Was fcgamer the asshole?

[fcgamer | 4,754]

I was coming back from the night market tonight, got off the bus, and then swung by a convenience store on the way home to grab a few beers before calling my brother and subsequently calling it a night. This particular convenience store always has a larger stock of foreign beers than other shops, so I always stop by there if I'm in the area.

Anyways, I am checking out, and I notice that a woman is standing behind me, well dressed, well manicured, not following the maintain 1.5 meter social distance rules sign that was posted in the shop window, or following the floor spacer guidelines. After paying for my beer, I moved aside, and then called her out, to which she just muttered a "Oh, who me? Sorry" sort of carefree attitude.

At that point I told the employee behind the counter that I didn't appreciate this sort of attitude, and explained that as a teacher, if I catch the virus, I am supposed to do 14 days quarantine without pay, whereas basically all other groups of people get a free pass. The woman slinked away, and I then asked the cashier if I could speak with the owner of that particular franchise, as I was quite concerned about this sort of behavior. Eventually I did speak with the owner, who basically told me that I should just confront the infringing parties and call the police if necessary, should I be concerned about it in the future.

So here's the thing. Although I didn't yell or shout at anyone, I personally feel a bit bad for the woman behind the till, as it wasn't her fault that the whole event occurred, and I likely had created a scene that ruined her night. With that being said, I do feel that if shops are posting signs with rules to follow, then they should be somewhat maintained, especially when we are talking about half a month's salary being called into question. While most people might not take such rules and signs into consideration, surely there are some folks that make their decisions as to where to shop based on such things.

I've decided that I'll swing by tomorrow or the next day and give the cashier an apology letter and offer to give them English lessons gratis, if interested, as I do feel bad for causing trouble for the poor worker as it wasn't really her fault. That being said, I also don't think that I was an asshole, just for wanting people to follow the posted rules, especially when by income is literally at stake here.

Let's discuss.

[JamesRobot | 5,839]

Haha.  You shoulda gave her the bird too.

 

[Gloves | 11,842]

You could have asked the woman to create more space rather than complaining after the fact. This never had to be a problem, some people aren't and can't really be expected to be hyper vigilant at all times. It was late at night and the woman just as likely as yourself had had a long day and was tired and maybe not paying full attention. 

You created a scene for no reason when you could have just employed some normal human communication skills. 

And offering someone English lessons as apology is super weird. You're gonna look like you're trying to catch a date with the clerk. 

[final fight cd | 187]

30 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I was coming back from the night market tonight, got off the bus, and then swung by a convenience store on the way home to grab a few beers before calling my brother and subsequently calling it a night. This particular convenience store always has a larger stock of foreign beers than other shops, so I always stop by there if I'm in the area.

Anyways, I am checking out, and I notice that a woman is standing behind me, well dressed, well manicured, not following the maintain 1.5 meter social distance rules sign that was posted in the shop window, or following the floor spacer guidelines. After paying for my beer, I moved aside, and then called her out, to which she just muttered a "Oh, who me? Sorry" sort of carefree attitude.

Once I read the “not following the maintain 1.5 meter social distance rules” I immediately came to my conclusion.  
 

you are buying beer, which clearly disrupts immune response, yet you are pointing the finger at somebody for not following an arbitrary rule.  You’re shifting the blame on somebody else yet your own actions are just as bad, if not worse, for your health.

Edited June 4, 2022 by final fight cd

[Reed Rothchild | 9,592]

fcKaren

[guillavoie | 1,210]

1 hour ago, Gloves said:

And offering someone English lessons as apology is super weird. You're gonna look like you're trying to catch a date with the clerk. 

The free English lessons offering is definitely the weirdest idea in this whole situation, Dave should add a vote on this too, it might prevent further embarrassment.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

2 hours ago, final fight cd said:

Once I read the “not following the maintain 1.5 meter social distance rules” I immediately came to my conclusion.  
 

you are buying beer, which clearly disrupts immune response, yet you are pointing the finger at somebody for not following an arbitrary rule.  You’re shifting the blame on somebody else yet your own actions are just as bad, if not worse, for your health.

Well that is indeed true, but that would have been my choice, right? That's like saying it would be okay for someone to pump exhaust into my apartment, just because I was smoking a cigar.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

25 minutes ago, guillavoie said:

The free English lessons offering is definitely the weirdest idea in this whole situation, Dave should add a vote on this too, it might prevent further embarrassment.

Hahaha perhaps, though free English lessons tend to make any hard feelings disappear around these parts.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

2 hours ago, Gloves said:

You could have asked the woman to create more space rather than complaining after the fact. This never had to be a problem, some people aren't and can't really be expected to be hyper vigilant at all times. It was late at night and the woman just as likely as yourself had had a long day and was tired and maybe not paying full attention. 

While I may agree with the first part, I thoroughly disagree about the last part. There seems to be some sort of concept over here that if you are riding the person's ass, in line, somehow you will get pushed through faster yourself, and this has nothing at all to do with the person having a long day or not. While two rudes don't equal a not rude, it doesn't change the fact that the woman in line was being rude herself.

[Estil | 1,265]

YTA.  If the 1.5 meter (six feet) rule is important to you then you should step further away if possible.  Though I hope you are properly vaccinated and she is also.  And who in the world gave anyone 'tude?  That being said, the woman ideally should've followed the rules and the store could've done a better job politely enforcing them.  So maybe an ESH case could be made.

So as rslash would say, you get 2 (out of five) buttholes (3 if you are not vaccinated), the woman 1 out of 5 buttholes (2 if not vaccinated), and the employee 1 out of 5 buttholes.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Estil

[360collector | 289]

Im just sad to read this is still a thing

[Estil | 1,265]

1 minute ago, 360collector said:

Im just sad to read this is still a thing

What, you mean AITA?

[360collector | 289]

Just now, Estil said:

What, you mean AITA?

The whole scared of covid thing. Its never going away

[Gloves | 11,842]

2 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

While I may agree with the first part, I thoroughly disagree about the last part. There seems to be some sort of concept over here that if you are riding the person's ass, in line, somehow you will get pushed through faster yourself, and this has nothing at all to do with the person having a long day or not. While two rudes don't equal a not rude, it doesn't change the fact that the woman in line was being rude herself.

Rude does not equal malicious, you're assuming intent. You however chose to not even attempt to resolve the issue you had, and then proceeded to complain about it to someone just trying to do their probably minimum wage clerk job and ask for the manager. 

You also didn't tell us your own words to the woman, presuming yourself to be infallible in both verbiage and tone. You've done that before on here and the conversation went the same way - the kind of person to post questions like this is typically also the person who has a holier-than-thou tone in such situations. That's to say I doubt you were particularly endearing in your approach.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

12 minutes ago, 360collector said:

The whole scared of covid thing. Its never going away

I honestly couldn't care less about these rules or covid-19, aside from one vital point, which I didn't mention in my earlier post:

If I get the sniffles or if one of my students does, the class gets shut down for two weeks, and I receive no pay. Furthermore, if I get it, I need to stay at home during this time period.

Other industries do not get affected with such draconian measures, and therefore literally the only people who care about it are folks who will lose their money and their freedom should they contract the stupid virus.

[360collector | 289]

7 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I honestly couldn't care less about these rules or covid-19, aside from one vital point, which I didn't mention in my earlier post:

If I get the sniffles or if one of my students does, the class gets shut down for two weeks, and I receive no pay. Furthermore, if I get it, I need to stay at home during this time period.

Other industries do not get affected with such draconian measures, and therefore literally the only people who care about it are folks who will lose their money and their freedom should they contract the stupid virus.

I should probably have been more clear. Its the fact that the country you live in still does this that makes me sad. I only went to work and gorcery stores at night when it was strict around here. Cant imagine still living like that

[Tulpa | 3,537]

3 hours ago, fcgamer said:

If I get the sniffles or if one of my students does, the class gets shut down for two weeks, and I receive no pay. Furthermore, if I get it, I need to stay at home during this time period.

If you were that concerned about missing work due to the virus, why not either ask the lady to step back a bit, or failing that, get the hell out of there?

The way you describe it, it comes across as you're more concerned about calling her and the store out and "punishing" them rather than any concern over catching something.

[Tulpa | 3,537]

3 hours ago, Estil said:

YTA.  If the 1.5 meter (six feet) rule is important to you then you should step further away if possible.  Though I hope you are properly vaccinated and she is also.  And who in the world gave anyone 'tude?  That being said, the woman ideally should've followed the rules and the store could've done a better job politely enforcing them.  So maybe an ESH case could be made.

So as rslash would say, you get 2 (out of five) buttholes (3 if you are not vaccinated), the woman 1 out of 5 buttholes (2 if not vaccinated), and the employee 1 out of 5 buttholes.

TIL Estil discovered Reddit.

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

8 hours ago, fcgamer said:

I was coming back from the night market tonight, got off the bus, and then swung by a convenience store on the way home to grab a few beers before calling my brother and subsequently calling it a night. This particular convenience store always has a larger stock of foreign beers than other shops, so I always stop by there if I'm in the area.

Anyways, I am checking out, and I notice that a woman is standing behind me, well dressed, well manicured, not following the maintain 1.5 meter social distance rules sign that was posted in the shop window, or following the floor spacer guidelines. After paying for my beer, I moved aside, and then called her out, to which she just muttered a "Oh, who me? Sorry" sort of carefree attitude.

At that point I told the employee behind the counter that I didn't appreciate this sort of attitude, and explained that as a teacher, if I catch the virus, I am supposed to do 14 days quarantine without pay, whereas basically all other groups of people get a free pass. The woman slinked away, and I then asked the cashier if I could speak with the owner of that particular franchise, as I was quite concerned about this sort of behavior. Eventually I did speak with the owner, who basically told me that I should just confront the infringing parties and call the police if necessary, should I be concerned about it in the future.

So here's the thing. Although I didn't yell or shout at anyone, I personally feel a bit bad for the woman behind the till, as it wasn't her fault that the whole event occurred, and I likely had created a scene that ruined her night. With that being said, I do feel that if shops are posting signs with rules to follow, then they should be somewhat maintained, especially when we are talking about half a month's salary being called into question. While most people might not take such rules and signs into consideration, surely there are some folks that make their decisions as to where to shop based on such things.

I've decided that I'll swing by tomorrow or the next day and give the cashier an apology letter and offer to give them English lessons gratis, if interested, as I do feel bad for causing trouble for the poor worker as it wasn't really her fault. That being said, I also don't think that I was an asshole, just for wanting people to follow the posted rules, especially when by income is literally at stake here.

Let's discuss.

I have 2 questions.

1. Why would you complain to the store about a customer? They have no control over the customers.

2. Do you disinfect your beer or let it sit in quarantine for 5 days before consuming?

I know your pain, I live in farm town and nobody cares about these rules. My fiance is a doctor and if someone gives me Covid, she would have to cancel weeks worth of very necessary surgeries for her patients, people don't seem to realise the extent of what their actions can do.

We play ball hockey in a very regulated league with lots of rules around health and safety but one person faked their vaccine paperwork so he could play and we had him spare for our team for two games. After we found out he wasn't vaccinated, she was required by law to report the incident to Health And Safety according to provincial requirements for medical physicians. Each hospital she worked at then had to go back weeks into the schedule to cross reference all of her shifts with Covid-19 infections and then a formal investigation into the league occurred and the entire league almost got shut down. Just because one selfish idiot thought it wouldn't hurt anyone to fake some paperwork. If she didn't report the incident she could have lost her medical license. People are dumb.

One more story before I go. I was in the bank waiting for the next available teller a couple of months ago and a woman walked in without a mask on. I already knew the response I Was likely to receive but I was bored waiting in line so I figured I would at least entertain myself with finding out why she wasn't wearing a mask.

me - "Hey, you have to wear a mask in here."

her - "What's that?"

me - "A mask.......you have to wear one in here."

her - "I can't wear a mask, I'll go into cardiac arrest."

me - "Wait.....what? So you're DNR and if someone tries to give you CPR you'll die?"

I had to abandon the conversation, I realised I was dealing with a dum-dum. Why can't people just say they don't want to wear a mask? I'd be fine with that.

[guillavoie | 1,210]

6 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Hahaha perhaps, though free English lessons tend to make any hard feelings disappear around these parts.

Yeah, it sounds weird for us North Americans, but I can understand that it can be a more common thing to do in Taiwan. If she's cute on top of that, I say go for it, lol!

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

Lol I think the last thing the cashier wants is more interaction with you.

[Tanooki | 4,953]

Gloves part 1 and 2 covered it with hard splash of where I would have gone Reed did... fcKaren.  That went too far too fast on that woman and the store rep.

I mean I get it, we talk, taiwan thanks to the disgusting WHO/China collab is in this weird area where it avoided stuff for so long, then when it finally did creep in there it put your little country like 18mo behind the times of most everywhere else.  That said though, you went too far.  I doubt you're wearing a N95 are you?  Some shitty little cute cloth mask with some fun picture on it or whatever isn't going to stop squat, and as pointed out, did you sterilize that beer before chugging it? 

Just because there is behind the times unfortunately, the virus has by now mutated so many times it's like what's the point anymore basically.  What was once largely fatal for a lot of people and even more so crippling for weeks if not months, has largely fizzled because it adapted to survive trading off killing the patient to keep itself able to transmit easier/faster for being a largely light touch of something.  Sure it can still kill some people, but it's nearing the death by flu numbers now compared to 2 years ago.  At this rate outside of people with legit compromised systems it's the boogeyman that has been largely reduced to being a political power tripping control freak thing to weaponize to advantage which is sick.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

@Tanookias mentioned earlier, I'm only concerned about being out of work. The government put us in this akward position, and I think things will just get worse before they get better.

Reading what you guys have said offers another perspective and I think I probably was the asshole in the situation. With that being said though, the cavelier attitude people have, who aren't affected by potential loss of income, with the government egging them on, it's definitely going to cause more of these situations. 

[fcgamer | 4,754]

12 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I doubt you're wearing a N95 are you?  Some shitty little cute cloth mask with some fun picture on it or whatever isn't going to stop squat, and as pointed out, did you sterilize that beer before chugging it? 

Point taken, but that would have been my choice. It goes back to the idea of smoking a cigarette versus having someone pumping exhaust fumes into your house.

Sure, one could argue that I didn't have to go to the store to begin with, but what if we were talking about water or food, for instance? At some point it would be necessary to go.

[spacepup | 2,412]

Things are a bit different now (here in the US), but back when things were a little bit worse, I simply took care of myself.  

What I mean by that, is that I had to accept that it was not within my power nor authority to control what other people were doing.  All I could control, were my own actions.  If I walked into somewhere and felt unsafe, I left.  If someone got too close to me, I walked away.  There have been a variety of viewpoints on COVID throughout this entire situation, ranging from "COVID is everywhere and you shouldn't leave your house" to "the entire thing is made up" and more.

By now, most people have figured out where they stand on this spectrum, and are going to do what they want to do.  It is not my place to tell them what to do, and I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to make an employee's job more difficult than it already is.

It's bad enough working somewhere and trying to enforce COVID rules this entire time, when there are people who simply WILL break the rules.  Employees the world over have been put into horrible situations, being forced to play "mask-police" while trying to do their jobs.  So the last thing they need, is people giving them grief for not doing a good enough job at an already difficult situation.