About fucking bin men

[continuallychargingmyphone]

Completely blocking the street. All they had to do was move up to pass parked cars and let people pass. Asked them to move and got ‘we’ve got a job to do!’

Yes, because I was going nowhere

OP everyone on here will swear blind that this would never annoy them

What’s the point in getting annoyed by such trivial stuff? It just makes life so much more stressful.

Bin men are doing a pretty unpleasant job, waiting a few minutes isn’t a big deal.

It annoys me, but I’ve mastered the adult art or seething silently, while saying ‘Oh, not a problem at all’ and smiling at the same time.

Having said that, bin men are generally out doing their job, unless solicitated by the OP, so I’m more annoyed with rat runners.

solicited I don’t seem to have mastered the adult art of spelling.

I can just imagine a load of mumsnetters sitting in that yoga pose in their cars, eyes glazed over in a state of serenity while being held up by the bin men

everyone on here will swear blind that this would never annoy them

It annoys me but sometimes necessary things are annoying. There's no point getting arsey about them.

They are trying to do their job.

I can actually see where the OP is coming from. Ours just slowly inches down the middle of the road regardless of cars in either direction and completely ignores that it could very easily pull in to one side or the other (plenty of space between occasional parked cars) to allow traffic to pass.

I get the rage with delivery drivers and taxis who do exactly the same - i.e. block the road when they could easily have parked/pulled into the side outside the next door house (I'm not talking about tiny spaces where they'd have to spend ages reversing in, but huge spaces of 2-3 car lengths they could quickly and easily drive into!).

Just no thought to others - they think they've the right to block the road because they've a job to do - no you havn't. Fair enough if there's nowhere to pull in, but when there are yawning chasms of gaps between parked cars, just pull in there and let the traffic flow.

YABVU and very self important.

Bin men are actually quite well paid round here, not minimum wage at all. So not in need of pity fucks.

I was at a conference last week and one of the presentations was about arseholes who drive on pavements to get past the bin men. Dangerous and pathetic behaviour from entitled individuals who think that where they're going is more urgent than waiting a few minutes.

You call them 'fucking bin men' OP. You're a disgrace.

Obviously going against the grain here, but totally agree OP ! Yez I realise they have a shitty job to do, yes I know I'm probably being vvvvu but really ?? Ffs. If there's nowhere for them to pull up, I get it...but I swear to God, 80% of the time, they could pull over to allow cars to pass, because theres space...they just don't. Drives me mad

My DP is a bin man. Those saying they do this deliberately are being ridiculous. They want/need to get the job done as quickly as possible, they don't have time to slow down just to piss people off. And they have to put up with so much abuse!

Their blocking the road is also probably in part to do with impatient idiots like the op and the very real risk to their lives from cars overtaking them

Our bin men are lovely but I don’t know about fucking them.

Ours always have a wave for the little ones and try to let people past if it is safe. I do love it when they come at school run time because it annoys all the school run drivers who drive like dickheads on our road every day.

Sirzy got there before me. Having cars squeeze past them on narrow side roads is not actually very safe for the man working on the far side of the road.

I agree with the sentiment that AIBU is mostly ridiculous with people looking for reasons to criticise. However, I genuinely can't get riled about bin men. They don't take that long. Just wait a few minutes. Listen to the radio. Leave earlier one day a week.

I'm with you OP.
I think I must live near hte junction of about three different routes, because I come across this at least three times a week on different days.
Where we are, the bin lorry and the recycling lorry come on the same day, once a fortnight, so that's two lorries to avoid on the same day.
And the bin men seem to take delight in blocking the road for as long as possible. One day I was making slow progress along a road behind one - several times it could have pulled over when it stopped rather than stopping in the middle of the road, but didn't. It finally got to the end of the road when it stuck on its reversing lights and backed up almost to the other end of hte road again to turn down a side road.
The men shifting the bins were actually laughing.

The lorry virtually never pulls over when it can - I'm not asking it to drive further, just to pull over to the side when it stops, if it can!

All the people who are saying "they could easily pull over/ let us pass" are completely ignoring the point which has been made several times - they don't want cars to pass while they're working in the road, for safety reasons.
Your journey is not something the world has to stop and move aside for.
(cue whataboutery...)

I did actually complain to my council about bin lorries deliberately blocking buses in my street. I don’t know who started it but it was adding an extra 20 mins to a long commute. It was obvious from the interaaction between the bus drivers and the bin people that it was deliberate. It did improve after that. Occasionally a bus gets blocked for
5 mins but you can see that the bin workers are doing their best to clear the obstruction ASAP.

If only they started earlier ior picked up evening nstead of being out and about at rush hour!

If only they started earlier

On bin days our bins have to be out for 7am. If they started earlier than that you can guarantee someone would complain about noise!

The thing is bin men have to collect from tens if not 100s of streets on a round. They stop and start every couple of minutes as they move up the road, otherwise those lifting and shifting would be wheeling bins up and down the street. They can't constantly find "a safe and convenient place to park" so that every person travelling on the road doesn't get slightly inconvenienced.

I feel sorry for them, it's a crap job.

Yes I wouldn't fancy being a bin man (or woman!) and having cars squeezing past the lorry while trying to unload bins TBF.

Maybe they could come in the middle of the night?

Generally I've found bin men don't get in your way any more than is necessary BUT there was a particular truck where I used to live where they honestly did seem to purposely block the road by not moving on an extra 2m. They created a huge queue every week by stopping where there were cars parked on both sides instead of moving slightly to where there was space to go round. There would be no option to go another way because of a series of one way streets. I had to get past them one way to do a nursery drop (several miles so only possible by car). On my way back to get to work they would be blocking another road. It would add 20-30 minutes on to my journey each week.

But if they pulled over I imagine cars wouldn't let them out and it would seriously impact on their schedules. One solution would be for centralised collection points. But I certainly would hate for this to happen.