Originally Posted by PTravel
... I, of course, consistent with FFFP good practice ordered another glass of wine and raised my window shade. At that point, I noticed that I'm the only person with a raised shade in the F compartment, so I lowered it half-way. It was still, however, rather bright.
Why was the window shade closed in the first place? Just leave it up all the time (unless sunlight is coming in directly, which is pretty rare). That seems to work better than lowering it and then "surprising" someone else when you open it later.
My seatmate asked me if I would lower the shade. I told him I needed to be able to look out -- that's why I chose the window seat. He said, not rudely, that it created a glare on the IFE screen (the plane had those little LCD monitors that swing down from the bottom of the overhead bin). The light from the window was not directly on the screen, i.e. it wasn't as if the sun was shining directly on it, and I had no trouble seeing the entire image on the screen. However, I also could not tell if, from his angle, there was a significant amount of glare or not.
The right answer is, "I want to look out the window" followed by "the screen looks fine to me".
I lowered my shade even more, so that there was just a tiny crack that I could look out of. However, he was clearly unhappy that I wouldn't put the shade down completely. Once we landed, we both disembarked without the usual "nice to chat with you" remark.
I can't say that I think he was wrong for being ticked off, but I'm also not convinced that I was wrong, either. I tried for the best compromise that accomodated both of our needs, albeit imperfectly. My only option would have been to lower the shade completely and spent the last 90 minutes of the flight in pure terror (as it turned out, the turbulence was, for the most part, relatively mild).
I'm really not clear what the etiquette of the situation called for, and would like to hear the opinions of other FTers. Anyone who knows me knows that I believe in not imposing on other passengers, and not accepting imposition. I honestly can't figure out how this situation would resolve against this dynamic.
Was I wrong? Was the pax wrong? Were we both wrong?
Next time, don't cave so easily.
I wouldn't say the other passenger was in the wrong; after all, maybe he didn't think you cared if the window shade was up or down. Nothing wrong with asking, and like seat swappers, nothing wrong with politely refusing.