#070 Hall/Aisle Clogging

I was recently on an outing with a good friend of mine, and we were walking through a breezeway between buildings. A group of four people (2 male, 2 female) were walking towards us, and not a single one of them decided to hang back to allow pedestrian traffic to flow by them. Basically the four of them walked side by side leaving room for only 1 person to walk past them going the opposite way (since the breezeway was only about 5 "people" wide).

How incredibly RUDE was that?! If you're walking 4-wide in a space for only about that many, at least half of your party should hang back so that you're only walking 2-wide. Don't clog the hall or aisle. I don't care if you were engaging in the most wonderful and articulate of conversations... you can continue talking while you're walking behind/in front of that person!

I can only assume the people who don't abide by this unspoken rule were not raised properly or simply don't care to be polite. Didn't your mother ever teach you to mind your manners and let other people through? Perhaps not. Perhaps your mother was the kind to let you talk with food in your mouth or the kind to allow you to talk during a movie.

I imagine this phenomenon started in grade school, when the super-cool kids walked in a big group and forced the less-cool kids to either step aside or step into a doorway while they passed. While the successful kids likely outgrew this habit, the lowlife kids retained it and continue to do it to this day.

Whatever the case may be, don't be an asshole: step aside and let other people through.