[masto]

Well, you've all downvoted the crap out of me because it's not socially acceptable to publicly admit that you find any aspect of children annoying. Step away from the knee-jerk reaction, and read the author's own words:

'The fellow is already engaged with another customer, talking on a phone and looking at various plumbing boxes on the top shelf. [...] He is rather busy, and is starting to look around frantically for a parent to clear the matter up. "Tough luck, buddy," I think as I'm stepping forward.'

The part I object to is not teaching a child how to socialize. It's the deliberate abuse of a "busy", "engaged with another customer", and "frantic" employee under the banner of "tough luck, buddy" -- i.e. "it's a kid, so I can do whatever obnoxious thing I want and you have to put up with it". Also, "tough luck, other customer". Maybe this kid also needs to learn how to wait his turn, so he doesn't wind up a self-entitled asshole like his daddy.

[shou4577]

Immediately afterward, though, the parent does step in and help out - a small amount. It sounds to me like the parent here is trying to subtly remind the employee that this is a learning experience for Guy. The entire exchange seems, in my mind, to take no more than 30 seconds away from the busy customer service representative, which is about 20 more seconds than it would have taken for the parent to ask in the first place.

There are, of course, some things wrong here. The child should not interrupt another customer to get help - that is rude. But part of learning is making mistakes, and I think it totally agrees with the spirit of the rest of the story to let the child make the mistake, and point out afterwards what improvements could be made (to be clear, the story does not say that this happens, I am only suggesting the hypothetical that it could happen, and I claim that it would justify the inconvenience). Again, this is slightly inconvenient for the people involved, but a great life lesson for the kid. By making these social mistakes, he gains experience with the types of subtle cues people let on when you are performing a social faux pas. A short explanation after the fact from the father can help the child not to make the same mistakes again.

Of course, this particular father may have done none of those things. He may be a sadistic bastard who pointed out the most busy, overly worked employee in the store simply because he likes bothering people, then congratulated his kid on making a spectacle. But the spirit of the story is lighthearted, so I interpret his actions as well-meaning (and probably slightly exaggerated, for effect).

I don't think that people should have to put up with any obnoxious thing a kid does. In fact, I think it would have been a great thing for the other people in the story to treat him like an adult, just like the dad wanted them to. If the clerk had said "hang on, I'll be able to help you in one minute", that wouldn't have been a problem. Or if the other customer had said, "pardon me, but I am in the middle of a question here - can you wait?", then the obnoxiousness of the situation could have been avoided entirely and the kid would have gotten a great lesson out of it.

People just need to relax. I know kids can be obnoxious. It bothers me to hell when I see children running around, bumping into people and sword-fighting in the aisles of the supermarket while the parent seems totally oblivious. But these sort of minor inconveniences need to be viewed as they are - minor. Total time wasted of other people in the store on this day - maybe about 45 seconds. Hardly a big enough deal for you to label the daddy a "self-entitled asshole".

By the way, I didn't down-vote you. I don't agree with you, but I think that you made a perfectly valid point - children are annoying. In fact, I up-voted you for it.