To think this man was rude?

[Lucidas]

I was at a waste and recycling plant. It wasn’t too busy to get in - a queue of just under 5 minutes. I finished getting rid of my stuff, sat in the car and brought up directions on my phone to my next destination. I was on my phone for less than a minute.

I hear banging on my window and roll down it ever so slightly. It’s a guy, late 60s, looking very angry:

Him: Can you MOVE? Now?
Me: Excuse me?
Him: There’s a queue of people waiting out there.
Me: I’m just bringing up directions on my phone.
Him: What?
Me: repeat myself
Him: Well do it OUT THERE gestures randomly towards direction of the main road
Me: I’m sorry...

He walks off, gets into the car next to me, and is driven away. He didn’t even work there, which I’d initially assumed for some reason.

Was I in the wrong? Should I really
have driven out onto a road for no safe place to stop for quite a while, without setting my satnav?

AIBU to think my appearance may have made me a target for someone’s self-righteous indignation? (Muslim woman wearing a hijab)

If it was someone working there, fine...but what’s it to him??

of course he was rude, it was an inappropriate manner to approach you, however I would have just pulled out and waited at the junction with the main road and programmed it there but then my satnav is part of the car not on my phone. Did you really need sat nav immediately? Surely it was your local area?

Whatever yes he was rude and belligerent HOWEVER he maybe had a point as when anyone says I was just a minute it invariably is more than that

[quote Mumteedum]@Bluntness100 I think it could have been..I dunno maybe 3 or 4 mins, yes. The horror. Clearly the OP deserved a good dressing down. The man's a hero to all the poor people in the queue. Those extra 2 mins were absolutely vital to everyone's day I'm sure. [/quote]
But why is that OK? To inconvenience a queue full of people while the OP pisses around with her sat nav.

Do you genuinely believe it was less than sixty seconds? And that it’s plausible the man saw she wasn’t moving, made his way to her to tell her to move, in that time frame?

So he took just as much time if not more time than OP by walking over and then walking back to his own car whilst holding even more people up. So he was more inconsiderate than her. It could have also caused a massive argument resulting in even more being held up too or just taken time for OP to explain what she was doing.
Surely the best thing for him to have done would be to let the people who work there sort it out if OP was genuinely sitting in the car on her phone for a while.

You would have got a piece of my mind too, selfish and inconsiderate.

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion maybe it's not ideal but at worst it was a really minor misjudgement. It's a couple of minutes hold up.

If the person in front of you at the supermarket starts chatting to the cashier, would you be ok with them have a public telling off? I mean I may well sigh and grump to myself but actually that's just as selfish of me to be impatient and unpleasant, as it is of the other person who is being slightly thoughtless. I'm saying, we need to be a bit more tolerant and less angry in this world. It was a very minor inconvenience at worst for actually a fairly understandable reason.

If the person in front of you at the supermarket starts chatting to the cashier, would you be ok with them have a public telling off?

I agree.
Nothing irritates me more than someone’s having a chat at the counter when I’m running late but I don’t say anything because it’s literally a couple of minutes which I realise that little bit of communication may be all that person has all day and I know I’m stressed because I’m running late which is my own fault so there’s no need to take it out on other people.

@Rillington

Faffing with your phone/sat nav and holding people up is on a par with getting to the checkout without your purse ready or stopping at the top of the escalator. It's so annoying.

Yep, spot on. But we don't go around telling them off generally do we? We have a grumble to ourselves and get on with our day.

YANBU

Let’s be honest, he wouldn’t have said anything if you’d been A MAN.

Why is everyone in such a desperate hurry? It’s definitely a big town/city thing. Living rurally, you learn to have more patience when the 5th tractor has pulled out 50 yards up the road on your journey home.

There is a fine line between being nice and not being mean to someone for a minor indiscretion, and tolerating anti-social behaviour. On the one hand people who bite their lip and allow someone to take few seconds to chat or sort themselves out are the nicest and most valuable in society... on the other, arguably, we have appalling behaviour from all directions as a direct result of people failing to have the courage to stand up to loiterers and litterers and dawdlers.

And i would question the ‘less than a minute’ if the bloke has managed to get suitably irritated, out of his car and over to hers in that time frame.

But what was he doing sitting in his car for more than a minute, with a queue waiting, instead of heading out? Isn’t he adding to the problem?

Surely he was waiting behind you? Why should he head out if he wanted to get to the waste recycling point?

It really is very high-handed to assume everyone behind you in the queue can wait whilst you reset your iPhone directions. You must have known the direction you needed to head off in, and if you couldn't stop on that road it's usually easy enough to go up a side road where you can.

@Killahangilion

YANBU

Let’s be honest, he wouldn’t have said anything if you’d been A MAN.

Why is everyone in such a desperate hurry? It’s definitely a big town/city thing. Living rurally, you learn to have more patience when the 5th tractor has pulled out 50 yards up the road on your journey home.

People are in a hurry because life in 2021 under a cruel form of capitalism is tough, and they've already wasted 30 minutes in the queue to get into the dump.

You must have been on your phone for quite a while for him to spot you, decide on whether to come over, walk over and have the conversation with you.

I bet you took longer than you thought & I’d have been silently congratulating him for doing it, had I been in the queue.

Faffing with your phone/sat nav and holding people up is on a par with getting to the checkout without your purse ready or stopping at the top of the escalator. It's so annoying.

Yep, spot on. But we don't go around telling them off generally do we? We have a grumble to ourselves and get on with our day.

Oh, I don't know. If someone stops at the top of the escalator so people behind them can't get off, I'm liable to point out to them that it's bloody dangerous.

@Mumteedum you might. I certainly let people know if they are causing others a problem.

Surely he was waiting behind you? Why should he head out if he wanted to get to the waste recycling point?

I read it as they were both next to each other (where you park near the bins) they had both taken their rubbish out already and were in their cars getting ready to leave. Then other people can come in and park where they were parked.

You know ehat. Fuck it. Next time I will faffa bout wherever as well. Let's all do. What's couple of minutes times everyone in the queue

Yanbu

Nothing gives him the right to be aggressive to you- and he was.

Sitting and bringing up directions when there was a queue was mildly annoying, but as you hadn’t thought to do it earlier that was what you did. It wasn’t annoying enough to be worthy of comment, expect maybe to others in his car.

So he took just as much time if not more time than OP by walking over and then walking back to his own car whilst holding even more people up. So he was more inconsiderate than her. It could have also caused a massive argument resulting in even more being held up too or just taken time for OP to explain what she was doing.

How could he have wasted any time walking over to OP? Whilst she sat there no-one was going anywhere, so the man behind walking over made zero difference. It's theoretically possible that he delayed her starting off by a few seconds, but it's not as if OP suggests anywhere that she was on the point of starting so it seems unlikely. And even then, if he's made her think a bit before doing that again then he's potentially benefited loads of other drivers who might be stuck behind her in future.

How could he have wasted any time walking over to OP? Whilst she sat there no-one was going anywhere, so the man behind walking over made zero difference.

He had finished at the dump and cars were waiting for him to leave, like they were for OP but she was obviously already in her car but he had walked over said his piece and then would have had to walk back to his car, get in and drive off which would have taken more time than OP who was already sat in her car ready to go.

He was rude, but you do sound a bit self absorbed and oblivious to others.

@OrchidLass I forgot, this is aibu, where saying your alternate point of view is " harping on". And people enjoy a good bit of righteous anger. My mistake, I'll bugger off 👍😂

This section is the Mumsnet equivalent of the daily mail really. Stumbled in from active convos.

Jesus all of you must spend a lot of time pissed of at being so inconvenienced in the world. Is it not exhausting being so butt hurt about minor stuff?

Mumsnet does fucking love a pile on!

Sorry, YABU, just because our tip is a blinking nightmare, too busy, queues, not enough unloading spaces etc. It would have been a lot more considerate to sort your directions elsewhere.

However, posters who suggest he wouldn’t have said the same to a man are probably right. I doubt the hijab was an issue but maybe I’m woefully naive.

You were holding up the queue. You would’ve annoyed me, I don’t care if you’re wearing a hijab or a pineapple on your head, just move along. And for those saying ‘he wouldn’t have said it to a man’ you have no way of knowing that...

Wow sorry you had someone shouting at you at quite close range during a pandemic (yes we are still in a pandemic). That would have been more my issue but also you were there less than a minute and yes maybe he thought let me shout at this woman for being on her phone why didn't he just start going instead of holding up his side of the queue? Instead he wasted the time of the person behind him lol what a dick