Thursday 8 March 2012

Behaving badly

Over the last two days, I've witnessed examples of behaviour that shows no regard for other people.

Flying home to Melbourne from Perth yesterday, I arrived at my seat to find the young woman sitting in the seat beside me had her bag and shoes and books and hat and water bottle sitting on my seat.  I arrived, said hello and excuse me and waited.  I was greeted with a huff and a pout.  Oh well, I put that aside, sat down, plugged in my earphones and opened my book.

For the duration of the four hour flight, this woman did not sit still and took up as much space as she possibly could.  She had bright yellow platform shoes on which were obviously uncomfortable, as she shifted her legs and rearranged them in various crosses and uncrosses for the duration of the the flight.

At the moment we received the instruction that the aircraft was about to commence descent and all electronic devices needed to be switched off, she whipped out her iphone, switched it on and started to send text messages.

I waited.

I noticed when the flight attendants walked past, she would hide the phone.

Eventually I said to her: "You really need to switch that off."

She shrugged and huffed and pouted again.

I said: "Seriously, you need to switch that off."

She replied: "I need to get someone to pick me up!"

"Well you'll need to get someone to pick us all up.  From the crash site. Switch it off."

And she did.  Honestly.

Travelling home in peak hour after work today, the train was very crowded and even when I embarked at the beginning of the journey I had to stand.  At the next station, a heavily pregnant woman arrived. I moved along to make way for the next wave of passengers.  The pregnant woman was standing right near the bank of seats that are to be given up for anyone with special needs.  The sign specifically lists pregnancy.  

There were three women sitting in the bank of four and the man was virtually looking straight at the woman's belly.  I was about to ask someone to give their seat to this woman, when one of the seated women announced that she was getting off at the next stop.  She made no move to get up early to provide a seat for this woman.  The other two women looked directly at the pregnant woman and made no move to assist.  Then the man offered his seat, but the woman who was getting off at the next station shook her head and told him that she was getting off at the next stop.  The man sat down!

When the pregnant woman did have the opportunity to sit down, she looked very relieved.  

International Women's Day and a pregnant woman can't even rely on another woman to show her consideration.

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