I try not to let trivialities get under my skin but some things just do. A few days ago one of those things got past my defenses again. It happened when I drove into a gas station just behind another car. As is often the case, there are two pumps next to each other. If you are the first to arrive, it makes sense to pull up to the further one so that the person behind you can pull up to the rear one and both can fill up at the same time.
But this person seemed oblivious to this basic point. He pulled up to the first one and stopped. I was annoyed at that person for this demonstration of a lack of awareness of the impact of one’s actions on others. One sees examples of such obliviousness all the time in different situations and these tend to trigger my annoyance. I am not one to explode with anger at such things (like the women who attacked a flight attendant) so I did not blow my horn and urge the person to move forward nor did I glare at him to indicate my displeasure nor yell at him. I just looped around to get to another pump island which had the nozzle on the same side as my gas tank.
While he was filling up, I noticed that he did something else annoying, and that was to wait until his tank had finished filling to then do some extended shopping inside the store, thus blocking the two pumps for even longer than necessary.
I was also a little annoyed at myself for feeling irritated by such a small thing, since it indicates a lack of maturity on my part.
Someone did that to me once, when I was less grown up. I drove round the forecourt and reversed into the space in front of them.
Took me AGES to find the right chocolate bar in the shop too.
I wouldn’t do that sort of thing nowadays.
Disagree. Being annoyed at someone who is being a rude, entitled jerk is not you showing your lack of maturity. Honking your horn, or some of the other actions you mentioned would be the non mature way to handle things. You handled it well. Its okay to be annoyed from time to time.
Basically, what StonedRanger wrote.
At the end of an 11 mile hike today (9/7/21) I got back to my car. For the record, in case there are any Pacific Northwest hikers out there, I was parked at the Middle Fork trail head parking lot. It is a large lot. There were perhaps, including my car, four or five other cars in the lot. One of them was parked next to me. Fair enough.
I stashed my gear in my car and waited as one of the people next to me was kneeling between the cars -- perhaps a foot from my car -- re-arranging her gear. Her friend was ready to go. The person re-arranging the gear could have easily dragged her pack a couple of feet, out of the way, but no. For five long minutes I stood there, waiting, as she obliviously organized and re-organized her pack.
Her friend finally said something and Clueless looked up, saw me waiting, processed what her friend had said, and continued to fool around.
I got into the car and started it up. I was not going to back out with someone kneeling next to the car but she didn’t know that and she scooted.
I think you are correct about just going to another pump.
But technically, one is supposed to monitor the pumping of gas and not go inside the store while it is still pumping. If nobody is watching it, what happens if the hose falls out of the car and starts pumping gas onto the ground without limit? All cars might blow up or catch fire.
But one would think that if one had noticed having blocked another person needlessly, they might drive a few feet away from the pumps and park in a non pump spot while shopping.
I always say, at moderate volume, “It’s OK, you’re the only one here.”
I was at the grocery store last weekend and had to dodge around a car that was half-in a parking spot, half-in the aisle. It was a normal-sized car and the parking spot was also normal-sized; they just couldn’t be arsed to pull in all the way to park. Just down the aisle, there was an SUV-a-saurus parked diagonally across 3 parking spots. I’m sure these are the same folks who push their cart down the middle of the grocery aisles and stop and play with their phones, blocking people going in either direction.
People have lost their damned minds and are completely oblivious to other people, like the woman in Joel Grant’s post.
In the ER, the Partner refers to these people as “OPPs” or Only Person on Planet. There are a scary lot of them. I really can’t say “these kids these days” as I think they have always been around and always will be.
It annoys me too so I must be really immature. I’m good with that, though. I may be immature, but I try my best to be considerate of others.
Remember, Mano, the bar is pretty low now: as long as you don’t bloody someone’s face and knock out their teeth, it’s a step up from lots of other people, apparently.
I think most of the gas stations I’ve been too have enough room that if people aren’t excessively sloppy in there parking, you can usually drive between the two pumps? I may be wrong, I rarely drive.
Anyways, I stay with the pump while dispensing gas, and do any shopping/whatever afterwards.
I feel like this is similar to those people who use the escalators at public transit (maybe other places as well?), and just stop right at the output of the escalator, and then decide to send a text or something, instead of walking forward a couple steps, and then to the side, so that they don’t restrict traffic. Or those who wait till they are in the turnstile before trying to locate their transit card. C’mon people, this isn’t difficult, and way too many of you are doing this for it to be possible that it’s all your first time using public transit…
And, for my bicycling commute, it’s those automobiles that pull over into the bike line, when an open parking spot is right there… but they sure do get mad when a bike is taking a full lane of traffic…
re hands-off filling, not legal in Oz. Regulations.
(https://acapmag.com.au/2017/02/use-hold-open-clips-petrol-nozzles/)
I think politely asking him to move forward would be the right thing to do. He might have had his mind on other things and not thought about what he was doing. If he also responds politely and cooperatively then everyone goes away happy.
It’s would be up to him if he decides to get confrontational about it.
For some reason we find it difficult to do the polite thing -- I know I do -- I wonder why that is?
mailliw@20>
see, that’s the thing… Most people who would respond to a request like that, would have already pulled up to the frontmost pump.
At least in the U.S., there has been a very clear pattern developing where some people take a very selfish stance (intentionally or otherwise), and then react violently when confronted about it. I think Mano had another post about this just a day or so ago…
maybe it’s me being a beta-cuck or whatever, but I’m not going to start a fight over a stupid gas pump or whatever. I’ve got a computer with internet access at home, so I’ve got far better ways to waste my time, and none of those involve lawsuits, brain injuries, or even the potential guilt/anxiety issues over severely damaging some self-entitled jackass over something stupid but avoidable.
Bruce @5 and lochaber @10: I’m one of those folks who sometimes do a little shopping while pumping gas, and it never even occurred to me that anything bad could happen. I should change my behavior. Thanks for getting me to think about it.
@13 lochaber
I don’t think asking someone if they could please move forward is confronting someone. I think most people will be cooperative if treated politely and with respect.
“I was also a little annoyed at myself for feeling irritated by such a small thing, since it indicates a lack of maturity on my part.”
To have irritation in response to a person behaving selfishly is human; throwing a tantrum would have been immature.
For a long time I would ask people to please do the polite thing if they weren’t already.
I can say that most people don’t exactly become hostile, but they will almost always be offended and keep doing what they were doing.
And some people do actually get hostile, so I stopped asking after getting punched in the face one too many times.
re#7 Katydid -- As for people hogging more than one spot, well, many years ago I worked in a tall building in Bellevue, WA. There was an underground garage. It was always 100% full fairly early. And there was always one car -- a Jag or something like that -- that purposely took up 2 spots. I passed it every morning en route to the elevator and silently steamed.
One morning I noticed that someone had severely keyed the offending car. I do not advocate vandalism, I don’t care to define myself as a jerk even in response to a jerk. But I admit I was not unhappy to see that a rude sort of justice had been meted out. That was the last time I saw that guy’s car.
@joelgrant: I would have chuckled on seeing that car keyed, too. Mind you; I wouldn’t have keyed that car myself any more than you would have…but I wouldn’t have mourned it being keyed for parking stupidly. That car-keying was karma, that was.
“since it indicates a lack of maturity”
Then we can shake hands; I’m not mature either. When it happens to me I mentally flip a huge middle finger.
“someone had severely keyed the offending car”
No, I condemn such things. A better way was deflating a tire. Takes more work, but its’s not vandalism and in a way a harsher punishment.
@lochaber
So in your universe people cant be preoccupied or have other things on their mind or make trivial mistakes ?
Deepak Shetty:
A simple mistake, but you ignored the word “most” in that quote.
Conscientious drivers are conscientious, and they don’t tend to become preoccupied while driving. So, they mostly wouldn’t need to be asked in the first place. Mostly.
The remainder (something less than half of conscientious drivers) are a fairly small group. Also, the rest of the population is relatively large. So, you’re likely dealing with somebody in the latter group instead of the former.
And in some places at least, the odds that those people will react like a total ass (perhaps even violently) are large enough that you may not feel comfortable making even the most polite request.
@consciousness razor
Im a fairly conscientious driver albeit with atrocious parking skills -- But I did also run through a red light (once) , failed to yield by accidentally hitting accelerate instead of brake (once) and ran through a stop sign (Also once) -- you are basically saying if you had seen any of these 3 things you would have already formed an opinion (or hidden behind “most”). The most is really irrelevant -- how was this most arrived at ? My experience has been that most drivers respond politely and would have moved ahead if requested.
No, I’m not saying that. And the word “most” doesn’t hide anything. It is right there in the text for all to see, and its meaning is very simple.
If as you say you are normally not like that, such that those things are so rare as to be once-in-a-lifetime events for you, then the chances of it happening at the same moment that I encounter you on the road are small.
If I do encounter somebody who cuts me off or runs a red light or whatever, then it is probably not a person like you, someone who fits the description of a person who almost never does shit like that. Shouldn’t be controversial. Otherwise, I have no way of making sense of your own claim that you only very rarely do these things, while also knowing perfectly well that it is not rare at all for many other people who do not fit your description. Because that just wouldn’t add up.
As I had already suggested, we (apparently) live in different places, and our impressions of others’ personalities and driving habits may be quite different. No argument from me about that.
But we don’t have any experiences of what would have happened and never did actually happen. That just sounds like your expectation of others’ behavior, not your experience of what they have actually done.
I mean, go ahead an answer questions like this if you want….. How many times in the real world have you asked a person to move forward like this at a gas station? (I will be surprised if it is not close to zero.) And how many times has it happened, but you didn’t ask and don’t know what they would’ve done? How many times did you ask, but the person didn’t do as you requested? How do all of these look as fractions of the total number of times you’ve been to a gas station in your life? Just a rough estimate for each would be helpful, if you want to seriously argue this point.
Do you live in the United States? It’s a fucking dangerous place, with too many violent people who have too many guns.
There have been countless attacks at stores, hospitals, schools, parks, etc. Or see the recent threads about a surge of attacks related to flying. There are of course lots of incidents that get classified as “road rage”…. I remember an awful one from not long ago about a child being shot and killed. I don’t know about now, but at least at the time there was no clue who the murderer was. And according to the mother (who was driving), there was apparently no motive whatsoever. Just completely senseless violence, and that’s all.
Anyway, these things seem to happen in an almost endless variety of completely mundane situations, so that there is no peace and no escape. So, yes, I think being fucking terrified of something like that happening is very much warranted. Maybe you don’t feel that way — that’s nice — but I really don’t get why you’d act all offended about it when others do.
I feel like Deepak Shetty’s response to me is just making my point for me.
I don’t think it’s worth it to confront people over these minor annoyances, I can just work around them. And, Dauphni mentioned, even if they don’t immediately get confrontational or violent, they are rarely cooperative or polite, and often rude or defensive, at a bare minimum.
So, if I’m in a situation where someone minorly inconveniences me, my general choices are:
1: work around them
2: ask them to change their behavior
1 rarely causes issues.
2 may or may not cause issues, but it rarely means things end up working in my favor, most times I’ve tried it, I’ve either been ignored, or rudely responded to, sometimes with threats of violence. And even if most ignore me, and only a small fraction react with threats or even acts of violence, that’s a pretty hefty risk for a very small reward. And I’m still left to deal with it by working around them, except now I sometimes have to deal with their interference/atagonization.
So why does my decision not to engage, and just work around a minor inconvenience bother you so much, Deepak Shetty?