There aren't enough tables for everyone at the shelter to eat dinner at the same time. Guests are called a row at a time from the chairs in the lobby. Then, they are yelled at throughout the meal by a staffperson: "Get up ladies, I need those seats so people can eat." Usually, people take 10-15 minutes to eat dinner.
Many guests save their seats in the lobby by leaving possessions in the seats while they're eating at the tables.
I don't like the process of getting called for dinner. There aren't even enough chairs in the lobby for everyone to sit in while waiting to be called for dinner. "Ladies standing" is a category that functions as a row when dinner is being called.
I often stay out of the shelter from the time I get my bed ticket from the lottery to sometime after 5:00 p.m., which is when people start being called for dinner.
I got to the shelter several minutes ago and didn't see any empty seats in the lobby. Every chair seemed either to have a person or a bag or clothing in it. I saw a lobby chair that seemed empty. It was near the tables. I went over to it, and, when I was about to sit down, the woman in the seat next to it said "I think someone is still sitting there."
She was referring to a guest who was a few feet away, at a table, eating dinner. She didn't have to raise her voice for the woman eating dinner to hear her, asking "Are you still in this seat?"
The woman answered "Yes, my stuff is behind it; my phone is being charged." That's when I saw the phone that was on the armchair.
I asked if I could sit in the seat. I had to ask a couple of times if I could sit down. She finally said "Yeah, go ahead and sit there," as if I were being unreasonable.
As soon as another row got called, I went to an empty seat in that row. The woman who had angrily allowed me to sit in "her" lobby seat then got angry because I moved from the seat. She picked up her backpack, plunked it in the seat, and said to her general audience of three or four people "I gave her my seat for no reason."
The bullying of me by guests is worsening every day.
Copyright L. Kochman, June 20, 2015 @ 5:43 p.m.
