Rudeass people

OK, so were having a barbecue today with some friends at a shelter in a local park. The shelter is unreserved, because they all have a blackboard on the front where city parks dept. will write the name of anyone who reserves it, and it's blank. Park rules: if it has no name, then it's first come first serve.

We're already set up there for half an hour, I have 2 grills going and I'm just about to start a third, when a couple walk up and start setting up stuff themselves. Not a word from them - it's like we're invisible. Finally, after they are setting up things for several minutes, we ask what's up. They claim they have the shelter - they do have a receipt - and their party is supposed to start at 4:30. We see the receipt, and everything is legit, so I now end up moving two burning grills to the next shelter.

Clearly the parks people dropped the ball, but we were floored by the attitude of these people. Not one word out of them until we said something. They just tried to pretend we weren't there, as if we didn't rate them asking us what was going on.


Edit: spelling

However, to be honest, I would have been much less pissed off if they had asked us what was going on from the outset. They acted like we were beneath them.

Cuz I have to say, that thing is kickass. Might've scared them away too ;)

I have two, and am about to buy two more, I love'em!

It is sometimes amazing. It's not that difficult to drive, but they make it an unusual, singular art.

I remember once I was behind this woman in a traffic jam, and she wouldn't move forward in traffic because she was too busy dancing around in her car to the radio. She'd just ignore when cars would move forward, everyone kept pulling in front of her while she'd sit in one spot, and meanwhile I'm stuck behind her not able to get anywhere either, all because she was so into her radio.

Shit, they could have started yelling at you. Flip the script, how would you have reacted to someone being in your space?

The thing is, I would have actually preferred them yelling. That would have at least been initiating something. Technically, regardless of whether they had a receipt, they were in our space, since the shelter wasn't actually reserved correctly according to the park rules. I didn't have a problem with the fact that things got messed up, I had a problem with them acting like we were beneath them talking to us as to what was going on.

Still, they should have said something to you.

There really wasn't the room for 2 different groups.

I understand what you are saying.

The thing is, all they would have had to do was smile and and discuss the situation with you.

People have lost (or never really had) the basic concept of communication.

I would have been a little pissed off in this situation also.

You were already physically there, and they approached your space. It was up to them to say something immediately before setting up.

Like I said upthread, I would've been less pissed off had they come in angry. It was the "Let's pretend they don't exist" bit that got me.

This was a small shelter and we had 5 adults in there already - plus our stuff was spread out all over the 4 picnic tables (2 had cooking stuff out on them and 2 had the tablecloths and coolers on them). We got there, saw that no name was listed to reserve the shelter, and at that point, according to the park rules, it's up for grabs to the first people there.

I completely understand that the people might have been irritated that we were in the shelter that they reserved. But, they clearly had no concept of communication. They walked up, looked at the board, and started to put down their things and hang up their signs. I had to be the one to say, "did you reserve this shelter for something?" before they even acknowledged that we were sitting a few feet away from them. I would have handled it differently if I had been in their shoes. I would have approached the shelter and told the people that we had reserved the shelter and that there must have been some mistake not to have our names listed on the board. Anything to get the dialog going. But they said NOTHING.

Here's the thing: we never gave them attitude (although we were confused by their actions), we were very gracious in moving all of our shit to another shelter, including 2 burning grills, because we didn't want to ruin their party. It was clear to us that the mishap wasn't their fault but it wasn't our fault either and we were trying to fix it. But, what pissed me off is that the people never once said thank you or I'm sorry things got messed up or ANYTHING. That's damn rude.

I would have roasted their buns on the Barbey.....................:hi: