looking for a balloon helium tank and there wasn’t a party store anywhere nearby, so I thought I’d run in to Wal-Mart and grab one real quick.
Big mistake!
There were idiots everywhere. But the kicker was, as I was heading down a main aisle, some kid came out of one of the minor ailses RIDING A BIKE. And his parents were right there! And they didn’t say ONE word after their kid nearly ran me over. But the parents did get some choice words from me.
Now, my rule of thumb with stores is follow traffic rules as if you were in your car. The people in the minor aisles should stop at an intersection with the main ones (kinda like a residential street onto a 5 lane street or even a highway), wait for an opening and then go. I think that is the only fair thing to do, but people have no problem walking out in front of people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a “collision” with shopping carts because of these rude sons-of-bitches.
And then the people who bring their kids to ANY store. I don’t have a problem with that, but if you’re not going to be a parent, don’t bring them. If you can’t keep your child from running and being mouthy to strangers, you need to leave your brats at home. If you wanna raise kids like that, don’t punish me and everyone else. At the grocery store a few months ago, the next ailse over there were two kids under the age of 6 in a “screaming contest” to see who could yell “DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!” the shrillest. And the dad was standing right next to them and barely told them to stop after 5 minutes of this crap.
Sorry this went on forever. I just really hate shopping. If I have to, I’ll go during obscure hours so I don’t have to deal with this. I have a short temper with rude people and unfortunately, it seems they are the majority anymore. So sad.
I seem to get good results in situations like this by being extra polite and extra specific, as if the person is a child who needs to be told how to behave:
“Excuse me, would you mind moving your cart to one side so that I can get through to the end of the aisle, please?”
If that gets no response, then I feel justified in simply moving the damned thing myself, without comment.
I did the right thing because if I had put them anywhere else (in a bin, in a different section) it would have been a long time before a staff member could find them and put them in the right place and maybe a customer who really wanted them would have been disappointed. A three year old would not have put them down, she would have thrown them or put them back somewhere random.
Also, there is something important about why I did not waste my time going to a manager and complaining and that’s because I did not feel like helping them improve their service because I don’t think I’m going to go back there ever again. I don’t CARE if they don’t ever figure out why! I’m not going to be all co-dependent and try to fix everyone. It’s their problem and I have other things to do.
Trust me, HMV doesn’t suck because I failed to do some civic duty in educating them, and their cds would have gone back in the spot they’d come fromm minus the one I would have bought, if they hadn’t physically stopped me from doing so.
Hmm, you could’ve put them down at the counter of the store as you huffed out of there. You could’ve handed them off to the employee that was standing there as well. So many other mature options.
OK, so you’re writing off a store completely because one employee didn’t say excuse me. That employee represents ALL of HMV. Every single employee at every single HMV store acts just like that person. If it’s that big a thorn in your side that you start a pit thread, a simple complaint to a manager might have changed the problem. Sorry if you think that you’re above all of that and that you’re not out “to be all co-dependent and try to fix everyone”. (By the way, codependent? WTF? What does that have to do with anything except be a catch word? :rolleyes: ) I’m not saying you should go out and fix every problem, but since there could have beena quick fix to something that pissed you off enough to just put products on the floor and swear off a whole chain of stores for 5 seconds of an employees activities, why not take ten seconds and complain to someone that could change it?
Oh, get off the cross. No one physically stopped you from doing so. Unless of course you left that part out of the story. You could have said “excuse me” to put the CDs back. It IS fucking simple to say that, don’t ya think?
It means when you think you have some responsibility for other people treating you badly, and that you have to do things perfectly or else you deserve to be treated however the other person decides.
Anyway, I am not pitting HMV so much as everyone everywhere who does not say excuse me.
Also I didn’t huff, I kept calm on the outside. I’m telling you, HMV can put away it’s own shit. I could have butted in front of him and given a sarcastic “excuse me” to make a point but I don’t want to be that type of didactic person who makes a federal case. To me, the best option is to stop, put down what you are doing and walk away.
I know that you would have done something different and “mature” but frankly, I don’t like your style or want to be like you at all.
No, your actions are called passive aggressive. If you can’t remain polite enough to say “pardon me” and put the CDs back, or talk to a manager about an employee’s poor manners, maybe you shouldn’t be interacting with people in public.
Oh, that happened to me once in middle school. Two girls standing in the doorway of my classroom, blocking it completely.
“Excuse me…Excuse me…EXCUSE ME!”
“Well! Excuse YOU!”
Then, of course, guess who got spoken to by the teacher for being rude. :rolleyes:
Also, in an office where I used to work, there was this one clown who almost always responded to “Excuse me” with “Why? What did you do? Belch? Fart?”. :wally
Generally, I say “Skoos ee.”* My mom says, “Pardonnez moi”. Mr. Rilch says “Crossing.”** For some reason, these almost always get favorable results.
*That’s what Tigger said, after sampling Piglet’s haycorns, and before going outside to jettison the mouthful.
**Lighting crew term. It’s what you say any time you’re going to walk between a light and the subject, or the camera and the subject.
Oh, yeah. On the C-train years ago, I’m standing there and a number of college level students get on. The train is crowded and one asshat leaves his huge backpack on. Now I sympathize in that it looks to be a pig to get off, but it is bashing into me whenever he gets animated talking with his buddies.
Me: “Excuse me”
Him: no response <continual bashing with bag from him>
Me: <slight push on bag to partially turn him around so he can see me> “Excuse me, but could you please take off the bag and put it on the floor so that it doesn’t keep hitting people?”
Him: “Fuck you”
Me: <Me taking ahold of the strap on his backpack to turn him around and partially lifting him off the ground, pack and all, and quite calmly stating> “Either the bag goes on the ground, or you do”.
Him: “Eh, sorry, mister”. The pack went on the floor.
Me: <contemplating why it is I take the train when there are such idiots on it - oh yeah, the ones driving on the road are worse>
“Ah Ah, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’ Now, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is the .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and could blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” - Dirty Harry
