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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:
Unlurked · 28/08/2011 00:50

UsingMainlySpoons Exactly! So do I! Problem solved everyone, nothing more to see here.

HTH

LadyBeagleEyes · 28/08/2011 00:50

Me too LeBof.

Fo0ffyShmoofer · 28/08/2011 00:52

Not pissed ( tonight).
Not certifiable.

If it is as you said then it sounds like they were incredibly rude. As BOF said though if they were passing the time while waiting they probably felt their entitlement greater than yours and it would have been.

NorfolkBroad · 28/08/2011 00:52

A1980, i don't think I would be happy taking a 3mth old on an escalator in a pushchair even if other people do it.

But of course you shouldn't be giving up your seat on a train or bus if you have a medical problem with your knees. I have a friend with similar and it is horribly painful.

Ems, think it's time to leave it now!

MadamDeathstare · 28/08/2011 00:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

hmc · 28/08/2011 00:54

I'm okay with entitlement when there is a reasonable qualifying criteria - like not being able to use the escalator or stairs (which pushchair users can't really...nor the frail or those with a disabilty etc)...and for the poster who mentioned using escalators with pushchairs on the underground in our great metropolis, I'll have you know that a very imperious lady comes onto the tannoy at our local shopping centre to berate any parent daring to do this! It's very different here in the provinces

I'm just relieved that I don't have to rely on the lift now that my dc are older

squeakytoy · 28/08/2011 00:55

Madam .. you are right. I did have the misfortune of that one last month when taking my friend for her flight back to the USA. Grin

Faithless12 · 28/08/2011 00:56

Yabu. Lifts aren't the same as disabled parking spaces and it's first come first served. Who are you to judge whether people need to use the lift or not. I look perfectly healthy but can't do many stairs especially if out due to asthma and my mum couldn't do escalators (also has severe asthma) so should we not be allowed any where other than the ground floor?

Plus you don't need a pram get yourself a sling and get walking as you are one of the lazy ones you are alluding to in your fat speech. You are just as lazy.

KatieMiddleton · 28/08/2011 00:56

I don't begrudge the op her pram anymore than I begrudge the other family taking the lift to avoid trudging half way round the store. I do think on the scale of things OP this is minor and you're not being reasonable.

We all do things for convenience and yes, a bit of thought for others goes a long way but really, when it's all said and done, the main point I got from this thread is that there is a woman somewhere, on maternity leave shopping with a baby on a Saturday when she could be shopping in the week leaving the department stores free for families on outings with parents who work during the week. They may even have been buying school shoes and so deserving of all our pity Wink Grin

A1980 · 28/08/2011 00:57

But of course you shouldn't be giving up your seat on a train or bus if you have a medical problem with your knees. I have a friend with similar and it is horribly painful.

Thanks NorfolkBroad but the problem I have is I look well and look young and can walk so I get evil stares from pregnant and elderly people. It's only stairs and if it gets twisted. Standing with a bus turning corners etc can twist it so if there's a seat I take it and i wont get up. Never mind the fact that the half the bus is taken up with other people who could give up their seat but just don't.

Kladdkaka · 28/08/2011 00:57

This thread will give me nightmares Escalators! Arrrrrrrgh! Total terror at the thought of them. Not the going up and down bit; the getting on and off bit. Especially the getting off bit. What if you don't time it right and you get sucked into the machinery? There's only one thing more frightening than escalators and that's swimming in the sea.

hmc · 28/08/2011 00:58

God I hate swimming in the sea too - I thought I was the only one!

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 28/08/2011 01:00

I actually hate lifts after being stuck in a service lift with far too many other people for 45 mins as a teenager. We had to take it in turns to crouch down so the people standing felt like they had enough air. It was really horrible. So you can all keep your lifts! Maybe we should put everyone through this so that we can be sure that people in them REALLY need them Grin

LeBOF · 28/08/2011 01:03

I got stuck in a lift naked once. It wasn't in John Lewis though, thankfully.

NorfolkBroad · 28/08/2011 01:04

A1980. That must be really horrible. I have pulled a muscle in my neck this week and I am whingeing about that so I would be a bloody nightmare with something chronic and properly painful! I think you make a really important point too about people "looking well" but actually being in great pain or indeed as many have suggested having a phobia of escalators. You are right, you can't see these things and you can hardly go into a great long explanation about them to any old person you meet out and about!

Kladdkaka · 28/08/2011 01:04

It's the great whites. They're in there somewhere.

NorfolkBroad · 28/08/2011 01:04

UGH the sea is so DEEP!

LikeACandleButNotQuite · 28/08/2011 01:05

If what I want in a shop is 3 or 4 levels up, I may take the lift. I may use the escalator if I want to have a peruse on the way up. Its up to me. If I were waiting, and saw someone with a buggy, I would probably let them in front. Although;...if I did this every time, I would still be waiting for a lift now. You dont know how long the family had been waiting.

I do find it strange that when you got to the lift, the family were there and yet they shoved past you? Had you pushed infront of them, presuming you to have more right to get in the lift?

Ill be honest, and risk a flaming, but nine out of ten buggy 'drivers' piss me off. Not the people themselves, but the combination of large peices of equipment, containing precous cargo either being raced towards you like a rocket, dawdling along in front of you, or even worse blocking an aisle with little regard for the other shoppers.

Grrr....rant over.

iscream · 28/08/2011 01:06

They are not for disabled or pram pusher's etc. only. However, it is always rude for people to push past someone who was waiting there first.

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 28/08/2011 01:07

and you never know what might be in there....just below the surface....waiting.... watching your pathetic attempts to swim and realising it is ten times faster than you whatever you do....

yep sea-swimming is scary scary.

A1980 · 28/08/2011 01:08

I think you make a really important point too about people "looking well" but actually being in great pain or indeed as many have suggested having a phobia of escalators.

Exactly! You just don't know anything about the people who are allegedly "too lazy" to use a lift and like me, why should they explain themselves.

I hate lifts anyway and use the escalators. It's just the stairs I avoid.

Kladdkaka · 28/08/2011 01:08

Stop it! I'm having palpitations.

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 28/08/2011 01:08

And ramming your ankles LikeACandle. I've seen many people on here and other sites threaten it or admit they do it on purpose. I'm NOT saying the OP does this btw.

LikeACandleButNotQuite · 28/08/2011 01:13

A woman literally charged at me today in the shops with a three wheeler one. She looked possessed. Thankfully she swerved into Boots before I had time to move.

3 months till I join the Pram Ranks....am dreading it!

MsScarlettInTheLibrary · 28/08/2011 01:13

Ah you don't have to LikeACandle - I never did ;)