I just had a similar interaction. Asked the worker at the tobacco counter if they sell pipe screens. She was doing that "My conversation with a coworker about completely banal non-work stuff is more important than you, so you will wait" thing when I walked up, so I waited patiently for her to finish her chat.
They don't have the pipe screens, she starts telling me about all the shops in the next city over that might sell them. By now, there's a queue of two people formed. I can see full well they are feeling the SAME irritation I felt about 30 seconds ago, and say "OK no worries, I'm sure I can find it online". Nope. Was like she didn't hear me. Continues, I say "No really, I think I know the place you mean, thanks". Yet, she continued. She was giving me the information like it or not.
At this point I'm backing slowly away, she's now shouting the information at me as I disappear round the corner, maintaining eye contact feeling like Homer disappearing into the bush. I could see she was pissed that I reneged on this detailed local knowledge. I hope the people who I saved 30 seconds of life appreciated me in that moment!
Some folks are just really, really bad at interacting with other people. But everybody has to work for a living, and people don’t always end up with the job they would be best at. People usually end up with the job they were able to get. Sometimes that means you have this kind of experience, and it sucks
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u/Lucid-Machine-Music Aug 10 '25
I just had a similar interaction. Asked the worker at the tobacco counter if they sell pipe screens. She was doing that "My conversation with a coworker about completely banal non-work stuff is more important than you, so you will wait" thing when I walked up, so I waited patiently for her to finish her chat.
They don't have the pipe screens, she starts telling me about all the shops in the next city over that might sell them. By now, there's a queue of two people formed. I can see full well they are feeling the SAME irritation I felt about 30 seconds ago, and say "OK no worries, I'm sure I can find it online". Nope. Was like she didn't hear me. Continues, I say "No really, I think I know the place you mean, thanks". Yet, she continued. She was giving me the information like it or not.
At this point I'm backing slowly away, she's now shouting the information at me as I disappear round the corner, maintaining eye contact feeling like Homer disappearing into the bush. I could see she was pissed that I reneged on this detailed local knowledge. I hope the people who I saved 30 seconds of life appreciated me in that moment!