Prams and lifts in Peter Jones

[Binkybix]

Interested to get views.

I was in Peter Jones yesterday with 4mo in buggy. I was on the first floor and needed to get down and was asked not to put pram on escalator but to get the lift. Fine.

I waited for the lift and every single one was full of people standing. I waited for about ten minutes then resolved myself to ask the next lot if a couple of people would mind using the escalator (approx 10 seconds away) instead. The next lift was full. Doors opened and opened for some time - long enough to explain situation in full, and that staff had stopped us using escalator.

I was amazed that not one person offered to get out and use escalator. The majority ignored me, one woman just shrugged. To be honest, I would have offered without being asked if I'd been in an earlier lift, so I was really surprised.

I also know in a few cases people would not have been able to have used escalators - but a whole lift full? Unlikely surely.

I know that I didn't have any more right than them to use the lift, but surely common courtesy would imply people would be willing to help, even if not obliged to.

AIBU?

of course YANBU OP. For every person in every lift for ten minutes to be physically unable to go on an escalator is highly unlikely. I actually think ten mins is a pretty damn long time to wait and would have asked a member of staff to enforce their policy of not having buggies on the escalators by asking the some of the lift people to move. Most people respond better to an "official" request. I get very at the huge number of threads on here that are the result of an "each man for himself" mentality and think life would be so much nicer if people did just generally give a tiny little bit of thought to others on a more regular basis - not cos they HAVE to, just because it would be nice (and I include P&C spaces in this)!

It used to annoy me the most in the CLIMBING CENTRE in Edinburgh. Perfectly able-bodied people who were there to climb hundreds of ft were in the lift (with their climbing harnesses on) when people with prams had to wait for ages. Often bunches of teenagers. It is the slowest lift in the world too.

Oh and the lift in John Lewis in Edinburgh is the same, although you have to walk past the escalator to get to it. I think it has a sign asking for people to leave it for buggies/elderly/wheelchairs etc however. I am so happy that I a) never go to real shops any more and b) no longer have a buggy.

Train stations are pretty bad. Especially the one at Westfields.

I remember in my old job it used to drive me nuts when people used to get in the lift on the first floor to go down to the ground.

In my local John Lewis I think a lot of people use the lift because it goes to the underground car park.

No suggestions about lift etiquette or how to get people to move. I used to live near a shopping centre where I think you could have waited all day to use the little glass lifts that went up and down in the main 'atrium'. However, there was a lift in a the linked department store that nobody seemed to use except staff (Near staff canteen, not a goods lift!).

Maybe scope out the store a bit?

If you'd been waiting 10 minutes for a lift, presumably everyone else on the lift had been waiting about the same amount of time? I don't think I would have given up my spot either, TBH, but if I'd met you by the stairs I would've offered to help you carry the pram.

FWIW, people hailing lifts when they are full is part of the reason they get clogged up - the whole thing takes longer to get between the required floors to deposit shoppers, so fewer people are able get off. I think I would've just gone away and come back again in a few minutes to see if the backlog had cleared.

And yes, I always get electric shocks in Peter Jones too!

In this situation in the (long distant) past, I've enlisted the shop assistant's help to find a way to make a space in the lift.

But I remember when Dickins & Jones had lift operators who would have cleared a space impossibly old fogey

YANBU OP, I get full on rage at lazy fuckers who can't be bothered to walk up a set of stairs or even a bloody escalator!

Lifts are for the disabled and for pushchairs, you know people who can't physically use the alternatives.

DP is very vocal about this and has several times asked people to let me in a lift with the pushchair.

Probably not the case here but the mall in our city centre has this problem. The reason most people choose to use the lift instead of the escalators is because you have to walk around half of the mall to get to the next down (or up) escalator, they are not side by side. The down escalator is alongside the up escalator, iyswIm

Obviously this is because the owners hope people will be attracted by the stores they have to walk past to get to the next escalator but to most people it is a nuisance, especially if it's crowded.

So they take the direct route using the lift. Shopping centres should have escalators phased so that there is a direct route up and down. I think that would help.

Harrods might still have lift operators? Maybe shop there? .

YANBU. The lifts are the slowest in the world in PJ. And the lifts are right by the stairs for the escalator-phobic.

I always get massive electric shocks in there too. I go around with my hands covered by my sleeves. It really hurts!

Demographic is a bit eclectic at that store.

As far as I remember the demographic of Sloane Square is confused tourists. Maybe everybody was just stressed and lost and trying to find a loo.

If you'd been waiting 10 minutes for a lift, presumably everyone else on the lift had been waiting about the same amount of time?

No, because the OP was unable to get into the lifts that did arrive because she needed space for the pram.

OP, YANBU, I am often surprised at how selfish society has become. No, they didn't have to move but it wouldn't have cost them anything to do so. It is extremely unlikely that every single person in all the lifts had some kind of disability that required them to use a lift not an escalator.