I took the kids to the store today to buy groceries, and stopped at the customer service desk to ask about something in the lost and found. I was fifth in line (long for a weekday morning, and with only one guy behind the desk) and as we were waiting a lady came up and stood near the line chattering loudly on her cell phone. Then as the person at the desk finished his transaction and stepped away, Loud Phone Lady stepped up to the desk, looked at the man at the front of the line and said, "you don't mind if I just do this real quick, do you?" She immediately turned to the employee and proceeded to try to complete some sort of complicated transaction involving the person on the phone with her. It didn't work, and she stepped aside again and started doing something at the ATM a few feet away. The man who let her step in finished his transaction, and she immediately stepped up to the counter again and "asked" if we minded. ("Asked" because it wasn't so much a question as a statement, and she wasn't waiting for an answer.) Obviously her transaction was not simple or quick, and she had already skipped the line once. So, in what I believe was a polite and mild voice, I told her there were four of us in line, we had already let her ahead of us once, and that I thought it would be best if she just got in line and waited. She got all huffy and responded very indignantly that if I felt that way about it she wasn't going to argue with me, it wasn't a big deal anyway, it's not that important, and if it's that important to me then she could just wait in line and not make an issue of it -- all the while definitely making an issue of it. Feeling a little embarrassed and hoping to quiet things down, I told her I was sorry if I offended her and that I hadn't intended to be rude (not sorry for what I said, mind you). She responded with something like, "I'll just drop it, I'm just going to be respectful because you've got your children with you and I wouldn't want to start anything in front of them." (What?!?!) At that point, I just turned my back squarely to her and ignored her the remainder of the time, and she stayed quiet.
What was interesting to me is that:
1) The first guy let her in front of him when all indications were that she simply couldn't be bothered by waiting like the rest of us mere mortals. There was nothing about her attitude that indicated this was especially urgent, no fussing child, no physical handicap... the vibe I got was that she just didn't want to wait and figured she didn't have to. And she was right.
2) After the first time, everyone in line exchanged looks indicating they were annoyed or disgusted, but when she tried to do it again no one was going to say anything -- and when I said something, no one backed me up or told her to lay off me.
3) I tried to make my response as polite and non-confrontational as I could, and yet she went off on me. My guess is that she thought if she reacted that way, I or someone else in the line would tell her to just go ahead. She tried to make me out as the unreasonable one, and make me feel guilty for expecting her to follow the basic rules of etiquette we all learned in preschool. And it worked. I found myself standing there in line questioning whether I really was out of line
for speaking up. 4) She stopped when no one engaged her anymore, and I didn't hear anything else from her for the 15 minutes or so that she was behind me in line.
Nothing about the situation indicated she was a criminal interviewing potential victims, but it just struck me as being similar. She was counting on no one being willing to be the rude one who said no, even when everyone was bothered by her behavior. And when I did push back, she immediately tried to turn things back on me and guilt me into doing the "polite" thing. And I still feel a little guilty, even though rationally I think I did the right thing. I realize that in this case there was no real harm to just letting her do her thing, but I'm trying to break the habit of letting strangers push my boundaries because I'm too polite to say anything -- specifically because of the self-defense application. Like many others, I'm very conditioned to "be polite" and not hurt anyone's feeling. But I believe what I said to this lady was in fact very polite. My voice was reasonable and friendly. I didn't call her names or suggest any wrongdoing. I merely said I thought once was enough to skip the line and yet I wound up feeling guilty.
To be clear, I very often let people ahead of me in line if it won't affect people behind me. When my oldest was born I decided I was never going to get anywhere in a hurry again so I might as well relax about it. Ten extra minutes rarely matters in my day, and if it can make someone else's day better it's 10 minutes well spent. But I see a HUGE difference in offering to let someone go in front of me, and allowing someone to walk all over me.
It was a good exercise for me, though. Too often I just fume quietly.
