So many of these are “Don’t create obstacles or bottlenecks”.
Return your cart, zipper merge, wait for people to get off before you get on, don’t block doorways.
Clearly, the truest unspoken rule is “Get out of the way!”
Zipper merge done properly is amazingly efficient.
If you need to have a conversation with someone, don’t block the entire hallway to do it.
This gets so bad at groceries certain times of the day.
But I get really annoyed at them at places like Costco. The aisle is like 15’ wide: how are you even managing to get this much in the way
One day I’m going to get the cops called on me for screaming like a maniac at the people hosting an impromptu reunion in front of the item I’m trying to get at the store.
We all know that Suzanne doesn’t care how little Timmy is doing, and you’re really not going out for coffee sometime or getting all the kids together for a playdate.
You get a polite “excuse me”, a less polite one, a “I’m trying to get to the [whatever]”, a 3 second soul-piercing glare, then the hamster falls off the wheel and the demons get released.
I like to enthusiastically join the conversation. “Oh how IS little Timmy? I hear he shows a lot of promise on that baritone accordion of his! Were they able to reattach his foot after the incident?” Then everyone gets weirded out and confused enough that you can reach through and grab the grocery you want.
Don’t be a dick.
You stand on the right side of an escalator/moving walkway. You walk on the left side.
It doesn’t matter if you have multiple people or luggage, the right is for standing, the left is for walking.
I think it depends though. I’ve seen escalators with markers to indicate standing on the left. In that scenario, I think best to do as indicated rather than insist on right is right.
Absolutely follow makers first
Amusingly look what I just seconds ago encountered… 😁
I would add an asterisk there and say this should reflect the driving/roads convention used in the country. Where I live, the driver’s seat is on the right side of a car and on escalators most people stand still on the left, letting the right side clear for walking.
It is very carbrain rot but I call them highway rules. On countries that drive on the right, the right side if for on-off ramps and cruising. Left side is for passing. No one expects to be passed on the right side, because that is the biggest blind spot on cars. Switch for countries that drive on the left side.
This is one I’m guilty of. There are too many left lane campers and I just don’t have patience for that anymore. Why do so many drivers immediately move to the fast lane rather than “stay right except to pass”?
Why do so many drivers insist their definition of fast is the one true definition, rather than choose the lane based on relative speed and let the cops worry about who is too fast?
Fair point. Although London threw me for a loop because it appeared to be the same as a right and driving. Be aware of the local customs, and be aware if you are blocking people
To make matters more complicated i believe (but may be wrong) in Japan Tokyo and Osaka have opposite conventions. So it can even come down to the city level.
Put your cart back when you’re done shopping.
Looks like it’s time to test the waters of Lemmy. This one has generally gone over poorly on reddit every time it’s come up, so let’s find out how it does here:
What about people who have a high degree of difficulty getting around? A good friend of mine has a herniated disc and a bunch of neurological issues as a result of a car accident he was in, he walks with one of those rolling walkers at a very slow speed grunting and groaning the entire time, and that was at the best of times. He barely manages shopping by using those electric cart things, but with all the reaching and bending he has to do, by the time he got back out to the car he was sweating like crazy and in obvious pain, even with my help. The idea of expecting someone in that situation to endure another couple minutes of horrendous pain just to make someone else’s life very slightly more convenient by bringing his cart back up to the store even from the handicapped parking spaces strikes me as absurd, but he can’t always get help with his shopping so I know he has to sometimes.
I think rules, written or otherwise, should have exceptions to account for extreme circumstances like this, but a lot of online people just go ‘No, if you don’t bring your cart back you’re a BAD PERSON no matter what!’.
The carts go back in the corral so they don’t damage other people’s cars, not for convenience. I’m sorry your friend is hurt but my property shouldn’t be damaged because of that. And nobody’s going to judge him if he leaves it next the handicapped parking space he was in. Anyway, all the grocery stores by me will literally send someone to push the cart and put your groceries in the car for you if you’re unable. The cashiers will even straight up ask if they think you need help.
He always puts them in a place where they won’t be in the way of other cars, lifts a wheel up onto a curb or something so it won’t be blown around by the wind, etc. He is not damaging anyone’s property.
Also I’ve been with him to help him shop several times and never seen anyone offer (and he says he they never offer when he’s by himself), so maybe it’s different where you live? shrug That sounds pretty great for his situation tho.
If he’s putting it up on the curb he’s doing the best for his situation and to me that’s fine. The damage comes from people leaving them just laying around and then the wind picks up. I have been around the block a few times it’s true but in my life I’ve saved at least 3 people’s cars from getting dented by carts I saw flying through the parking lot because of wind.
Does he ask for help? Even if it’s not a normal thing at that store, a nice conversation with a store manager can go a long way in my experience. Maybe it’s because I live in a neighborhood with a significant amount of older folks (at least that’s what it looks like at the grocery store!) but I bet any grocery will do that if you ask.
Fair enough. Yeah fuck leaving it out in the middle of everything or where it can roll/be blown away. If my buddy who gets winded walking to the bathroom can manage it so can everyone else. Although I guess to be fair there are more likely to be curbs near the handicap parking than for most other people, though also they have working legs and cart corrals, so…
The major problem with this kind of pattern is you’re looking to establish edge-case boundaries, rather than the most broadly applicable standard. The attempt to document and "solve for every case just leads to overly complicated and disingenuous discussions. Our fascination and obsession with “accuracy and precision” as applied to human behavior is one that breaks down very quickly unless you’re attempting to be hyper-rational, at which point, any rules assigned to human behavior break down.
In short, “use your best judgement.”
Note: I think that we have passed the golden moment where “human judgement” had any kind of value. There was a long time where we (all humanity) were stumbling in the dark, and we have now stepped back into that cave. But for a brief, shining moment, the percentage of people who had critical reasoning skills was growing, and it was majestic.
What I’m looking to do is point out that the world isn’t ever black-and-white, that the broadly applicable standards - while I agree that they are in fact broadly applicable - are never universal, and that edge-cases exist everywhere and need to be accounted for or the world is just a worse place for everyone. I’m not saying ‘your solution must handle solve for every case’, I’m saying ‘be aware that your solution needs to be flexible enough to account the fact that the real world is messy and things are never as simple as you’d like to believe.’
I am specifically, as you say, advocating for the use of best judgement over moral absolutes (I have heard it said, in person and online, that anyone who doesn’t put a shopping cart back no matter the reason is a shit human being, f.ex, so there are definitely people out there slinging moral absolutes on the subject of shopping carts.)
I highly doubt you have heard a significant number of people who would genuinely say “disabled people who don’t put their carts back are shit people.”
The number of people who would unironically say that is such a small edge case that it’s not necessary to talk about them when you say things like “everyone knows that disabilities result in different needs and moral responsibilities,” just like it’s not necessary to mention disability when you generalize and say “people who don’t put their carts back are shit people.”
Edge cases don’t have to be accounted for in every conversation, not everything is a court of law.
This isn’t really any more deep than “only a sith deals in absolutes”
Not a significant number, no, but also not zero. No the common refrain is as I said it, with the implication that anyone who doesn’t for any reason is a shit human being, and Iono if you know this, but disabled people are part of ‘anyone’ too. My whole point is that they make blanket statements about a thing that annoys them without realizing that some of those carts are out there for some pretty good reasons actually.
that is such a small edge case that it’s not necessary to talk about them
Did you manage to overlook this point?
Put your cart back when you’re done shopping
OP didn’t make a blanket statement that “anyone who does X is a piece of shit.”
He said an unwritten rule, like your own statement:
Don’t be stupid
Which is significantly closer to ableism than the shopping carts, with the implication that anyone who is stupid is a piece of shit.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying “don’t be stupid,” for the record, but in case you weren’t aware, people with brain damage are included under “anyone.”
You’ve picked a bizarrely specific hill to die on.
Thats like saying ik murders bad but what if the guy you killled kidnapped your whole family and held them hostage, like nah shit well consider it being okay in that case, but that is a fringe case far from common
Equating not putting the shopping cart back with murder is a bit fucking hyperbolic. One of those ends the life of another person and the other very slightly inconveniences them at most. And I now I can’t even take you seriously enough to read the rest of your admittedly-short post after a statement like that.
Not every comparison is literal, and you focused on the wrong part.
Maybe tuck the godawful analogies away til the end next time then? shrug
There are always outliers and exceptions to rules, they are usually not who/what is being discussed lol
Yeah but people (on the internet and off) like to make blanket statements like ‘Anyone who doesn’t put the shopping cart back is a terrible person’, so sometimes they have to be reminded that the world is not as black and white as they’d like to imagine.
Nah man, language is messy and people are lazy. Language is messy meaning people generally don’t get so detail oriented and pedantic when someone says an absolute that clearly has some exceptions. People are lazy meaning most people aren’t going to care to hash out the specifics of the edge cases that don’t fit the generic statement.
Your test seems to be more about how pedantic everyone is, and god I hope Lemmy loses that to reddit…
Yeah that was definitely a thing I saw a lot more on reddit than here re:‘shit human being’, so fair point, I’m with you in hoping that kind of thing doesn’t come over here/goes away.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule. Likewise, “don’t talk loudly on your phone in public” is a rule everyone should know, but no one’s going to judge you if you’re talking loudly on your phone to 911 because you just saw someone get hit by a car.
You can’t call the police or an ambulance if you’re at the movies!
I think rules, written or otherwise, should have exceptions to account for extreme circumstances like this, but a lot of online people just go ‘No, if you don’t bring your cart back you’re a BAD PERSON no matter what!’.
To treat any rule as immutable is an idealist junk perspective. Rules, like all ideas, need to be applied to a context, and I personally don’t see the point in codifying every possible exception. Law officials, programmers and others can tell you how Sisyphean that task would be.
So yes, there are exceptions (obviously!). If you’re putting your cart back and you injure your leg, you don’t have to crawl on your arms just to put it back. But we can still generally say “people should put their cart back after shopping” and it’s clear that we’re generalizing.
I’ll leave this here: https://youtube.com/@cartnarcs
Let the people out of the elevator that are trying to get out of the elevator before you attempt getting in.
Ditto buses and subways
Elevator, all public transport, buildings. There’s more space outside. Stop cramping.
Do NOT stop to talk in doorways.
Or at the bottom of escalators.
When shopping and it’s busy, don’t walk down the middle of the aisle or leave your shopping kart there.
And don’t look at me like I’m the monster when I push your unattended cart out of my way.
And don’t walk in the middle of the parking lot where the cars drive. Coming from the sparsely populated Midwestern US and moving to densely populated Los Angeles, CA I don’t understand how nobody here fucking knows this (people here have zero self-awareness).
I miss Costco having one-way aisles during COVID, it significantly improved the shopping experience.
Elevator Etiquette: Let people exit before you enter. That way you have more room to enter. This applies to all things, not just elevators.
Trains, buses, gangbangs…
But how else are you going to turn a gang bang into a train?
HUMAN Centipede
There’s really only two of them:
- Don’t be stupid.
- Don’t be a dick.
They’re not even unspoken, people say them all the time, but some people just don’t pay attention I guess.
Unfortunately, the current capitalist system in place for most of the world is incompatible with most people to varying degrees. This leads to people not sleeping as much as they should, which makes people stupid and behave like dicks.
I mean there are lots of reasons for people to be stupid/be a dick; the point is to rise above that shit. I get it tho, I was born in the 70s so I’ve been watching this world backslide into shit for nigh on 50 years now, it just keeps bombarding you with more and more shit. But if you let ‘fuck it I’m tired’ be an excuse then you’re not even trying anymore.
You’re absolutely correct, but lol this is really weird given your other comments in this post.
Why didn’t you clarify about edge cases, like disabilities?
Zipper merging.
If your lane is closing ahead, it is better for everyone in traffic if you drive all the way to the end of the lane and cut in at the last moment.
Note that this does not apply to exit lanes. The basic rule is if late merging blocks someone from going somewhere, merge early. Otherwise, merge as late as you can.
Zipper merge isn’t a thing where I live. It’s advised in the provincial drivers’ handbook to merge early. Some folks from other provinces are trying to change things but it’s too ingrained, been this way for as long as I can remember.
Merging early when at speed makes sense, because you still have a lot of lane left before you have to merge - less pressure, more time, less likely to make a bad decision.
Merging late during slow traffic makes sense, as it allows you to align with gaps in the traffic and for the traffic to make space for you without having to actually stop.
The problem with zipper merges as this person describes them is a zipper merge is SUPPOSED TO get traffic back up to speed. However, when your take on the zipper merge is “up there where the wreck is at the last possible spot I can merge” there’s no time for a human to safely merge at speed. So everything has to continue at a crawl.
So the people jumping out of their lane and “zipper merging” at the last second instead of 50 feet out or so end up making things worse for everyone.
The zipper does not and should not be at the point of the physical problem on the road. Just like you should not just drive to the end of the on ramp and at the last possible second merge into the lane on your left without paying attention.
That’s what I said?
Merge early at speed, merge late during congestion
I really can’t more strongly disagree with this take.
Zipper merging is to interleave two lanes of traffic when there’s one lane of traffic available ahead.
It DOES NOT matter if it’s done with 3 feet to merge or 300 feet to merge. There’s no efficiency gain.
What does matter is some assholes trying to merge at speed at the last possible second.
The zipper point should not be the point where there’s NO ROOM to merge SAFELY without EVERYONE going 3 miles per hour.
The handful of times I’ve seen a zipper merge actually start to work, someone rushes down to the end of the line where the problem is, nearly causes a second accident trying to get over, and then everything starts moving at a crawl again.
You don’t need to zipper merge at the “physical barrier” causing the zipper merge to be necessary.
It DOES NOT matter if it’s done with 3 feet to merge or 300 feet to merge. There’s no efficiency gain.
Merging early leaves unused road. Shoving the cars into fewer lanes makes the traffic jam longer and makes it impact more interesections far behind the actual hangup. If you can merge early without slowing down, sure go for it. I’m mostly talking about the scenarios where it’s already slowed to a crawl and people feel like they have to merge early to not be seen as “cutting in line.”
Edit, also to add, if everyone merges early even at speed, eventually, the car density in the reduced lanes will reach a point where people naturally slow down and you have bumper to bumper traffic.
I suggest Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt for more.
“Unused road” is ridiculous except in extremes. Unless people merge well over a mile back, 1 lane of traffic will make no difference. The only way “unused road” matters is for the people that haven’t entered the traffic jam yet who are getting off before they reach it.
Very few people (from what I’ve seen) merge more than 30 car lengths out. 30 cars is not going to make a difference.
What does make a difference is the fact that we can’t do a merge at speed because some people want to “zipper late.” It’s the zipper behavior that matters, the “at the very end” part never should’ve been added to that recommendation.
Looking at an actual research paper about this, the zipper merge demonstrated is not at the last possible point. A merge point forms ahead of that point and that’s what should be used. The pictures from their study show the zipper occurring over a wide area with many of the zipped cars driving in the middle.
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/35694
I don’t know how studies like this have become the recommendations we have. They seem to me to miss critical bits.
Edit: based on my quick read, it’s worth noting the study finds only minimal support for the zipper merge and only in contexts not involving trucks largely based on visual analysis from their video feed as the quantitative data was not statistically significant. We need better transparency on recommendations like this frankly and the research supporting them. We should be able to have an honest debate on the merits of the papers.
When waiting at a red light, cars are supposed to stay out of the pedestrian crosswalk
The red light cameras here will call that running a red light, you have to leave it clear by law. That’s a spoken rule.
It’s a written rule, but where I live no one seems to pay any attention to it.
EDIT: Comment below is a product of misunderstanding of the original statement. I thought it was about pedestrians.
To be fair, at a red light you are legally expected to not initiate the crossing. You can finish it freely at any pace even if the red is in.
But a polite thing to do is to not enter the crosswalk if you can’t cross it before red turns on.
Sorry I wasn’t clear, I meant cars should stay out of the pedestrian crosswalk. Editted
Oh, then that’s true! And that’s their legal obligation
The comment I left t here no longer relevant because parent and child revised their comments after the fact. This is not a healthy way to have a discourse people.
EDIT it seems to be a misunderstanding based on the misinterpretation of original statement. It was edited since then to clarify, rendering the original discussion obsolete.
Cars should NOT stay on the crosswalk when the red light is on. You should only drive through the crosswalk if the light is green and there is space behind the crosswalk enough to fit your car. If you stay there, blocking the crosswalk - you are in the wrong.
Pedestrians, however, can enter the crosswalk on green and continue crossing the road even if the traffic light turns red. It’s still a good tone, however, to plan ahead and not make drivers wait.
Original comment preserved:
A Wikipedia piece on that very issue to hopefully settle us:
Red light prohibits entering the junction, not staying there. There are some rare regional deviations, such as in New York City, but generally staying after red is not a violation - at least as long as the junction is not specially marked by yellow grid.
Red light prohibits entering the junction, not staying there.
While true, That kind of talk leads to gridlock as more people enter the intersection expecting to go after the light is red. It also leads to more “stretching the yellow” well into red lights.
People don’t seem to get the distinction that it’s to allow getting unstuck. It’s not to encourage entering the intersection when you can’t go anywhere (welll … except for some poorly implemented intersections where that’s the only way to turn left)
Stopping in the crosswalk screws both pedestrians and people trying to see to safely make a right on red.
Since the majority of people in the world are idiots, and management tends to collect them at a higher rate than other roles, you will generally be rewarded more for how you make others feel than the amount or quality of your work. A person with a 10 in charisma and 4 int gets farther than the person with a 10 int and a 7 in charisma most of the time. Focus on learning better people skills. If you find a place where your work is recognized you should cherish it.
Also in the US the left lane is for passing the right lanes.
don’t hold your phone while driving
This is probably just a me thing, but if you have to use the restroom, just say that instead of saying what you specifically have to do. I don’t need to know any details and you don’t need to share them with anyone. The only details worth sharing is if something happens, like a pipe leak/burst or something else serious.
Here’s a weird one:
Don’t offer advice unless its something you have some experience with.
Googling someone’s issues and giving them a boilerplate answer from the first thing you find isn’t helpful and can actually be a hinderance more than anything.
Absolutely. And be open that you don’t have experience with it!!
I feel like boomers are the worst about this (as a young business owner I get tons of random dumb business advice from that age group) but that could just be bias
That is partially what inspired me to post this. A lot of business advice I have gotten has been staggeringly bad.
I realize most people have worked at a business and should know a thing or two about how it works, but I don’t think many consider the huge differences between their workplace and how a small business operates.
I had someone do the same but with fucking AI in my field of expertise
You’ve got my vote for president.
I have to disagree honestly. So many times someone tells me about some question they’re pondering, and when I offer some suggestion about what may be going on or how to fix it, they’re like “Why are you talking about something you know nothing about? You don’t have to have an opinion.”
But am I allowed to? I’m a curious person. If something interesting or strange or problematic is happening in your life, the first thing my brain is going to do is start trying to explain it. So I could keep it to myself, but then since my mind is on something I’m not allowed to talk about, I’m going to sit there and be silent and then they’ll be like “What? Do you have any reaction at all or are you going to just sit there in silence?”
And then I pull out my beretta…
I think it’s fine to have an opinion, just qualify it with “I’ve not been in that situation before, but … I think bla … because bla.”
It’s just about being honest.
Something I’ve learned to practice with friends. When people call me I try to make sure I ask “do you want advice or do you just want someone to listen?”
I also hate when people get angry you didn’t follow their advice. Sometimes their advice was horse shit to begin with anyway. Just because someone seeks advice doesn’t mean they’re obligated to follow it. At least in my case, thank God I didn’t.
Or their advice might be fine in general, but doesn’t apply to your specific situation.
I had a friend who’s latest and greatest dating advice was to go back and hangout at the college I graduated from (at the time already) several years ago.
I thought it was an incredibly disingenuous and creepy suggestion.
Him and his partner were like “it’s totally fine…”
Not a single female friend disagreed with me that, that would be very creepy and I absolutely should not do that.
He got mad that I would never listen to his (terrible) dating advice.
I do remember from college there were women who were into this. It may be a successful strategy if you have no shame or morals
