Being moved along by someone who "wants your place".

A few weeks ago I was at the National Gallery and went to sit down to read up on a painting. My bum had almost touched the bench when a tiny, aged Japanese woman raced over and barged into me, almost knocking me off the bench. She wanted space for three of them to sit together to discuss the painting. I almost ended up on the floor. I just looked at her and said 'So sorry. How rude of me' but she just glared at me so not sure if she understood

RosiesMaw

^I was a bit taken aback but it was so that a parent and her child could sit nearer to the rest of their family who were in the window seats^
Never seen the point of window seats on a plane!
When you’ve seen one cloud, you’ve seen them all surely?

I know, but love the beauty of them, as my dear mum used to say. Coming into land , and seeing the landscape, of a different country, or the lights as you land in the evening. Love it.

Aged eighteen, I joined the chorus of an opera company not too long before the actual performances. The producer put me at the front, waving a large flag as a camp follower.
Singers who had been there since 1802 were not happy and each night I was pulled further and further back until I ended up practically singing in the wings, flag and all😁

I used to run a knitting group. The room we used had a variety of chairs with just two very comfy upholstered armchairs. The rest were very upright dining chairs and not very comfy.

Two women always got there first to bag the two best chairs. One of our group had major surgery and needed a comfy chair. She dropped hints but those 2 just ignored her. I thought that was really selfish.

The next week I got there even earlier and sat in one and bagged the other for the post op lady. Their faces were a picture! 🤣

Big louis - I love your response and will have to remember it when I am next in that situation. I think I'm usually too stunned to come up with an appropriate response to advocate for myself and I am terrible at confrontation, but your response is perfect. It is polite enough to not be argumentative and yet appropriately dismissive of the frivolous request at the same time.

Aquafit gave me a laugh this week. Two ladies are very fussy about having places right in front of the session coach and get annoyed if any newbie dares to invade their space.
This week, a different coach arrived just at the start of class and set up at the opposite side of the pool.
People I’ve never noticed being particular about places were suddenly unwilling to move out of the way despite requests from the two fusspots who gathered up their water bottles and surged to the opposite side.

I go to a group where there is a "clique" of long term members. They're friendly enough singly but they have to sit together. Tbh as they spend a lot of time talking I'm happy to sit elsewhere with others who want to get on with our activity and we are not precious about which of the ither seats we have!

However a few weeks ago the desks in the room had been rearranged and when I arrived one of the clique actually told me where to sit!! I was not impressed!

As it turned out that while the section the clique had snaffled was fine for them, the other areas were too cramped for the rest of us to work in, so the desks were just moved back to their proper positions!

When everyone had arrived it was plain that there wasn't enough room for everyone to sit comfortably and have room to work.

NannyJan53

I remember years ago Mum
telling how she joined an exercise class when she first retired. She put her mat down on the floor and two ladies said, “you can’t put it there it’s so and so’s spot!! She said , “really? I will wait till she arrives then”. Suffice to say no one turned up to claim the spot! 😃

I had a similar experience as a newish mum. With going to a toddler group, I walked into a large hall with chairs in a circle and toys in the centre, went to sit next to a group of ladies and was told “you cant sit here these 14 (empty) seats are reserved for our friends!” I never went back

Another Aquafit story. A very tall lady joined the class and more or less forced me to be in deeper than I could manage. I barely had my head out of water. I asked her if we could swap as she was much taller than me. The cow said, ' No thanks I'm quite comfortable here.' I persevered for a while but had to get out in the end.

Ive never been asked to move on a plane except by the cabin crew who discovered I was sitting by the emergency doors. They found me another suitable seat nearer the front.

No one has ever taken my reserved seat on a train. If they refused to move they would have my weighty person sitting on their lap!

I once saw a couple who had taken a reserved seat refuse to move despite the fact that the legitimate seatholder was disabled. The train manager was called and they still refused to move, arguing that "possession is 9 tenths of the law" and that he did not have authority to make them move. The couple were quite mouthy and abusive to anyone who tried to intervene. The train was subsequently stopped at a station in the middle of no-where and (after a long wait) the police got on, arrested the couple and marched them off. I imagine they spent some time at a rural police station and were more or less stranded for the night. Hahaha

My daughter-in-law is a very nervous flyer. A few years ago we went to California with her and our son and reserved seats close together. On the return flight my son and daughter-in-law were told to stand to one side as we boarded, then after a while they were told that they ‘had to’ sit separately so that a family could sit together. We had already taken our seats so didn’t know what had happened until we saw our DIL was visibly upset as they took their seats quite a distance from the ones we had all reserved. Another couple had seen how upset she was when they were pulled to one side and volunteered to give up their seats together and sit separately for which they were very grateful. Unfortunately the airline staff handled it very badly by making them stand to one side which made them wonder what was going to happen to them.

Slightly off-piste, but at our aquacise classes, we do tend to like the same spot each time.

I always try and get in the water quite quickly, if I was late and missed my ‘space’, I would stand elsewhere, but I find it annoying if later entrants try and push in.

Does this count as being ‘moved along because someone wants your place’?

biglouis
I'm thinking I would like to be you on every trip I take 🤣

I'm quite small and invariably people just expect me to move out of the way or I'm afraid they will walk straight into me.

On a long coach journey to The Isle of Wight I pre-booked an isle seat as I neede to move a bad knee after injury.
The lady next to me had booked on the last minute with her
hus band and got the last two seats.
She asked me to change places with her husband who was next to the window on the front seat.
When I refused she was really qiute rude and questioned why I didn't want to sit on the front seat.
After I explained she turned away and gazed out of the window for the whole journey without speaking.
People can be so obnoxious

Tizliz

in the days before you could book your seats we turned up at JFK airport with only 3 hours to spare! the clerk said should have been earlier if we wanted to sit together. When we got on board I asked around and someone was happy to swap. On landing the overhead locker opened and a bag fell on his head, I was so embarrassed but luckily he wasn't badly hurt.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I was on a six and a half hour flight across the States and the plane was changed at the last minute to a smaller one invalidating all seat choices. We were given random seat selections at the gate as we boarded. I always have an aisle seat because of needing to use the toilet frequently but it was a window seat. I very politely asked the (large) couple sitting next to me if they would swap, giving the reason, but they refused. As soon as we took off they reclined their seats and went to sleep. I suffered for a few hours but the pain was getting too much and I had to call a member of staff and ask for assistance in getting to the toilet. The fuss when she woke the couple up was unbelievable. I swear it took them about fifteen minutes to prise themselves out of their seats, moaning loudly and continuously the whole time about how they were exhausted and needed to sleep. Baffling when you remember that none of us had been given our original seat bookings and they wanted to sleep anyway.

We had an occasion years ago when we tried the social club in tour village, with a view to joining (drinks are cheaper). When we went in I spied an empty area and went to sit down while MrJ got the drinks, ‘you can’t sit there, that’s xxxx’s seat’ we were told. So we stood, they didn’t turn up and we didn’t join the club.

in the days before you could book your seats we turned up at JFK airport with only 3 hours to spare! the clerk said should have been earlier if we wanted to sit together. When we got on board I asked around and someone was happy to swap. On landing the overhead locker opened and a bag fell on his head, I was so embarrassed but luckily he wasn't badly hurt.

4allweknow

I was on a long-haul flight with other family members, all of us in the middle section of 5 seats. About an hour in I was asked to change seats with a passenger furthet back. Why? The woman was anxious and wanted to be near her friends who where in the 3 seater row on the side of me. I just asked the crew member if she was going to reimburse me and my family for the cost paid and was going to find seats for all 5 of us to stay together. Neither happened. I suggested to the crew they should be able to deal with an anxious passenger without involving others. Some folk and their entitlement is beyond belief.

I would have said the same as you, what a cheek for the staff to even ask you to move!

RosiesMaw

^I was a bit taken aback but it was so that a parent and her child could sit nearer to the rest of their family who were in the window seats^
Never seen the point of window seats on a plane!
When you’ve seen one cloud, you’ve seen them all surely?

I like a window seat as it’s easier to sleep leaning against the window

I would of told them where to go and made a complaint to the gym management

I was on a long-haul flight with other family members, all of us in the middle section of 5 seats. About an hour in I was asked to change seats with a passenger furthet back. Why? The woman was anxious and wanted to be near her friends who where in the 3 seater row on the side of me. I just asked the crew member if she was going to reimburse me and my family for the cost paid and was going to find seats for all 5 of us to stay together. Neither happened. I suggested to the crew they should be able to deal with an anxious passenger without involving others. Some folk and their entitlement is beyond belief.

A work colleague's son had his whole wedding moved so that someone else could have the venue.
The people who wanted it paid for any costs, and also paid for guests to be accommodated at nearby hotels, with transport to and from the venue.

My husband was once moved from Economy to First because someone there wanted to sit next to a relative who was seated next to him - he still gets excited thinking about it!

If I am on a plane and I have booked and paid extra for my seat, something that is almost compulsory these days, then I don’t think that I would move.
However I did swap with an elderly woman once. She was in my aisle seat, her seat was next to mine by the window. She explained that her GD had booked her seat and she needed the loo fairly frequently. It was a 12hr flight.
We got on like a house on fire and I ended up making sure she got to the area she needed to at HR. Sometimes it’s good to be accommodating? It does depend on how the request is handled.