The Weekly Gripe

Gripes the News
The Soapbox
Gripes in the pipes
*

Whatever happened to spatial awareness?

34 comments  Add a comment

Special harness?  No, spatial awareness - as in people knowing what things are in their immediate vicinity and being able to avoid knocking into them.  This seems to be something of a dying art in this country.

Take a visit to the supermarket, for a start.  It always amazes me that people think it's a good idea to park their trolley right behind someone who has bent down to get something off a shelf.  As the person grasps their tin of baked beans, in a 'Eureka moment', they straighten up and step back - and crash into the abandoned trolley.  (That was me, today).

Another amusing little idea is to wait until someone is unpacking their basket at the tills, trying to find their purse and at the same time, talk to the cashier.  Then is precisely the optimum moment for some enormous bloke to squeeze his way through the till area, having wandered around and decided not to buy anything.

Packed like sardines Great.  A bit of warning like muttering 'Excuse me' wouldn't go amiss but apparently, that's just too much trouble.  So you're half way through paying and you get jabbed in the backside and drop your debit card.

Further pitfalls await you the minute you venture out of the supermarket and try to get some money from the cash point.  Again, there are certain shoppers who just love to park their pushchair or push-bike behind you while you're at the ATM grappling with your purse, pressing buttons and can't see because the sun's shining on the screen.  Having positioned some obstacle right behind you, they go and talk to someone and look surprised when you fall to the ground.

Spatial awareness... where did it go?

By: Fedupinwales


Leave a comment

First Prev 1/3 Next Last

Lemsip

Lemsip

It's happening more and more as supermarkets and other businesses which cater directly to the public aren't employing enough people make sure people aren't standing in aisles chatting away. So a whole generation has grown up not know how to behave in public spaces and that in some spaces you are meant to keep moving. I too am sick and tired of people chatting in shop doorways because the shop doesn't employ a security guard or floorwalker to ensure they keep the doorway clear.
20/03/17 Lemsip
1
Petra

Petra

I am really fed up with the fashion for carrying hand bags over the arm. An increasing number of girls are even toting massive carrier bags from fashion shops this way instead of just holding them in their hand and they seem incapable of making allowance for the extra width and just bash the arms of everyone they pass.

Are people getting more careless or just more stupid?

Perhaps it's a city thing where overcrowding results in people switching off their awareness of other people.
09/03/13 Petra
7
Mr. Stepford

Mr. Stepford

Don’t take any notice of anything that Mrs Stepford says, she is obviously malfunctioning.
I am returning her to the factory, under warranty, to be reprogrammed, while she is there I am having the optional package programmed into her: wash my feet, clip my toenails, football addict, no watching soaps on the telly, etc
11/05/12 Mr. Stepford
-2
Mrs Stepford

Mrs Stepford

" "Though I suppose you think that people shouldn't be allowed in shops if they are skint too??????"
What are they doing in a shop if they are skint, shoplifting? grazing?"
Stalag14 - 1-May-12 06:55

Don't be facetious. Consider that maybe the person counting out change doesn't have a convenient £20 note and ha to count out change from their purse as it's all they have, maybe, just maybe you are not so important that other people deliberately hold you up at the check out!!! Rather they are in need of something from the shop and have limited resources and need to count the money out.
10/05/12 Mrs Stepford
-6
Romanian Gypsy

Romanian Gypsy

I go to shops a lot when i skint i go Charity shop and steal items and also me and my wife steal old ladys purses.
01/05/12 Romanian Gypsy
2
Stalag14

Stalag14

"Though I suppose you think that people shouldn't be allowed in shops if they are skint too??????"
What are they doing in a shop if they are skint, shoplifting? grazing?
01/05/12 Stalag14
-5
Mrs Stepford

Mrs Stepford

Hey Stalag, ever thought that a woman with the 'Stepford Wife Syndrome' counting out the change to the last penny to pay the cashier might not actually have a £20 note????????? Though I suppose you think that people shouldn't be allowed in shops if they are skint too??????
30/04/12 Mrs Stepford
-4
Stalag 14

Stalag 14

"As a side note...if a man bumps into me by accident in a supermarket, he'll almost always say "sorry mate" or similar."

Too many women have what i call "The Stepford Wife Syndrome" they waft around the supermarket as if "they" are the centre of the universe, the same attitude prevails at the checkout where "they" make everyone wait while they insist on counting out the payment right to the last penny, where as the quick way is to give the cashier a twenty pound note or whatever, "they" also make everyone wait when bagging up AFTER payment has been made instead of bagging up during scanning, then a further delay while "they" sort out their handbag etc. GRRRRRRR! (the missus agrees with me!)
29/04/12 Stalag 14
-6
Alf Red

Alf Red

I can cope with most of the people standing talking, but I hate the ones that are stopped with their trolley, looking at something on the shelves and suddenly swing the trolley out into my path as I'm passing them. I always look around me before changing direction or moving off with a trolley, just as I would do in a car - I hope these folk don't drive their cars the way they push a trolley.
Some equally bad ones are those who are pushing their trolley, while on the phone and trying to control a screaming brat that's jumping around inside the trolley. Lesson:.. you cannot control a loaded trolley under those circumstances.
As a side note...if a man bumps into me by accident in a supermarket, he'll almost always say "sorry mate" or similar. It's sad to say that many women are either oblivious that they've nearly knocked my legs from under me, or they just glare at me for the cheek of being where they want to be. Sometimes, we feel like we're invisible, with shoppers walking straight into us of pushing in front of us while we're looking at something on the shelves.
28/04/12 Alf Red
4
katty

katty

Those silent and deadly electronic disability 'bikes'..lethal!!!!!!!!! And they are allowed INSIDE supermarkets.And malls and other large stores.
TWO were parked inside a theatre...no one on them.Right by the leaflets section.Couldn't reach.A by law will come...meanwhile the numbers of these space taking lethal weapons ridden by incompetents increases.Some people on these can walk.What is going on?
04/11/11 katty
-3
MikeP

MikeP

I'm glad it's not just me too! When I have to go to public places, which fortunately is not very often, I try to keep as far away from others as possible, and I appreciate and expect the same from them. My absolute worst is having someone standing so close behind me that I can smell and feel their fetid breath on the back of my neck. I wonder if they think they will get anywhere faster by behaving in this way.
28/09/11 MikeP
-9
hairyfairy

hairyfairy

I`m glad that it`s not just me, I have always wondered if I have a people magnet inside me somewhere, as I seem to be a target for any wandering toddler, & other miscellanious idiots who just don`t see me right in front of them. Only a couple of weeks ago I was posting a letter, minding my own business, when this woman smacked into me, Then just smirked at me as if I`d made her day, then just walked on without saying sorry like a civilised person would, but then civilised people tend to look where they`re going!
28/09/11 hairyfairy
-5
Insomniac

Insomniac

I get really fed up with women who use those massive tank like pushchairs as a weapon in crowds.

They just aim them straight ahead and nothing gets in their way, and when did a simple baby buggy stop having just four wheels in favour of eight? Or those silly, three wheeled jobs that are about five feet long?

They buy the biggest buggy they can find, load them up with about a month's worth of shopping, then expect to get them down the aisle of a bus and wonder why people get a teensy bit irritated when slapped in the face with a bag full of frozen food from Iceland!
25/09/11 Insomniac
3
ajp

ajp

Or how about pushing a wheelchair with trolley attached round a supermarket? Infinitely more difficult than even the largest trolley with children mounted on it (I know - I have experience of both!). You 'park' the trolley and wheelchair to one side to get something you cannot reach due to the number of idiots around the shelves (just bloody pick one - it's only MILK). Then when you get back someone has pushed their trolley right up to the wheelchair handles and is looking at you as if to say 'well move then, you are keeping me waiting'. This happened to me the other week. 'Do you want me to move?' 'Yes'. she replied exasperated. 'Then I would suggest you let me behind the wheelchair or we will be here all day. So sorry my mother's disability is SUCH an inconvenience to you - do forgive us.' (said with extreme sarcasm and volume). Said idiot skittered away rapidly.
14/04/11 ajp
-13
Jeff

Jeff

So.. who's lacking spatial awareness in these scenarios again?
05/04/11 Jeff
-7

First Prev 1/3 Next Last

FEATURES

Gripes the News
Gripes in the pipes
The Soapbox
spinner