I just got an invitation to join the facebook group “I tap slow-walking people on the shoulder and say, “Excuse me please!”
Uh – no.
Fuck no. With cherries and sprinkles. And the sauce of your choice.
Laying your hands on me without invitation, strangers, sure isn’t going to speed me up any, but it may well piss me right the fuck off. With some of my friends with certain disabilities, an unexpected assault may tip them completely over.
I suggest not doing it. I further suggest getting the fuck over yourselves, saying goodbye to ten seconds of your precious goddamn time, and thanking your lucky stars that you can walk fast when you want to. Bully for you. Huzzah. Enjoy it. Tomorrow, you could be in my shoes. Or worse.
I’m guessing you also grumble and sigh under your collective breath when a bus stops to admit someone with a wheelchair. Or when a scooter gets “in your way”. Or are people with visible disabilities an impediment to be put up with without such public disdain?
Now off you go, Important Folk, and think of something productive to do with that cherished ten seconds saved.
This has been your anti-ableist PSA for the day. Thankyou and good night.
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AFAIK if you have a medical certificate from your doctor it isn’t up to the RTA. The counter staff simply process it. The assessment of the medical condition isn’t done by them. But I agree that the new system is crap for people who live with a disability long-term that means they need to drive.
They tried to make me see an “independent assessor” for the new card. I refused, and there was a bit of a tiff about it. Finally my doctor’s medical certificate was accepted.
I’m not sure if this was a misguided attempt to crack down on incorrect use of the things or not, but the only effect was discriminating against people with non-physical disabilities.
Yes, medical conditions that you can see are clearly treated differently by doctors than are medical conditions that you can’t. Just when I’d been reading this post I came across this blog entry by a doctor (and I usually really enjoy her blog) that made me gnash my teeth (especially since, after not going to the doctor in about ten years, I went late last year with a similar list of symptoms to a GP who dismissed my concerns (after asking me four times in a ten minute consult whether I was pregnant) with a speech that basically went “blah, blah, diet, blah, blah, stress. Needless to say I got a second opinion).
PEOPLE WHO SHIT US : A Case Study
I was a passenger in a car yesterday when the driver (let’s call her Tracy to protect her ignorance) when she suddenly caught glimpse of a driver to the right of her attempting to merge into the slow lane from the on-ramp.
Tracy: “Screw you, dickhead, I just let two people go in front of me, so get in line! Back -of-the-bus-you-Shithead…”
Me: “He’s just trying to merge onto the highway, isn’t he?” (rhetorically playing Devil’s Advocate very well with the Devil herself)
Tracy: “Fuck him! They all just think they own the road and can just push in whenever they want! Li’l fucker….I’ll show him.”
Me: “…..umm, errr, don’t run him off the road, oh, ah…wait, you’re gonna hit………………him”
Tracy: “Now, see that Lexus in front of us? He’s doing the same….placing himself half over in the middle of the lane to the right so that people like “Shithead” behind us can’t squeeze in or push in ahead….my DH does that all the time – it works!”
Me: “….tightens secured seatbelt”
Beppie (above) makes reference to the fact that, while only 10% of people would actually do what they say here, that’s still an awful lot of people…..and this now brings me to share with you what I like to call:
THE TEN PERCENT THEORY
The Ten Percent Theory is a belief system whereby, based on rough and unsubstantiated calculations, ten percent of people in the world are here just to shit us. If we can grasp this concept and come to accept and make peace with this theory you will discover it is actually an effective tool when dealing with stupid people and results in easier dealings with the now quantified “ten percent group.”
Since stumbling upon this until recently unexplored theory, I have discovered that whenever I encounter a being who I may identify as belonging in the category of the “ten percent group,” I actually take a second to breathe, then smile directly at the party in question, before responding with the comment “Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize – you’re part of that ten percent group aren’t you?” To which, the person belonging to this category returns with blank stare and bemused puddlement sending them into a state of complete confusion. You are then able to make your exit without further explanation, leaving the “ten percent” person as confused and as stupid as when you initially encountered them. Trust me, I have taken theory out into the big wide world and tested it with remarkably accurate results: it works!
Just to take this on a slight tangent – as a native city dweller I have recently been struggling with my almost overwhelming belief that I must be wherever I am going in the absolute shortest possible time. This is a corollary of the belief that to be 3 minutes late is inexcusable.
I suspect this ubiquitous attitude helps to allow that other 90% of people think that it is reasonable to get angry with a person who is choosing to walk slowly, and therefore making it that much easier for the real scum this thread has been mostly discussing.
Why on earth do I think I have more right to walk fast than someone else has to walk slow? I might be able to make a plausible case for someone not having the right to drive at 50 in 110 zone when there are alternative routes, but I can’t honestly justify a superior attitude to someone who chooses to walk slowly, never mind people who don’t have the choice.
The current climate of work being everything, and work having the right to demand punctuality to the minute and all that kind of rubbish contributes massively to this. I’m not justifying any behaviour, just musing on the need to question some of the underlying attitudes that enable the bastardry that people have been reporting here (and I’ve seen in ultra-mild form while pregnant).
Ariane’s last blog post..I wish to register a complaint
Aren’t you a little extreme here?
Getting an “excuse me” and then making a slight side-step so a busy person can pass never hurt me. If someone pushed you out of the way, I could understand your anger and resistance, but seriously. A tap and an “excuse me” is bad now? Sheesh.
If you were running late to an important meeting, perhaps even a job interview, those seconds you speak of might mean the difference between having a salary or not, because let’s face it: On a crowded side-walk you won’t be the only slow walker.
Slow walkers have every right to be there, but so do the fast walkers, and as long as a polite “excuse me” precedes the maneuver to overtake you, what the hell is the problem?
The problem with side-walks: Everyone thinks they belong to them. The mothers pushing their strollers side-by-fucking-side so no one else can pass without walking amongst the cars in the street, and refuse to break off their conversation so other people don’t have to risk their lives. The kids who walk in groups of 7+ and can’t seperate from each other to allow other people to pass. Men who must take up as much of the side-walk as possible in order to give the ilusion of broad shoulders. I could go on.
Fact is: We all need to be there, and just because you walk slowly everyone who politely notifies you that they’ll be squeezing past you for reasons you have no fucking way of knowing are now demons in disguise and stomping all over your rights.
Really now… don’t you see how… entitled that is?
Sure. Extreme, angry, oversensitive, uppity, demanding special treatment, and dripping with victim mentality. Did I miss anything?
How about ‘insisting on my right to exist’.
So busy people don’t have the right to exist? Is that it?
No, busy people don’t have the right to touch me, push me out of their way, abuse me or in any other way be an asshole to me because I’m walking slowly. There could be multiple reasons why I’m walking slowly. Maybe I’m just out of hospital after an op, maybe I’m holding my child’s hand and walking at their pace, maybe I’m always slow because I can’t help it. You can stop being rude and not willing to wait a few moments to get past. Some people would love to be able to stride down the street, but they can’t. So suck it up because they are people to with every right to use the footpath.
BTW – late for a job interview. Not my fault. It is highly unlikely that the few seconds it takes for there to be a gap for you to walk through is going to make you late for your job interview, and more likely your own fault that you are late and looking to blame someone else.
Busy people have a right to exist, but not to make my life or anyone else’s life a misery because they think they are so bloody important. Plan your time better, be early, factor some time in so you don’t have to push past people and be rude, have some bloody consideration and hope to gods that it’s never you who can’t walk fast.
As a recovering Busy Person, I don’t think the problem is so much that we think we are so bloody important, it’s that we think whatever errand we are on is so bloody important – far more important than ourselves or anyone else. The logic is clearly flawed, but it is an easy trap to fall into.
I completely agree with the being late thing. Being late is rarely anywhere near as big a deal as we think it is, and on the few occasions that it really matters, leave a huge FUM*. But there is a prevailing attitude in the business world that a few minutes late is unacceptable, and that is just plain ridiculous. Either there needs to be more slack built into the corporate day, or we have to accept up to 15 minute delays based on the fact that the universe does not exist solely for our own convenience.
Nobody walking slowly can genuinely delay anyone by any appreciable amount of time, the problem is entirely in the head of the pressed for time Busy Person. I am currently trying to kick it out of my head entirely, but failing that, making sure I keep it in my own head and don’t share around my neuroses. :)
*Fuck Up Margin
Ariane’s last blog post..Vale Spike Jones
the problem is entirely in the head of the pressed for time
*points to previous comment*
Sometimes the stuff inside one’s head is far more significant than anything going on outside the cranium.
Personal gripe. I’m sick of “it’s all in your head” being used as a dismissive phrase. It’s incredibly ableist and silencing of people with mental and neurological disorders, disabilities and illnesses.
Leeway time of 15 minutes just isn’t going to cut it. Say someone has an appointments on a half hourly basis and the meetings are regularly 15 minutes late. Not long for your whole day to be thrown out. and it all turns to chaos.
However, I agree the reasons for lack of punctuality are nothing to do with people walking slowly etc. It’s all to do with bad organisational skills.
@Fine – that’s why I said perhaps we need to have more slack in the day, if a schedule only ever allows for 15 minutes for a 15 minute journey, sometimes it will take 20 minutes. If you do that 3 times your day is shot. The idea that every minute of every day must be accounted for is fundamentally flawed.
I still have a tendency to not leave enough FUM, being busy doing other stuff. It doesn’t work, it causes completely unnecessary stress.
And I am not dismissing legitimate stuff in your head, just that often the stress people think is coming from external pressure is actually coming from their own anxiety (like it generally is with me). That doesn’t dismiss it, it just changes how best to react to it.
Ariane’s last blog post..Vale Spike Jones
Ariane, I guess I’m saying you always need to leave time for the FUM , as you so aptly describe them. Sometimes friends tell me what they have planned for the day. And I go…ain’t gunna happen, ‘cos somewhere along the line things will take longer than you imagine and you’ll be held up in traffic or your train will be late etc etc… So, in that sense I agree with you. But the solution is more about people organising their time sensibly and not over scheduling.
Memo to bargers … learn to share.
Deus Ex Macintosh’s last blog post..Back to the Future
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