To think that you shouldn't use the lift unless you actually need to?

[Ems101]

So I was in a well known department store today (ok it was John Lewis!) and now that I am a mummy I find myself having to take the lift between floors as I have a pram with my 3 month old in. In this particular store they also have escalators and stairs between the floors, but the escalators are too narrow to safely get a pram up them, and I don't think it's reasonable to heave a pram up a flight of stairs. The escalators and stairs (which are next to each other) are at the front of the store, easy to find, easy to see, and if you are able bodied and not pushing a pushchair or carrying a heavy load, quite safe to use.

So WHY when I go to find the lift (which is at the back of the store, and I had to actually look at the signs to find it as I've never taken it before) do I find a couple with a pushchair waiting (perfectly reasonably of course, they had a baby too) and then a family of four with two children who were easily both over the age of 8, all of whom did not appear to be disabled as were standing up and seemed able to walk pefectly fine as they shoved past me to get in the lift before me so that it was then too full for me to go in, and I then had to wait again for the lift to come back.

Would it not be reasonable for me to expect that once they saw someone who actually needed the lift, they should have either let me go first or walked the 30 metres or so to the escalators or stairs and gone up them instead?

I know I have no 'right' or 'claim' over the lift, but wouldn't it be the decent thing to not use the lift unless you had to, especially when there are people waiting who don't really have another option but to use it.

Am I being unreasonable?

joric, I was just thinking that there's been no mention of how many floors the family or OP were going up. John Lewis in Oxford Street has 4 or more(?) floors. I'm able bodied but I'd take the lift for more than 1 or 2 floors.

Also, because I don't go there very often, I might not know where the stairs or escalators are in relation to where I am.

I can't believe all this judging about whether someone has the right to take a lift or not. You don't have to wait that long until the next one comes along. It's not a biggy for anyone to wait a few minutes.

"I don't understand healthy people who use the lift or escalator "

Even when it is a superduper glass lift and it makes the dcs so happy to be in "the great glass elevator"? surely that is a good enough reason to take a lift non?

super-duper glass lifts are acceptable . They have nice ones in Reading John Lewis.

Am still chortling at Meglet's post. I seriously can't get into the mindset of people who take the easy option.
Hair shirts are so last year!

Oops, x-posted with your last, Meglet.

Meglet my old work was 42 stories.

There was one person who did it from the halfway mark every day

Fire drills were a lot of fun

You are SO not being unreasonable. I bet you live in the same town as me. This drives me nuts!

Last time I was in a department store, there was a crowd for the lift so I pushed open the door to the stairs next to it. The fire alarm went off.

I use the convent garden steps when I'm in London .

SQ, that was the exact image of meglet I had, too!

Aha!!! It IS you!

YABU. They have just as much right to use the lift as you and from your description, they were there first! Just because you happen to have a pram doesn't give you any special right to use services which are there for everyone.
Are you the sort of parent who uses the pram as a kind of battering ram, shoving everyone out of the way in supermarkets and expecting people to step out of your way in the street?

Ems yabu.
Britain is not a civilised society. It is a society of entitled outlaws.

Next time, put your baby in a bucket on your head, so you can fit in the lift with custy and her car, 2shoes and her fags.

YABU. While plenty of people just use the lift out of laze, you have no way of knowing who actually needs it, not without access to their medical history and degree in medicine.

A friend of mine had terminal cancer, but once his hair had grown back there were no outward signs that he was very ill, and could not manage walking more than a few hundred metres, and certainly not stairs. You cannot possibly know what other people's needs are.

It isn't actually going to hurt you to wait for the lift.

People shouldn't push in though, that's just plain rude!

I think they were rude and should have given priority to you.

The weirdest thing about this thread is that we're arguing about what, a 90 second wait for the next lift. Maybe 2 minutes.
You're all loons.

Going upstairs is a strain on the heart; going downstairs is good exercise.

It's not hard taking a buggy with baby in it on an escalator; it's a pain to do it on stairs but far from impossible (and, gulp, people often help).

This reminds of p&c threads. So now there's another outlet for pfb-ishness. There really should be large, pink, glittery badges for them.

Using the lift is the norm in a lot of settings - e.g. hotels, office blocks, shopping centres and shops with multiple floors, especially if the lift also goes to the multi-storey car-park.
The retailers want to maximise their business and encourage people to move from level to level as easily as possible, quite often with a bank of lifts and escalators side by side.

Going downstairs is not good exercise if you have knee problems.

There are so many lazy people around. They HAVE to park by the door of the supermarket, they HAVE to use the lift, they simply cannot walk.
No wonder Britain is full of fat people.
God I am in a mood today.
Taking it out on mn.