‘Excuse me’ - NO!

[TheRightHonerable]

Surely ‘excuse me’ is what you say when somebody is blocking your path and you need to jump past? It means stepping to the side for a second and then continuing what you were doing.

DH and I went to our cities Christmas market last weekend. It’s popular and busy but also quite unavoidable for residents as in the same streets as the banks/normal everyday shops.

I was honestly floored by the amount of times people said ‘excuse me’ ...then when I stepped out to let them pass, they just took my place to look at the items I had been looking at!! That’s not ‘excuse me’- Thats ‘get out of my way!!’ AIBU?

I pointed this out to a woman whilst I was crammed into a right angle of shelves in M&S, no through route and people either side of me.

Her: Excuse me
Me: Sorry, there’s no room.
Her: I just want to grab some cards
Me: holding 2 packs of cards in the 3 for 2 offer and clearly choosing my third ... Then wait until I’m finished grabbing my cards instead of expecting me to get out of your way!

She huffed and disappeared. No doubt thinking I was the one being rude 🤔

My SIL and DB went into town this weekend and said the exact same happened to them all day! People seeming like they wanted to get past but then just took their place the moment they moved. I think I’m going to have to stop being so Accomodating/polite in future as it honestly wound me up so badly.

You can pass, but dinnae linger,
Cos if you do, I'll bite your finger!

Christmas markets are for dithering 🤣 I just queued up at the stalls & waited for others to dither then looked myself

@Cuteypye

Agreed! Another gripe I have is people who don’t fall into single file when you’re heading towards each other on the street. Basic life skill, being able to negotiate somebody else walking towards you...but no nowadays it seems people feel entitled to walk 3-4 a breast and refuse to move!

But even if I had been ‘dithering’ 🤔 there’s no time limit in a shop. If you choose to go shopping IRL rather than online you have to extend tolerance to other shoppers!
There is also nothing that says that you can't say excuse me and pass through to grab something. Tolerance works both ways.

You say you were not dithering, so fair enough, that person was rude, but it doesn't mean that there arent' people who do dither in front of aisle in busy times, and who lack self-condemnation of their self-centered behaviour.

My latest bugbear is “Excuse me” instead of “Excuse me please”

This always seems to happen in charity shops. In our local one, the aisles are very narrow...there's only room for one person in each really unless you work together...I was there the other day and a woman kept trying to shove in...I just ignored her.

Similarly, the assistants...volunteers there, seem to always want to restock the exact shelf of bric a brac I'm looking at!

They'll come bustling over with one frigging ugly jug or something and make a big deal of "oh I just have to...." and lean over me.

I don't dither...or stay too long so WHY!??

The lack of 'thank yous' drives me mad in those scenarios, which I also accommodate frequently, too, CuteyPie. I just don' get the rudeness!

I work on a till and the number of people who say "can I just pay first because i'm late" whatever shit excuse hey can come up with is ridiculous. I have been known to say you want to get up earlier or your time is not more important than the person you've just pushedin front of. So rude.

@Dontdisturbmenow

Like I said in PP, saying excuse me whilst leaning through to grab an item you know you want doesn’t bother me and isn’t the same thing as saying ‘excuse me’ to someone who is browsing in front of you, so you can take their place and browse yourself!

It’s like saying ‘excuse me’ then pushing ahead of someone in a queue.

I was in a CoOP once and looking at something on a top shelf when a woman in her 40s came up to me and pointed at the lowest shelf under what I was looking at....and pointing to it she said "Can you get me one of those?"

I was "Erm...no..." I moved out of the way so she could get it herself...I'm not bloody squatting down so a perfectly fit woman can be handed her shopping!

I was in my 30s myself and with bad knees!

yanbu. Better to shop online.

My gripe is more the people who stop to look at stuff in the supermarket then block off your access with a shopping trolley This! I asked a lady if she could move her trolley so I could get the item behind it. She said "no I'm looking for something". Her husband moved it for me and apologised.

I notice a lot in queues people stand so close behind you. I used to take a step away but they do too! A few times I've asked them to move back a step because it's just so uncomfortable.

I have always been a very polite and courteous person but over the last year or so I have changed precisely because I'm tired of being walked all over by CF's like that.

This.

YABU due to excessive Americanised use of "grabbing" as a synonym for getting, taking, picking etc - when the fuck did we all start having to GRAB everything????????

Well... it depends, I spend 10 minutes waiting for a family to move away of an item I wanted to check, they were just playing with it.

My gripe is people saying "Excuse me " when what they mean is "coming through" .

No thought or time allowed to giving the offending person who has the temerity to be in their way to move .Just barge ,in my area often with a pushchair used as a battering ram .

@BillHadersNewWife

😂 Oh Lord People really do make me laugh.

I was at a shopping centre recently and Loos were busy as always. A 40 something woman came in and started dancing around 🙄 before asking to cut ahead of me.

Now I’m slim...but also visibly 6 months pregnant. There was an empty disabled loo just outside 🙄 so if she had a reason she could have used that.

I said no.

A 40 year old woman thought asking to jump ahead of a visibly pregnant woman in line for a wee...was fine 🤔

"My gripe is people saying "Excuse me " when what they mean is "coming through"*
Agreed - I was on a very quiet tube one time when a Woman did this to me, in pushing me out of the way she stood on my laptop bag too - all for no good reason.

Oh and when you’re unloading a trolley on your own and the cashier has put half of it through by the time you’re done so you run to the end to start packing the mountain of waiting items whilst the people behind you make irritated noises.
I don’t have 14 arms and I’m breaking a sweat I’m going so fast.

Then the cashier asks for payment whilst you’re still packing and you’re like 🤔🙈

I avoid weekends wherever possible but sometimes it’s unavoidable and online shopping in my area means getting 60% of the items you asked for and with crap dates 😂🙈

Where have manners gone?

There's only so long that you can give way and be kind to others who then show no acknowledgement nor appreciation or just take the piss. Sooner or later, you end up just not giving a shit either and adopt the same "sod em" attitude. It's definitely a race to the bottom.

I walk along our canal tow path every day. It's only wide enough for 2 people side by side. I used to step onto the side verge (mud/grass) to let couples, groups, cyclists, dog walkers, etc come the other way. But I soon realised that barely anyone said thanks or even acknowledged it. So, now "sod em" is my motto. I just carry on walking on my side of the path - if they don't move over, then I just stop and stand until they do. Why should I get my shoes muddy or risk slipping etc if they can't even be arsed to even nod in acknowledgement!

I’m not a ditherer - I’m late 20’s and quite assertive in my shopping

You know dithering is not an age related trait, right?

on a slightly different tack on the excuse-me front, I find a lot of people are now abandoning saying excuse-me and pushing past and then saying sorry. Sorry is not the same as excuse-me. God I'm a grumpy cow sometimes.

I also think there's a great lack of "awareness" these days. People just aren't aware of others around them, so it appears to be selfish. But they probably just don't think about who is around them and are blissfully unaware a queue is forming because they're dithering and blocking. They shouldn't really need to be asked/told to step aside to let others in - if they had awareness, they'd know and let others in if they want more time to dither.

It's a bit like shop checkouts. The amount of time you get stuck behind someone who just wants to talk about the weather, their family, TV, etc., blissfully unaware of the queue growing behind them. Then, suddenly, they turn around and look shocked and are then full of apologies etc. Too many people in their own little bubble these days.

Yanbu. Christmas shopping is a nightmare I avoid. I buy 99% online. It’s actually the only time I order home delivery for groceries. If I have to go shopping it’s late early hours when it’s dead.
I can’t stand shopping in general but Christmas just brings the worst out in people. People are so desperate to buy some tat like a stupid carrot toy from Aldi they lose their fucking minds! Aaaaaand breath.

My solution to rude people like this pushing in is to look concerned and ask them if that's their purse on the floor back there - then grab my space back. Oh no purse? Oh right, must have been someone else's.