‘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.

I find a lot of people don't even bother with the "excuse me" they literally just barge in like I'm invisible. I'm short & look younger than I am and an easy target probably

I like to be out&about at Christmas time with my kids, browsing the markets, going to the fairs, seeing the lights etc. This is when it happens the most. People dithering about with their phones taking photos of every flipping tiny thing.

I do some shopping online but like OP said, you can't always trust that you'll get what you order, even the non-food stuff. I've had quite expensive electronic stuff turn up faulty from Amazon already. PITA sending them back. I like getting stuff in the shops & testing it first, & much easier returns.

I think it's reasonable to say excuse me and then take what you would like from the shelf if someone else is standing there pondering. I think it's a bit much for people to be offended by that.

I don't like shopping and the whole thing takes twice as long if you have to wait for people to ponder the options when you know exactly what you want. As long as you're polite and don't also start dithering then there's no issue.

But there comes a point where some people are impatient and rude.

Then again, I find dithering in shops to be frustrating to be honest so also find people stopping to chat about the weather at checkouts when there's a queue annoying (I like pleasantries but not long chats when there's queues), people waiting until everything is through the till before starting to look for their purse/wallet like it's a surprise they were going to have to pay etc.

”It's just too "peopley" out there“

Oh I agree completely, @CoffeeBeansGalore! I think I have done all of the Christmas shopping online so far - and the one thing that needs buying in an actual shop, I am going to send dh to get.

@Shesalittlemadam - I have seen accounts on here, from wheelchair users who have been pushed away from the shelves, which sounds like a compelling argument for knives on the wheelchair’s wheels, a la Boudicca, to me!

I absolutely hate ditherers. Got no patience for them.

Markets I can sort of understand, but supermarkets and streets - no bloody way. If I see a group of people standing there, blocking the way and having a natter, I'll say excuse me, but if they don't move, I'll just push past them.

Like yesterday. Bunch of women having a good old chat in a supermarket aisle. Like fuck am I waiting for them to finish.

YANBU at all.

I have long since found that the best - and first - purchase when Christmas shopping should be a roll of wrapping paper, because it's very good weapon tool for 'accidentally' jabbing the ankles of those who behave as OP describes.

😂😂😂 I've never really thought about it but you've described it spot on!

Some people really do think if your in their way you should move if asked politely!

Tolerance towards the elderly and children is just disgusting

If I am going to pick one group who are by far the most entitled and least likely to cede when DD in her walker needs to get by, it is the elderly. They practically clamber over the top of her to get to where they want to be. She’s been knocked sideways several times by older people, but never by the kids at her school or by younger people when out and about. So, it is entirely erroneous to say there is a major problem with manners nowadays, as if it is a problem with young people. The group most likely to stand aside and offer us help? Teenagers.

Don't even get me started on the number of times people used to just wheel me out of their way. Then would get arsey when I told them not to touch my wheelchair! They always seemed to think I had been dumped there by my carer when in fact I had no carer and was doing my shopping.
Rude feckers

The thing that I have noticed increasing most lately is when you’ve started reversing out of a parking space in a car park having made sure the coast is clear, and then either a car or a pedestrian comes round the corner into row and TOTALLY IGNORES the fact that you had started your manoeuvre before they were in the row, and they just walk or drive behind you. So many cars just swerving past. So many people just walking past the back of you wirh their trolley having seen you moving slowly (but not too slowly) backwards into what had been a clear space.

It gives me the fucking RAGE. One day I will snap, get out the car and scream at them “are you TRYING to get run over? You could see I was already reversing out into the clear row, just wait for me to finish the manoeuvre that I started before you turned into this row, you BELLEND!”

I had one incident where the woman in the wheelchair being pushed recklessly by her husband said "sorry," as he wheeled it into the back of my legs so he could reach in and get food from the cabinet in front of me.

The only time anyone comes in to contact with our wheelchair, it is because they have done something immensely ignorant and encroached on DD’s space, usually sticking their arse in her face, clattering her with a handbag, or actually stepping right in front of us when we have absolutely no choice to be in that space. Spend some time in or behind a wheelchair before you assume people are “recklessly barging”

The thing that I have noticed increasing most lately is when you’ve started reversing out of a parking space in a car park having made sure the coast is clear

If you are reversing out of a space it is impossible to see your way is completely clear. You should be reversing in to spaces as it is a far safer thing to do.

'I'm probably going to get flamed for this but I find the people who are the rudest whilst shopping are generally:

Old women (had several supermarket clashes with grumpy old women, two of whom literally used their trolleys as cash-barriers to move me out of the way'

Probably because they've had 70 plus years of putting up with dithering and faffing and other people's shit, and don't want to waste time hanging around the cheese aisle in M&S when they have better things to do.

The one thing that really annoys me is when the checkout assistant & the person at the front of the queue decide to have a 20 minute gossip, the queue is getting longer & longer, but they take no notice & carry on chatting.

And they wonder why self service checkouts are so popular!

Happened to me Op. I was waiting to get a chance to look at a stall this lady said excuse me, so I moved she took my place & stood in front of me I said pretty loudly, “it’s okay, I’m not waiting too I’m just standing here for fun” so bloody rude!

You can, Minty, unless you have a van or something parked next to you. You just look over your shoulder, in mirrors and look all the way behind you.

Anyway, I have had people walking through the space I’m reversing into, cutting their way through the parked cars. They can see what I’m doing. The parking space was clear. They always do it with a bit of a hurried skip so they must know they were in the wrong. Just move along to the side of the next car instead.

Maybe I just have a lot of ill-mannered people near me or something. However I have an equal number of lovely ones. Makes the twatty selfish behaviour stand out more.

Similar happened to me the other day and it quite pissed me off at the time

I was waiting at the "wait" point at the tills in Tesco and a man just pushed past me and went to the till. I approached and asked him why he'd done that (I wasn't even being snarky, I thought maybe he had a reason) and he muttered something about it being my fault because I wasn't close enough to the tills and threw his avocadoes on the floor and flounced out! Then the cashier looked at me like I'd been out of order!

It pisses me off even more because I didn't know that men stopped being nice to women when they were no longer young and pretty until fairly recently. It came as quite a shock how rude some men can be.

What is the “wait” point? The fact that you have put it in inverted comments suggests that it’s not a thing!

Wait point is a sign with an arrow saying "please wait here for the tills". It's a thing.

As a pedestrian, I am much more comfortable around people who have the patience and consideration to reverse into spaces and drive out. It is just much safer. I don't have the time or energy to do much Christmas shopping in real shops, so do most of it online, unfortunately (but not with Amazon, because they're bastards)

Wait point is a sign with an arrow saying "please wait here for the tills". It's a thing

I haven’t seen that in my local Tesco. Or maybe there’s One at the self-service till queue, is that what you mean?

I hate the person looking at the fridge/shelf in the supermarket with their trolley sideways next to them, thereby taking up the maximum amount of space in front of the goods. Selfish. Also being pushed at from behind in the queue. Ramming me won't make your turn come any quicker.
But what really winds me up is arriving home from work and parallel parking on the road. So often I'll pull up next to the car I'm going to park behind and start reversing in, and some twat will come barrelling up behind and insist on squeezing past. I'm reversing! Indicating! I was here first! Just wait for a few seconds!!!!

I had a trolley up the bum for the first time recently! 😂

I'd been organised enough to go to Aldi at 8am on a Saturday and it was practically empty. Bliss. Nearing the end of my shop I paused in a completely empty and unpopular aisle to quickly check my list before heading to the checkouts.
I was knocked off balance by a sharp nudge of trolley into my ample rear coupled with a headmisstressy voice barking "excuse me!"

I was standing well out of the way next to a neverending section of ancient special buys. Plenty of space in front of and around me for trolleys. I think she'd decided I was blocking a super special sale section and the easiest course of action was to shove me out the way - there was nothing apologetic in her tone!

I got elbowed several times yesterday while looking at a second hand book stall at a local charity Christmas Bazaar. One man stood really close behind me trying to lean over me to see (I'm quite short). So i freaked him out by reaching for every book that he reached for until he moved on!

I get that too NaturalBornWoman! I'm pretty speedy and practised at reverse parallel parking and complete it in less than 10 seconds outside my house.

I've had people overtake and cut me up when I'm 90% of the way out of a space (having checked the road was empty). They speed up and swerve around you. It's all 30mph round here with 20mph school zones, parked cars and speed bumps so it's not as if they're going to magically come upon a dual carriageway.

Also hate the sideways trolley shelf blocker! Worse still the diagonal trolley aisle blocker!

It's a Tesco Express, not a supermarket. There's a queueing point that's marked by a sign with an arrow on it stating "Please queue here for the tills". People are supposed to queue there and wait for a till to become free, the cashier was still serving a customer when the man pushed past me and stood at her till.

Maybe I didn't explain it very well in my other post.