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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not move?

36 replies

Bussinbussin · 03/02/2022 06:12

Please help me settle a dispute with my son (almost 18) who says I'm a big meanie.

Earlier, I was in a video meeting for work (I'm not in UK time zone). My desk is at my front window, overlooking my car parked on the road.

There was a bit of a commotion in the street. A few people were milling around a car which was stopped in the road, parallel to mine. It was blocking traffic. It was stopped incredibly close to mine so I thought he might've sideswiped it. I'm still in the meeting but my son went out to investigate.

After a bit of chatting and gesticulating my son comes back in and tells me the fellow has a flat tyre. The man in the car wanted me to move my car up to the next free parking spot, 2 spaces ahead, so the man could take my spot. I'm on video, mic on mute and trying to look interested in work while muttering to my son out of the corner of my mouth! I say no way, I'm busy and the guy can move his own car all of 10-15 metres to the empty spot, you can roll forward that far on a flat.

He goes out. More gesticulating. They're all glaring at me through the window.

YABU - I should've excused myself from work and moved my car.
YANBU - the guy was being precious and could have driven forward a few feet to get off the road.

OP posts:
CaroleFuckingBaskin · 03/02/2022 06:17

Yanbu

Jinglebellsoncake · 03/02/2022 06:36

Yanbu you were working in an important call. It would be reasonable to expect you to finish your call/the important part of your call and excuse yourself.

Tiramysu · 03/02/2022 07:20

It can wait until after the call if its that important. If you were in the office they wouldnt expect you to go home and move it.

MangoBiscuit · 03/02/2022 07:29

YANBU. If it was urgent he move, he rolls it forward. If he absolutely can't, he waits until you're out of your meeting.

Also, if he absolutely couldn't move it, and he was parallel and close to yours, then you would either have been unable to move it if you'd had to pull out. Or, if it was just a case of rolling your car forward, then your DS could have taken the handbrake off and done that.

None of this constitutes an emergency on your part.

ChoiceMummy · 03/02/2022 07:57

Not an emergency on your part no, but fairly bloody minded and antisocial not to assist when you could have.
Wfh means occasional disruption as it does in the office.
Fwiw, moving a car with a flat tyre could then damage the rims. It happened in my car

Suppose now just hope karma doesn't get you and that you need help from strangers in your car!

Lockheart · 03/02/2022 08:01

@ChoiceMummy

Not an emergency on your part no, but fairly bloody minded and antisocial not to assist when you could have. Wfh means occasional disruption as it does in the office. Fwiw, moving a car with a flat tyre could then damage the rims. It happened in my car

Suppose now just hope karma doesn't get you and that you need help from strangers in your car!

She couldn't have, she was working.

It is fine to drive 10-15m slowly on a flat.

toomuchlaundry · 03/02/2022 08:04

I assume he had already driven it to get where he was

LethargicActress · 03/02/2022 08:05

It’s ridiculous that anyone would expect to to just abandon your work to help sort out a strangers problem on a public road. So much is happening online from home nowadays, people have to accept that just because you’re home doesn’t mean you’re available. How would this person have felt if his children had been in the middle of an online lesson and the teacher just left half way through?

Lockheart · 03/02/2022 08:07

Unless the car was literally immobilised (which it clearly wasn't if he was planning on parallel parking it) then I don't even see why he asked instead of taking it up to the empty parking space.

Ileflottante · 03/02/2022 08:08

No bloody way would I have left my call and moved my car. And I’d have been furious at the attempt at intimidation by glaring at me through my windows. What the fuck?

Original poster
Bussinbussin · 03/02/2022 08:15

@MangoBiscuit

YANBU. If it was urgent he move, he rolls it forward. If he absolutely can't, he waits until you're out of your meeting.

Also, if he absolutely couldn't move it, and he was parallel and close to yours, then you would either have been unable to move it if you'd had to pull out. Or, if it was just a case of rolling your car forward, then your DS could have taken the handbrake off and done that.

None of this constitutes an emergency on your part.

My car was a little forward of his, I think there would've been enough room to squeeze out.

It just seemed like such a ridiculous request, even if I hadn't been working I'd have thought he was a CF. The next free parking spot was SO close.

But DS had me second guessing myself, and I see there's at least one poster on here who agrees.

OP posts:
girlmom21 · 03/02/2022 08:16

I think you were a bit mean to not move but they sound like arseholes and I'm certain that many people could've pushed the car if he didn't want to drive it.

Rogue1001MNer · 03/02/2022 08:17

I'd have sent ds out with the keys so someone could've moved your car

MrsRobinsonsHandprints · 03/02/2022 08:21

@Rogue1001MNer

I'd have sent ds out with the keys so someone could've moved your car
Brilliant idea, let an uninsured complete stranger drive your car.
Original poster
Bussinbussin · 03/02/2022 08:36

Trying to upload a diagram!

To not move?
OP posts:
ChoiceMummy · 03/02/2022 09:23

@Bussinbussin

Trying to upload a diagram!
So that just shows that you were being unreasonable as the effort for you to move that little distance would have been significantly less and safer than for the car with the flat tyre.
MrsRobinsonsHandprints · 03/02/2022 09:25

ChoiceMummy Only If she had been been beside her car, she wasn't she was in her house on a work call.

MangoBiscuit · 03/02/2022 09:56

ChoiceMummy Bollocks does it. He would have had to drive it to get it into the spot anyway. If the wheel was so flat, or the tyre so damaged that moving it 10 meters would have been unsafe, then him rolling it back and forth into the OPs parking space would have been just as bad.

Original poster
Bussinbussin · 03/02/2022 10:53

@ChoiceMummy wouldn't the safest and most effortless choice have been for this man, upon realising his tyre was flat, to creep forwards a few metres to the empty parking spot close by?

Instead he stopped in the middle of the road, in front of a crossing (a school crossing at pickup time), dithered about long enough for a crowd to form and residents to come out of their houses, and asked a kid to fetch his parent to come out and move to the spot just ahead. So he could himself drive forwards and then backwards to take the spot they'd vacate. Bloody ridiculous IMO.

OP posts:
SarahAndQuack · 03/02/2022 11:13

@ChoiceMummy

Not an emergency on your part no, but fairly bloody minded and antisocial not to assist when you could have. Wfh means occasional disruption as it does in the office. Fwiw, moving a car with a flat tyre could then damage the rims. It happened in my car

Suppose now just hope karma doesn't get you and that you need help from strangers in your car!

If you were in the office your boss would let you walk out of a meeting because some randomer had shown up asking you help him sort out his flat tyre?

I don't believe you.

ChoiceMummy · 03/02/2022 12:12

@SarahAndQuack

I regularly leave meetings when working to take in parcels for neighbours and even in the last week to give directions to someone random who knocked.

Guess what I'm gainfully employed and when my director heard this, their only comment was they'd have had to use Google maps themselves to be able to help, nothing about ducking out for a couple of minutes.

And yes it's a professional role!

AdobeWanKenobi · 03/02/2022 12:18

ChoiceMummy
If you were in the office, specifically in the board room meeting, would you suddenly stand up, say to the MD "just give me 5 I'm nipping to take a parcel" or 'I'm just going to move my car, catch me up on what I miss?"

Deeply unprofessional in an office environment and just as much so in a home office.

ChoiceMummy · 03/02/2022 16:48

@AdobeWanKenobi

ChoiceMummy If you were in the office, specifically in the board room meeting, would you suddenly stand up, say to the MD "just give me 5 I'm nipping to take a parcel" or 'I'm just going to move my car, catch me up on what I miss?"

Deeply unprofessional in an office environment and just as much so in a home office.

Are you suggesting that in a physical office setting you've never had to leave a meeting for some reason?i don't believe you and this example is no different, except it's illuminating the decent human beings and those who are not!
sunshinesupermum · 03/02/2022 17:05

He could have easily driven it on a flat tyre! Had to do so myself to get to a garage once. What a numpty.

AdobeWanKenobi · 03/02/2022 17:25

Are you suggesting that in a physical office setting you've never had to leave a meeting for some reason?i don't believe you and this example is no different, except it's illuminating the decent human beings and those who are not!

Urgent reasons? Absolutely. Delivering parcels and moving cars that don't need to be moved? Nope.

It's not illuminating 'decent' human beings at all, it's illuminating professional and unprofessional human beings and the people it's illuminating to, wether you realise it or not, are your bosses Wink.