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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

346 replies

Ems101 · 27/08/2011 23:18

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?

OP posts:
Empusa · 28/08/2011 00:04

Yeah you said that Ems. It didn't get funnier the second time.

BimboNo5 · 28/08/2011 00:05

Well you could be even less fat if you get a sling and use the legs god gave you to climb stairs- hth hun

NorfolkBroad · 28/08/2011 00:05

BimboNo5, why be so personal and unkind?

AgentZigzag · 28/08/2011 00:05

Those techniques are surely worth at least sensei level 2shoes? Grin

DD2's still in her pushchair, and I've always found everyone to be lovely letting me past/crossing the road.

The ones who don't I just presume are preoccupied with what they've got going on and genuinely don't notice.

DocDuck · 28/08/2011 00:05

Ah, Agentzigzag, don't get cross! I just freaked 'cause somebody referred to themselves in the third person, with strikethrough, just to call OP an 'idiot'!

NotJustKangaskhan · 28/08/2011 00:07

Other than wheelchair users and people with walkers, I would say a polite first come first serve basis, including prams/pushchairs (debateable on scooters - having needed one myself they can take up a lot of room so seemed politer to let a lot of people go first and wait until there was plenty of space for it).

Common sense really, do you want people to prove they need the lift - maybe big doctors notes with all the gory details around our necks - we could turn around and ask you why you didn't use a sling and backpack if you knew you were going a place with stairs. It's better exercise since you seemed concerned about it.

FabbyChic · 28/08/2011 00:07

I've two legs, they belong to not a fat body, but ask me to walk up any flights of stairs and I'd tell you to FO. I am unfit as fuck and I smoke. I'd have to use the lift or I'd not get anywhere.

BimboNo5 · 28/08/2011 00:07

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 28/08/2011 00:07

I have always used the stairs. When I 'became a Mummy' I continued to use the stairs. I am lucky to be able to use the stairs - as are you. YABU and silly.

Of course there is no excuse for pushing or rudeness but neither is there any need to take up the space of several standing adults in a lift for the sake of transporting one tiny 3 month old baby. Maybe that is why you encountered rudeness.

BurningBridges · 28/08/2011 00:08

perplexedpirate sadly no. It wasn't one of a series, just one sign on the lift. They'd had it all printed up nicely to match all the other signs like "Exit" and "WC". Humorous, yet tasteful.

2shoes · 28/08/2011 00:09

by the way wheelchair users don't get to que jump for lifts,
yes it would be nice if someone said, oh go next I don't mind, or something like that, but being in a wheelchair doesn't mean you need a lift quicker than an able bodied person, just that you have no choice but to use it(said as a wheelchair pusher)

LadyBeagleEyes · 28/08/2011 00:11

I take my mum out in her wheelchair sometimes and obviously we have to use the lift.
And yes, there's many a time that perfectly able bodied people that can use the escalator/stairs will use the lift instead
I don't get it at all and it pisses me off.
As far as I'm concerned you're not being unreasonable at all, but the 'I'm a mummy with a pushchair' seems to have pissed a few people off.
Ignore.

2shoes · 28/08/2011 00:13

if I am a "mummy" with a wheelchair, do I get to trump the "mummy" with the pram??
(devil emotion)

Empusa · 28/08/2011 00:13

"And yes, there's many a time that perfectly able bodied people that can use the escalator/stairs will use the lift instead"

How do you know they are perfectly able bodied?

Tortington · 28/08/2011 00:15

i prefer to use the lift and make mums with babies wait.

its a perverse pleasure i get

i also use the parent and child space with my 18 yr old twins in the car.

Tortington · 28/08/2011 00:15

sometimes i park my car in the lift - that really annoys people

2shoes · 28/08/2011 00:16

I have been in a lift with custy, it is an ideal place to have a sneaky fag

AgentZigzag · 28/08/2011 00:17

The strikethrough is the only reason I come on MN DocDuck Grin

'am unfit as fuck and I smoke. I'd have to use the lift or I'd not get anywhere.'

Grin
FantasticDay · 28/08/2011 00:18

I think you are getting an unmerited hard time here OP. As a non-disabled person with kids no longer in buggies, I reckon wheelchair users and other disabled people and prams get priority every time. (Buggies on escalators not being a great idea, and my daughter yelled her head off in a carrier - son loved it). Obviously not all disabilities are visible, but equally obviously there are a lot of people (including me on occasion) who take the lift because they can't be bothered with the stairs.

LadyBeagleEyes · 28/08/2011 00:18

Oh FFS Empusa, IME if they can walk unaided they're able bodied.

tabulahrasa · 28/08/2011 00:18

Why would you not take a pram up stairs? And you're calling other people lazy Hmm

Original poster
Ems101 · 28/08/2011 00:19

So I come on here to make what I think is a fair comment on the use of lifts, and so far I have been insulted, patronised and ridiculed.

I clearly missed the sign that said this was a playground. I thought that if someone disagreed they could have done so in a grown up, non personal and non-offensive way. Obviously not. Hmm I can see there are a few adults in this thread, but I suggest those that aren't collect their toys and go to bed, it's way past your bedtime.

OP posts:
Tortington · 28/08/2011 00:19

only when i park the car in the lift 2 shoes

hmc · 28/08/2011 00:19

YANBU - this used to bug me when I had a baby in a buggy too. I use escalators now..... It's about consideration for others which is in very short supply (especially on mumsnet). Dh who has a less Hobbesian view of human nature believes that most people are unwittingly unaware rather than wilfully selfish - I think that's no excuse

2shoes · 28/08/2011 00:20

bugger does a pram get priority.
my dd gets priority
everytime
I reckon the world has gorne mad, carry the pram up the stairs like we did back in the day