To have said this to the girl?

[TheOriginalWinkly]

I live in a ground floor flat and do the odd bit of shopping online. We both work shifts, as do the people in the other ground floor flat, and I have an 11 month old DD who naps twice during the day.

So this morning the buzzer went for a delivery (expected, but didn't know what time) as DH and DD were both asleep. I jumped up instantly, then it went again. And again, and again, then it was pressed and held and held. I had to scoop DD up, who was wide awake by this stage. When I got to the door there was a girl aged maybe 8 or 9 holding my parcel. A woman who I presume was her mum was in the van.

As she was young instead of saying what I was feeling (I was pretty pissed off) I smiled and said 'you only need to press the buzzer once, there's people sleeping'. I genuinely said it nicely. Then the woman yelled from the van 'well she didn't know that did she?' I said 'no and that's why I told her nicely'. The woman twisted her face and gave me a proper dirty look. The girl looked unperturbed. I'm pissed off. WIBU?

10am? Stop being a misery. As a single parent I sometimes have to take my DCs out on deliveries with me, they enjoy helping and it makes it a bit quicker. Why would an 8 year old consider that ringing the bell twice was unreasonable?! They have no concept of nap times or your DH having a lie in. At 10am on a Sunday morning they are out working with their mum. Give them a break.

but the delivery was for you
so you should have been around for it.
and the girl buzzed twice,

sounds like a fuss about nothing.
storm in a tea cup

i imagine the 8 year old couldnt hear the buzzer from the outside.

i work in an office where children attend, we have a buzzer, and we always know when it is a child pressing the buzzer

anyway I grant you the mother was bad tempered

ynbu. I don't have an issue with the mother taking her DD out with her but its the mothers job and responsibility to do the actual door to door interaction. I used to do deliveries with my dad but he would go to the door with me and let me do the interaction with customer.
And if the mother is allowing the DD to do the delivery then she should be good the basics of not holding a buzzer down. No need for that.
I second a complaint/feedback to delivery company. The mothers attitude in response alone warrants that.

Sorry just seen it was more than twice.

Even so, if she couldn't hear it she may not have realised it rang. It's infuritating when you're standing waiting for someone to answer the door after politely ringing once, only for them to finally turn up and say "oh did you ring the bell? It doesn't work".

From outside its sometimes impossible to know if it's rung or not. When you're getting about 50p per delivery you want to just get it done ASAP.

I think if you take your child with you ( which most kids would love) you should explain common courtesy of delivering parcels before going.

I'm irritated on your behalf reading this. Doesnt matter what time it is, ring once, wait at least 10 seconds before ringing again, it is never acceptable to hold a buzzer regardless of what time, its rude.

To complain or not to complain is up to you but I would have had stern words with the mum, not the girl .....

Yanbu that would drive me mad. If you're old enough to call with the parcel (lovely for her I'm sure to be helping out), then you're old enough to know how to ring a bell.. I think you were great to be calm, as you should have been, but I'm afraid I might not be so restrained out of annoyance and know that would bu.

The girl rang the bell four times in a very short space of time then pressed and held it.
OP said nicely that once was enough
Mother, sitting in van, was hugely rude.

OP, YANBU.
An 8 year old helping out delivering parcels should have been told to ring once, wait at least a minute before ringing again. If she didn't already know that (which seems a bit strange - surely she would have rung doorbells before?) then her mother damn well should have told her that before getting her kid to actually deliver the parcels. Maybe she was embarrassed at her deficiencies in teaching her child what to do before sending her out to do it, or maybe she's just rude and ignorant.

Either way, I would let the company know, because it is crap service.

You sound as though you're annoyed because your DD and DH were sleeping. If they'd been awake, then I doubt you'd have been counting how many times the bell was rung so I think YWBU. The little girl doesn't have to compensate for people being asleep on a Sunday at 10am when they've ordered a delivery.

YANBU, you didn't really tell her off like some here are implying. You simply informed her that she doesn't need to keep pressing the buzzer, nothing wrong with that at all. The mum in the van shouldn't be sending her child out to do her job.

The little girl doesn't have to compensate for people being asleep on a Sunday at 10am when they've ordered a delivery

doesn't matter f they were awake. It's rude. end of. mum should teach her some manners. what if it had been an old person and it scared them or they fell trying to rush to the door.

Giles - I was also thinking that ringing the doorbell like that could have scared an older person into thinking it was something urgent, making them rush and risk a fall. It's very inconsiderate not to have a little patience. Not everyone can run to the door.
The mother needs to teach her daughter about having patience, but as she sounds very rude that probably isn't going to happen

I have an elderly neighbour who'd probably be very intimidated or scared if someone came along and pounded on her door. cos that's basically what it amounts to.

Yes, my DM would have been the same. She liked to sit in the back room, meaning she had quite a long walk (downstairs hall is 30 feet long)
Constant ringing on the bell would have flustered her.
Plus, it is never polite to lean on the bell like the girl did. Quite the opposite, especially for something non-urgent like a parcel delivery. If you need to tell the householder there is a gas leak, then that's different.
A little bit of patience and consideration for others is the key - and at 8 she should be learning about that and putting it into practice. Othere people might not be as polite as OP was.

I guess it's possible the girl was just following instructions from her mother. In which case shame on her. that's not how I would want my child to act. People can't see through doors or down flights of stairs the behaviour is no less threatening because it's being performed by a child. The home resident is not to blame for traffic being bad or the poor time management of the employee that set her so far behind on her drop offs that she felt the situation warranted such action.

when you call at people's houses with such wide time scales as delivery companies have they have to realise not everyone will be sat by the door waiting. and patience is required. god forbid people need to go to the bathroom or are frail or asleep that they can't open the door that quickly.

It's antisocial threatening behaviour even if they have technically been "invited" to the house.

YABU to expect people to know you and DH work shifts.

Sometimes, you can't always hear the bell from outside and she was only 8 FGS. She might have been helping out her mum for the day.

I would rather a delivery person ring my bell several times than miss it and have to arrange for a re-delivery/collection from post office.

OP - if you'd said you were breast feeding then everyone would have agreed that the girl was out of line and her mother was rude!

yy soldier

The delivery driver should not be letting her daughter do the delivering. As for OP 'telling her off' FGS, just explaining something to a child is telling off now, is it?
The way she rang the bell was stupid and rude whether she was 8 or 38! YANBU OP.

pilates I didn't expect anyone to know anything about my circumstances. Good manners should be univerally applied.

For those that mentioned it, the outside buzzers are next to an open window through which my (obnoxiously loud) buzzer can be heard very clearly.

soldier it was one of the few times my boob-loving DD wasn't feeding!

APlaceOnTheCouch I would have been annoyed even if nobody was sleeping, but possibly less so.

But on the plus side, at least you got the parcel - and it wasn't left in your bin or down a ditch nextdoor as I'm told might easily be the case with Yodel.

YANBU - 8 year olds know how to ring door bells/ buzzers in the normal fashion in my experience (we live in an area where kuds call for each other and kids aged from 6 to 11 ring for my kids all the time without ever leaning on the buzzer orringing multiple times in quick ssuccession - if they did I'd tell them not to as it's annoying even though nobody here sleeps in the day. We get deliveries and delivery drivers also don't do this (though they do let my kids sign for parcels which might also not be exactly protocol. ..)

You didn't tell the 8 yo off at all, what you said to her sounds totally appropriate - maybe she won't do it again so you've saved other people the irritation, but tbh I suspect her mum told her to due to the payment per delivery system and huge volume couriers have to deliver at speed to make a living.

Nothing wrong with taking her 8 yo in the van but the courier should brief her daughter on how to make deliveries without annoying customers, or lots of other customers will complain even if op doesn't, and the mum's job might be in jepordy.

YANBU to have spoken to the girl - it was appropriate.

I'm wondering if any of the PP every had a delivery job as a child? It's not like calling for a friend or visiting an elderly relative because neither of those situations have a limited timescale with other customers waiting afterwards.

It's also not a truth universally acknowledged that everyone expecting a delivery would rather the bell was rung only once followed by a waiting period. Most would prefer they received their delivery on time (which means keeping to schedule) and that they definitely receive it (rather than risk missing it because you opted for one ring and 5 minutes waiting which meant you then had to go to the next order).

Lots of elderly customers also request repeated rings because they are hard of hearing.

Yes the op didn't like it but that doesn't mean that it's ridiculous or annoying for all customers.

It's also not a truth universally acknowledged that everyone expecting a delivery would rather the bell was rung only once followed by a waiting period. Most would prefer they received their delivery on time
There is no correlation between these two statements. Ringing the bell incessantly doesn't make the door open any faster. It's just bloody rude and annoying.
YANBU at all OP.

The OP was waiting for her parcel. So no need for the repeated rings in a short space of time.
She had not requested repeated rings, so that does not apply either.
The doorbell was clearly audible through an open window, so no change the child was unsure if it had rung.
OP had paid to have a parcel delivered, not to be harassed by a child ringing the bell four times in quick succession before leaning on it.
There is no excuse for that sort of rude behaviour regardless of how pressured delivery drivers are