Supermarket car park staff member - WIBU?

[HalloweenOutThatPumpkin]

AIBU, SN, Waitrose and the car park. I must be stark raving mad, but here goes ...

I shop in the same branch of Waitrose every other day and have done for years. All the regular staff know me and the guys who collect the trolleys are among them.

This evening half the car park was totally empty so instead of driving round the one way system shown by the arrows I nipped into the "down" lane, parked in the first space and got out of the car.

Cue fairly large trolley bloke who has SN of some sort (not sure what they are because he never talks to anyone as far as I know) shouting "Eh! Eh!" at me and pointing at the ground. I couldn't work out what he meant and just looked confusedly back at him. After a minute or so of this he walked over and shouted right in my face "One Way, One Way" and pointed at the arrow. I said that there were no other cars there so I couldn't see the problem. He followed me round the car, still shouting "One Way" at me while I hunted for my bags. It was after dark, there was no one else around and I felt quite intimidated so after I had scarpered to the shop I mentioned it at the customer service desk. I just said that it was quite an outburst and it had left me feeling a bit shaken.

Now I am not sure if I did the right thing. I don't think he will lose his job over it or anything that drastic, but should I have simply thought "the guy has SN, he obviously needs people to follow rules, I've broken them and I should suck it up", or was I right to complain about him shouting at me?

I am with you galaxy if the Op had shouted back and was aggressive herself... or it was a couple of aggressive men he had shouted at the whole senarion could of been different.

The shop has a duty of care to their customers.

FFS he spoke to her in a loud voice and probably quite abruptly. She had the knowledge of his SN beforehand. Frankly I think she needs to grow a fucking backbone if she is intimidated by that. There, I said it.

You are being an apologist for ignorance, Galaxy. This man has communication issues. I doubt very much it would escalate into violence! He has trouble with internal volume/communication. I cannot believe that this needs to be explained! So you're ok with people with SN being given jobs but only if they comply with normal social behaviour? That's not always going to happen is it? How about people get a bit more tolerance for people with conditions they did not choose to have and can do nothing about instead of whining about how it's infringed on their naice little grocery run to Waitrose?

Jesus.

You can work and claim DLA.

What happened to a bit of simple kindness and understanding to a man with SN.

Popadop. They are not 'SN people'. And also should be treated with understanding of their difficulties, not 'in the same way as that's what they want'.

Farking hell, the attitude of some posters on here is absolutely rank. OP broke the rules, got called on it and went crying to customer services because the bad man with SN shouted at her - and some of you are backing her up?!
[utter disbelief emoticon]

The man won't lose his job, but perhaps will be spoken to, as any manager would speak to any member of staff had they made a customer feel uncomfortable enough to mention it. He's been there for ten years, obviously good at his job so a little gentle guideance isn't unreasonable.

Guidance, obv (when I wrote that it didn't look right!)

People with SNs want to be treated equally, not the same as. Equally means being given equal opportunities such as housing and independence. This doesn't mean that we disregard their additional needs for this purpose. It simply means that we don't treat them like a sub species and judging by the attitudes on here it's a good job we have these measures in place. Please don't use equal opportunities as a carte blanche for ignorance.

YABU for so many reasons

Mostly for not just saying sorry to the guy in the first place. Going the wrong way was silly, and although they are 'guidelines' would anyone really try to justify ignoring them if someone backed into them because they were going the wrong way?

In any case, OP did wrong, employee called her on it, and she ignored him. Knowing he had SN makes that even worse. Why ignore him? Would she have ignored someone who said 'excuse me madam, you appear to have misread the road markings'? I doubt it. But because he's not articulate about it, she runs away from him, causing him to react (yes, inappropriately) by trying to communicate to her that she had made a mistake. The OP was scared of him due to his SN and made a bad situation worse by ignoring him.

YABVU So you have shopped at Waitrose for ten years and have never heard him speak but you are aware he has SN. You break the rules (not the law) and when he tries to point this out you are unable to understand. So he comes closer to you and tries to be clearer. You finally get what he is saying but you seen no problem so disagree that it is a problem. He continues to try and make his point albeit loudly and what is your response? After you disagreed it was a problem and he continued did you just ignore him then? so as a result he continued to remonstrate with you "One way" , not you fucking stupid bitch follow the arrows.

As the car park was empty I presume you were parked close to the entrance, dark due to night? but lit from the lights of the store can't imagine it was pitch black then. It must have been really scary you must have been in fear of your life ffs.

@ Galaxy, yes because he remonstrated with her in all likelehood his next move would have been to beat her within an inch of her life, get a grip.

Agree with Roobarb :)

Rhubarb I agree with every single thing you say.

Poppadom of course I can't say I haven't accidently never drove at 31 in a 30 zone, but I can absolutely, hand on heart, say I have never delibrately broken the speed limit - and that's what we're talking about here, delibrate rule-breaking, not momentary lapses of concentration.

Mention SN on any thread and you get such an emotional response, lots of it completely knee jerk.

For what it's worth OP, I think you were being U to complain, but I reckon you already knew that. The larger supermarkets often employ workers with SN because these workers have value to offer, and it gives them a chance to feel valued and the chance to earn money. This chap clearly takes pride in his work, and felt aggrieved that you didn't follow rules. Perhaps as you were taken aback by his reaction, and didn't apologise for your 'rule breaking' straight away, that's why he felt compelled to follow you. Either way, a level of tolerance is needed - maybe you should have fessed up to this chap, and said "Sorry - you caught me red-handed. I won't do it again". Little effort by you would have meant the world to him.

However, the vitriol that you've had from some of our fine MN'ers has been nothing short of amazing. I've no doubt that your thread wasn't mocking in the least, but it's how it's been perceived by these MN'ers. Many of you have family and friends that have special needs, but that doesn't allow you to jump on this thread and stamp on it with your indignant feet. OP wasn't mocking. We are allowed to talk about people with special needs.

As I said, a level of tolerance is needed. From both sides of the camp.

The OP has acknowledged she was BU and is going to retract the complaint.

I would have taken the short cut but if I'd been called it on it I would have said sorry and really not complained.

One of the trolley collectors at Asda snatched my empty trolley off me because I couldn't get the quid slot back into the trolley in front. Turns out there are two shapes of slot and I was trying to force it into the wrong one. He took it off me and put it in the right one. I said "oh sorry! Didn't realise there were different ones" He looked shocked and said "what are you sorry for?!" he hadn't been pissed off with me for me not being able to do it but his body language said otherwise. He has communication issues. What his outer self is saying doesn't always tally with what his inner self thinks.

Yabu.

silly numpty.

Did you get your driving license on mail order?

Where does it say that "when in your car, only follow the rules if you can see no other cars around". ?

Would work a treat down any one way system, eh?

EricNorthmansMistress took the words right out of my mouth. Why did the OP completely ignore the guy apart from to throw a confused look in his direction?

OP was BU to ignore the signs and then ignore the attendant.

OK, once again. There were no 'rules' to break, arrows in a supermarket car park are not 'rules'. It is not the same as one poster above said regarding driving the wrong way down her road. Public highway/private land, there is a big difference.

Secondly, I was told upthread that I couldn't judge the situation because I wasn't there. Fair enough. But neither was anyone else on here. So we only have the OP to go on how intimidated she felt.

Some people behave very strangely.
If you drove into a deserted car park at 4am, you wouldn't take a short cut across it??
WIIIIIIEEEEERRRRRRd!!!

I'm more curious about why the OP needs to shop every other day.

Do you not own a fridge?

When driving you use your judgement don't you? A one way street is very different to a deserted car park where you might take a short cut to nip to a space. Of course, if the car park was full you just wouldn't make that decision. people aren't thick, they generally do not want to hurt anyone or damage their cars.

You get a level of anger if you mention SN in a derogatory way as it is particularly shitty to mock/be cruel to people with SN.

YABU, you drove the wrong way and then complained because someone shouted at you (you shouldn't have drove the wrong way, rules are there for a reason).

Dd1 gets very upset if i break rules (as they are there for a reason) and she also watches my speedo to make sure i don't break the speed limmit, if i do then she shouts very loudly, dd1 has Aspergers and rules are very important to her as they were to this man.

It's how you perceive the OP. If you want to see derogatory, you're going to see it, regardless of what the OP's intention was.

Surely the OP mentioning that the guy had SNs of some sort as mitigation for him.

Had she not mentioned that, people would've been crying YANBU (other than the weirdos who don't disregard arrows for 6ft distances in empty carparks).

Now the OP might or might not have felt intimidated; but others might. Flagging this situation up to the store is surely a kindness to the chap - a quiet word from someone he trusts hopefully meaning that he doesn't react in the same way again with someone who in turn responds with fear - or worse still aggression.

I do think the OP is right to go back to the store and retract her complaint, if indeed it was framed as a complaint. But I don't think it's wrong of her to draw the store's attention to what could be a horrible situation for a possibly vulnerable employee.