Wednesday, December 13, 2006

No Standing


Most of you reading this, since it is a blog about manners, probably already think about when you might be in someone's way. Good on you! I did, however, want to bring it up as something happened to me the other day when exiting a plane after a two hour flight with a 1.5 year old.

The kid wasn't the problem. He did pretty well considering, but the last thing I wanted to do was spend more time on the plane or the jetway than was necessary... I think everyone is still with me here.

The issue came when the group of adults exiting the jetway in front of us decided to have a conclave at the entrance to the tunnel. They forgot they were in public and bunched up around the door all facing away from the exiting passengers. They began to discuss who would get the rental car and who would go to the restroom (Ep. 23) and who would go wait for the luggage.

This is a call for us all to keep in mind that there are other people in the world who might want to get by at some time.

Whew!
Trent

3 comments:

Steven Lewis said...

Trent, you're singing my song again. It isn't just airports of course but my most recent experiences of this have been while travelling.

I've taken to asking as I barge past, "Are you sure this is the best place for this conversation?"

I don't know what the rule is, if any, in the US but in the UK we stand to the right on an escalator so that anyone who wants to walk up it can do so. It's a dying courtesy as there's always some muppet who wants to stand on the left and stuff it up. Often the person who comes up behind is too diffident -- this is England I'm talking about -- to say, "Please move over".

The MannersCast said...

From Kathryn in the UK:

The worst is on the tube in London where as you would know we get thousands of tourists every day (from around the UK as well as the rest of the world). What I find infuriating is when they get off the tube and are so shocked by the fact that there's so many people, or they're disorientated about where to go they just stop in a group and gawp instead of either a) going with the flow as let's face it, probably most people are heading for the exit so if that's where you want to be, you're probably going to end up there or b) stand aside and gawp / look at your map / have a pow wow.

Phew, looks like I need to calm down for 2007 already!

Anonymous said...

I have figured this out in my own realm aswell. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the boredom level of a conversation and the amount of people you block.
Thus
Conversations will be more meaningful and interesting if you can manage to block more people.
I notice this all the time at church. Your conversations are always their best in doorways, second best at the end of aisles. We don't have pews so you can always just kick a chair out of the way and escape but thats not that mannerly either.