Kindly Kill Yourself
You are on your way to your cube. You have just snoozed for a fat three hours in between stone slab dragging shifts in the bullpen. Your MD made you want to kill yourself last night/this morning and your VP is an early riser who cannot understand why you have such heavy bags under your eyes at such an early age. To top of your boiling cup of misery, you are sitting right next to Lakeysha Beard.
Really...is there anything worse in the morning than a cell phone babbling loudmouth on that commute to servitude?
I get that this story is just another in a long line of mass media opiates for the plebs to banter over. This particular tale of modern day lunacy, however, has (at least in my opinion) a great deal to do with all of us who commute to work or spend any sort of significant time aboard public transportation vehicles.
In this particular case, the woman in question was yacking loudly on her cell phone in a quiet subway car. I wonder how much of a premium the average monkey would pay for one of those on a New York City morning?
Now I am certainly one of the last people qualified to give lessons in etiquette and manners. I do not and cannot attempt to hide the many uncouth and primitive things I have done. That having been said, I do have some basic level of social grace which I attempt to adhere to. This has to be one of the things that enrages me the most. Next to the cabbies that routinely cut off funeral entourages, these loud ass cell phone talkers are the worst people in any large city.
This particular person is easy to pick on because of where she committed her offense, the real question,however, is how long before heads like this begin to roll for this sort of vulgar display on public transport of all sorts?
Is this just a pet peeve of mine or do some of you guys go nuts over it, as well? What’s your worst subway/bus/public transport story? I recall a mid 80’s NYC subway car breaking out in actual applause when an annoying homeless (yet completely fit and lucid) man was verbally berated by a near metuzalem of a Brooklyn granny.
Let’s hear some horror stories guys, should Wall Street Go Main Street on loud cell phone talkers and lobby to sentence them all to text message wars and Brickbreaker solitude?
Invest in a nice pair of Sennheiser noise isolating headphones.
Absolute quiet + amazing sound quality ;)
The craziest part about the story is that she was talking for 16 straight hours. What the fuck is this idiot even talking about? And when people told her to stop talking on the phone in the Quiet Car (simply to move to another car), she got mad because she felt "disrespected." What fucking planet is this bitch on? In her mind, disrespect = not being able to do anything she wants to regardless of rules or consequences.
Fucking cunt.
I HATE public transportation with a vengeance.
I'm probably going to live within walking distance from my office in Manhattan. Not the most awesome neighborhood but that's the tradeoff.
Not surprised by this at all. We live in a society of entitlements, and everyone thinks they are above the rules (ourselves included).
An easy escape is to look to Stoic philosophy:
When you are going about any action, remind yourself what nature the action is. If you are going to bathe, picture to yourself the things which usually happen in the bath: some people splash the water, some push, some use abusive language, and others steal. Thus you will more safely go about this action if you say to yourself, "I will now go bathe, and keep my own mind in a state conformable to nature." And in the same manner with regard to every other action. For thus, if any hindrance arises in bathing, you will have it ready to say, "It was not only to bathe that I desired, but to keep my mind in a state conformable to nature; and I will not keep it if I am bothered at things that happen.
http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
Anticipating that your external environment is beyond your control and probably will not be to your liking will allow you to deal with shit like this.
I absolutely love NJTransit quiet cars, they have made a world of difference in my commute.
By far the most disguisting thing I have encountered though is a guy taking off his shoes and socks and cutting his toenails ON THE TRAIN. Absolutely repulsive. Clearly there is a time and place and this guy didn't get the memo.
I've been thinking about this very thing all week, and I'd like to know if there is a technology out there that can jam/disable headphones from a distance: as in "Aim it at the ass with the loud headphones and they go silent/static" kind of thing. An EMP? I don't know. I'm looking for a stealth way of conveniently silencing them, as yelling, "SHUT THE FUCK UP" has garnered mixed results up to this point.
Give them the "Be quiet or I'll drop a steamer on your wife's chest" look. It's a hard one to master, picture Zoolander's "Magnum" with a little stink eye. It's quiet, it's sublet (ish), and most of all it's effective (I think, I've never tried it. I just made it up five seconds ago).
If I had dictatorial control of this country I'd order her beheaded. You've got 2 types of death sentences that any civil society should have--those for justice and those for eliminating people that need killin'. 16 f*cking hours? Who among you would argue that this lady does not deserve execution?
When I did study abroad in Prague, on the subways you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone's dead silent. It took some of us a while to warm up to that, but I actually appreciated it after a bit. No obnoxious musicians or people going off on monologues or screaming at each other to let everyone else know they're in a dysfunctional relationship...ahh.
Did high school in Prague, can attest to this. The subway culture is a lot different. Interaction is just not a part of the subway experience, the only people talking are generally tourists.
NYC on the other hand, last time I sat across from a crackwhore passed out and had her headphones just dangling because someone clearly stole her mp3 player.
The Paris Metro system is much the same. With the exception of the occasional accordion player (which is actually a pleasant distraction because it's never for more than 2 stops), no one talks on the Metro. Even my kids (ages 6 & 7) are in the habit of telling our visitors from the States to quiet down on the Metro.
As if it isn't easy enough to pick out the tourists already...in Prague restaurants as well, people are extremely quiet. The only exception to the general reservedness seems to be the bars, for obvious reasons.
This is the only reason that I am glad cell phones are banned on planes. As bad as a subway car is, at least you get off relatively soon. Imagine being stuck next to this as she blathered on throughout a transcontinental?
Generally, on the continent of Europe, people seem to be relatively more respectful and more polite. I went to Poland a few years back, and me and my friends immediately stuck out like sore thumbs because we were more audible in public than the locals.
Compared to London anyway, they seem more observant of these things. Last summer, I remember being on the tube in the early morning and a full band, with instruments, of 16 year olds were playing and singing their moronic songs in the carriage. You could see the bloodlust building in everybody, I got off the train before anything happened though.
This lady is the reason we have no subways or any other mass-transit option in Houston. I get in my car and turn my music up and just cruise.....till I hit traffic. which sucks.
Midas, we need to get you an NYC Subway card. Most of the NYC subway in Manhattan is underground and gets no cell phone reception. Things may be different in Philly, Chicago,Houston, or Boston, but those cities are unimportant and provincial. ;-) ;-)
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