Feeling railroaded by giving a colleague a lift into work

[MontyVeda]

That's not a generous contribution to petrol costs, I think that's very low indeed, unless it was in the 1970s or something.

average MPG vs petrol costs at the time meant I was paying for the petrol for the journey, not half, or a third, all of it. Not begrudgingly either.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

I felt sad for my original work mate who I've given a lift for a good few years as I do class him as a friend.

If he's a friend he'll understand. You haven't lied or been otherwise dishonest.

If this is something that has gone on for years with him it may not be a bad idea to mentally prepare for a request from him to restart the habit.

I feel a bit S**** doing this today but it's got to end.

No need to. You've been upfront and honest. And taken some control of your commute back. Try to focus on the positives, not the negatives. It'll make it more likely that similar won't happen (or at least go on as long) in future.

(Still might be no harm to explore assertiveness).

mostly foreign nationals are nice people

Thanks. We appreciate such magnanimity.

 

[Electric_Andy]

I felt sad for my original work mate who I've given a lift for a good few years as I do class him as a friend.

Don't feel bad; it's a bit short-sighted of your friend to not organise their own transport after a good few years. What if you were on long-term sick, or changed jobs? I've had a best mate for 14 years, we worked together for 10 years. For the first 5 years he didn't drive, and when we went to meetings off site he would always ask to be dropped home. He couldn't understand that I didn't want to drive right through the city at 5pm just to drop him at his door. I was happy to drop him at the roundabout where it would be a 15 min walk for him, but in the car (with one-ways and traffic) it would have added 30 mins to my journey home. He got a bit "silently stroppy" a few times but I held my ground. Once he started driving he soon understood why!

 

[mustang1]

Does your regular passenger contribute to fuel costs? I'd hope he does. So I'd be asking the random passengers for a payment too.

Or start being less reliable - with a few days notice tell your regular chap that you won't be able to drive him home on a certain day. Give him time to make other arrangements but any randoms who turn up that evening will be stuck. Might have to do it a few times but surely they'll get the message.

I once went to an organised event that finished after midnight. Others had come by public transport and made no arrangements for getting home. One of the organisers said to them (not me) "Oh Anne lives in that direction. She'll drop you off". I ended up with a car full and actually having to take a different route home to drop them off.

Wow that's way out of order. But then again even if the organiser said "ask Anne if she can give you a lift", it still puts you on the spot.

 

[Kingfisher101]

I'd had this the other way round once when a car driver wanted to continue the lift but I didn't. We usually travelled on the train to work, then he got a car and offered me a lift. Instead of me paying £7.50 train fare per day I paid him this money instead. However, he wouldn't drop me off near work, he dropped me about 25 minutes walk away and this involved navigating two really busy roundabouts with pelican crossings etc. So you could be waiting ages to get across. Normally it was about a 10 minutes walk through a pedestrianized area.
I just said it was O.K. I'd prefer to get the train, he didn't like but so what? You have to do what's best for yourself in these situations. I personally think you are better off doing your own thing reading getting to and from work whether you are the driver or the person sharing.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

If they go away and think about it then some/most/all of them will realise that they have been very rude in chatting away ina language that you don;t understand

I had this sometimes when I lived in Wales
You could tell the rude ones because they would just do it regardless
the less rude ones would apologise for excluding me before or after they started and not just do it where I would just be excluded.



Clearly they have a right to talk in their own language - but they are not at home and being in some else's car means they should consider that person's feelings.
These ones at least were treating you like a taxi driver and an employee - which I regard as being rude.

I would say however, that the silence may well have been a combination of
a) sudden realisation that they had been rude and the onset of guilt
b) sudden realisation that they now have a problem and will have to find a way round it
c) both the above

and not any sort of dislike of you or thinking that you were being rude yourself.

anyway - well done for making this clear to them.

Hope your new found freedom makes you feel better!

🤗🤗 🤗 🤗

 

[annedonnelly]

Wow that's way out of order. But then again even if the organiser said "ask Anne if she can give you a lift", it still puts you on the spot.

What can you do? At least none of them turned out to be an axe murderer

 

[cyberknight]

What can you do? At least none of them turned out to be an axe murderer

Yet 🤔

 

[cyberknight]

The odd occasion I needed a lift I would walk to a point where the driver wasn't going too much out of there way .

 

[classic33]

Yet 🤔

Maybe that's why they weren't speaking a language you could understand!

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Well done @johnnyb47 for asserting yourself.
Obviously the issue was causing you stress, glad you have solved it.

mostly foreign nationals are nice people.

Yes indeed, we mostly are.
... Mostly ...

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

Hi again.
Well I broke the news today to them.
I just said it wasn't working for me anymore and that I need to quite often go to other places after work that are not in the direction of home.It went very quiet in the car which made me feel a little guilty.I felt sad for my original work mate who I've given a lift for a good few years as I do class him as a friend.
I said I will take them to work this week but next week its not happening.I haven't told them yet but I won't take any money off them this week either.
I feel a bit S**** doing this today but it's got to end.
I just can't stand it anymore hearing the car full of chit chat that I don't understand and feeling railroaded and time destination constrained ever day.
Thanks for all the kind words and advice given.
As you probably know I live by myself and have very few people to talk to (except for the cat) and being able to chat to you fine people here on Cycle Chat really helps sometimes on getting a great perspective grip on life's annoying niggles.
👍👍

You've done the right thing for yourself and circumstances. Many years ago my employer was paying me extra (enough to cover the costs of my car+diesel) to pickup and deliver two colleagues who happened to be mother and daughter.

It got to the point through their near constant arguing where I was petrified to speak, in my own car! It ended shortly after

 

[Time Waster]

Why snip my posts to remove the meaning of it? That one part of a sentence, that's a part not the whole sentence, was part of a post explaining my experience of being in a group of people of which I was the only native English speaker among people talking in their own language. In my case, which is opposite to the OPs car journey situation, the foreign language speakers didn't all carry on in their native tongue but at least one would talk to me in English, even involve me in the conversation.

Basically I was saying that most groups of ppl whose native language is not English in the UK do not exclude English speakers in the way the OPs passengers did which is poor manners. Well not all I the group. Their manners being much like our own in that they are usually just as pleasant as English people in a work or other communal space. Nice people. The snipped part sentence, taken out of context, implies a slightly negative of at least suspect sentiment which was not there.

Imho if you quote someone I think it's good habit to quote enough to get the full meaning of the post with the section you're looking at emboldened. This is probably as quick as deleting the rest without removing the meaning and subject of the quoted post. There's a few forums I've been on that has rules on snipping posts mostly related to misrepresentation or nitpicking a post line by line in mostly repeated threads with different sections snipped out.

 

[Slick]

Why snip my posts to remove the meaning of it? That one part of a sentence, that's a part not the whole sentence, was part of a post explaining my experience of being in a group of people of which I was the only native English speaker among people talking in their own language. In my case, which is opposite to the OPs car journey situation, the foreign language speakers didn't all carry on in their native tongue but at least one would talk to me in English, even involve me in the conversation.

Basically I was saying that most groups of ppl whose native language is not English in the UK do not exclude English speakers in the way the OPs passengers did which is poor manners. Well not all I the group. Their manners being much like our own in that they are usually just as pleasant as English people in a work or other communal space. Nice people. The snipped part sentence, taken out of context, implies a slightly negative of at least suspect sentiment which was not there.

Imho if you quote someone I think it's good habit to quote enough to get the full meaning of the post with the section you're looking at emboldened. This is probably as quick as deleting the rest without removing the meaning and subject of the quoted post. There's a few forums I've been on that has rules on snipping posts mostly related to misrepresentation or nitpicking a post line by line in mostly repeated threads with different sections snipped out.

I'm sure if you knew Pat, you would realise it was purely for humours purposes, as she is nice.......mostly.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I'm sure if you knew Pat, you would realise it was purely for humours purposes, as she is nice.......mostly.

Aye, foreign sense of humor ... a bit ironic we are us furreigners
Sorry @Time Waster, I didn't mean to upset you.