One of the things that gives me hope for humanity is that given the chance, most people follow the rules in low-stakes situations.
Most people put their shopping carts back. Most people stay in their lane while driving. Most people won’t cut in line. Most people don’t try to screw over everyone they meet.
Now, to be quite clear: “most” isn’t “all.” And we live in an age where the people in power not only aren’t rule-followers, they believe it should be illegal to even point to the rule existing if it hurts their feelings. (We call these people “billionaires.”)
So it can be a little tough to keep that spark alive in my heart that most people aren’t selfish scum-sucking shitbags … but I do, because most people really aren’t like that.
But that doesn’t make it less aggravating when I see people who don’t follow the rules in low-stakes situations.
And one that drives me crazy is school drop-off.
The rules are simple. There’s a line of cars. Once that line fills up, a second line starts next to it. When the teachers and aides come outside, cars in the first line start letting kids out, then they pull up and exit the parking lot. Once all the cars are out of the first line, then cars in the second line can start letting their kids out.
Simple enough! But what happens is when cars in the first line start pulling up, some people who arrive late then try to sneak into the back of that line even though cars that arrived before them are still waiting in the second line.
This is not, in the grand scheme of things, a big deal. But it is so very obnoxious. It would be one thing if the waiting was intolerable, but it isn’t; once the cars in the front of the line let their kids out, it’s usually 5 minutes or less before the parking lot is clear.
And I don’t want to be have New York Times pundit brain and write “This Barista Was Mean To Me In Starbucks; What That Says Broadly About All Of Society” but it is telling that some people simply cannot wait an extra minute or two, and they’re doing it with their kids in the car.
Great lesson, parents.
So what’s a low-level rule breaking that you see and it drives you batty?
Oh yeah, and happy Friday! Whooo!
I’m with you on that. Those parents’ entitlement clearly outperforms their shame. It’s not like they’re being dicks in a random environment. Schools are small enough communities that people will start to recognize who the douches are.
Today I was stuck in traffic on a main road with a designated bus lane. A person decided to bypass all the traffic by using the bus lane for three blocks (that I could see). I hope karama catches up to them.
Traffic merges. The most efficient way to do it (and this is science) is to do the zipper where every other car lets one in front of it. And some asshole always decides he (or she, see a lot more of that these days) should get to go in front of someone else. And the orderly system collapses.
The other one is someone who wheels a full cart of groceries up to the “10 items or fewer” lane, knowing that the cashier is just going to have to suck it up and check them out. That’s declining now, though, in the age of self-checkout.
Which leads me to people who don’t know how to use self-checkout. For the love of God, you’ve been watching people scan items for GENERATIONS now. It’s not that fucking hard. But I frequently see older people just wheel up to the checkout station and demand someone “help” them.
I hate self checkout. I never use it unless I have ten items or less (very rare). It’s impossible to stack all my stuff on that tiny bagging shelf. And yes I know how to use it but that doesn’t mean I’m efficient at it. I also like the human element of dealing with a cashier. There’s a particularly friendly cashier at my grocery store. Everyone knows him and loves him. He is chatty which is less efficient but makes the whole experience better and less like a dreaded task.
i love self checkout….when its not completely clogged with idiots in a hurry
unless you only have 1 or 2 items how self checkout is supposed to work here…is you grab your scanny pistol on the way into the store…scan everything as you go…and then just plop the scanny pistol into the holder at the checkout..pay and go…and unless you get picked for a random item check thats like 30 seconds til the checkouts free again for the next person
what actually happens is people load up their shopping carts….decide the regular checkouts are too busy….and spend the next 20 minutes trying to manually scan every item in their cart at the checkout so self checkout also grinds to a halt….with the added bonus that usually by the time they are halfway through their cart in the self checkout everyone in the regular line has already left the shop…as cashiers with space for a boat load of groceries process a boatload of groceries a damn sight faster than one idiot with no space or bags….
when self checkout isnt bogged down by idiots its wonderful tho…i shop daily..sometimes more than once…i just want to be in and out fast
I see that kind of behavior where I go to school as it is more a commuter school than the standalone campus with isolated student ghetto I am used to.
Never a big fan of parents with entitlement issues.
Worst moment ever was when I came home early from work and found a parent’s car parked in my driveway!
I was livid… more livid than usual so I blocked that person in and waited for them to show up as I sat in my car. 15 minutes later the big brat showed up with her little brat. She started yelling at me that I was blocking her way. I yelled back then why the fuck did you park in my driveway? She then said why am I swearing in front of her kid? I told her that maybe her kid is going to find out that her mom is an entitled asshole who doesn’t ask for any fucking permission to park in someone’s driveway.
I slowly moved my car as I glared at her. When she left I wrote down her license plate number and went to see the school principal to complain (more politely than I did with her.) The school principal sighed when she recognized the plate, I guess I wasn’t the only one with issues with her.
I became well known as someone who wasn’t going to put up with any parent’s shit. I never had issues with the folks who actually asked. I wasn’t a loudmouth cussing asshole with them. Quite the opposite.
Haha love it!
Some asshole today at Costco decided to skip ahead of an old dude in the self checkout lane because old dude didn’t hustle fast enough to an open checkout spot.
Dude also was the spitting image for that douchebag in seasons 2 and 3 of The White Lotus, so I was like oh faces which match the character.
When people decide that the rules of the road are theirs to make up as they go along and stop the flow of traffic to wave someone in from a side street. Fuck you that’s now how this shit works!
You are technically correct, but I’m neutral on this because it sucks to wait an eternity on that side street and we’ve all been there.
What enrages me is if someone pulls out of a side street cutting me off and then drives really slowly. Like if you’re in a hurry, you’re an ass for cutting me off but fine, you’re going. If you do it and then proceed to dawdle … death penalty.