Oblivious

What is wrong with people?

I made it to my work exit off of the freeway with an entire 12 minutes to spare. Woo-hoo! What should I do with the extra time? Surely not get into the office an entire 12 minutes ahead of time, that is MY time. There was plenty of time to stop at BP for a coffee and pastry.

Or so I thought.

BP was really hopping this morning, lots of cars in the lot, but I had a full 11 minutes to burn by the time I walked through the door. I poured my coffee, and grabbed the last apple fritter (I was feeling frisky and indulgent), and hopped in line. Just two people ahead of me, and still 9 extra minutes - fantastic.

Or so I thought.

It turned out that the woman at the front of the line had picked 8:21am to do all of her Christmas shopping. At BP. She was literally buying $300 worth of $20 BP gift cards. One at a time. Each card had to be individually activated by the cashier. The only cashier. By the time she got done, I had completely run out of spare minutes, and was starting to twitch. There were also about 15 people in line behind me trying to buy their own coffee and gas getting equally twitchy.

Again, what is wrong with people? First of all, I wouldn't try to do that kind of transaction during the morning rush at the convenience store. People have places to go and things to do. If I sensed that I was causing that kind of road-block in the normal flow of operations, I would step aside, or just come back later. I am personally very self-conscious about inconveniencing other people, but apparently other people are just oblivious to the rest of the world around them.

This woman was the equivalent of the financially inept customer who attempts to solve all of their overdrawn, bounced-check, repossessed-car woes at the teller's window of the grocery store bank branch during the lunch hour. There could be 100 people in line who just want to deposit their paycheck and grab something to eat before going back to work, and this lemonhead is trying to get a teller to balance their last year's worth of checking account statements for them.

I actually felt sorry for the BP cashier. It wasn't her fault that one customer decided to break up the natural flow of her morning work cycle. But she was the one who had to pay the price of a line out the door, that probably wouldn't be back under control for an hour. I think that she thought I was mad at her because I was at full-twitch by the time I got to the head of the line.

Anyway, I grabbed my change and jumped back in the car to scoot the final mile to the office. I got in 2 minutes late. The fritter was a little stale- that probably happened while I was standing in line.