Common Courtesy

Is it just me, or is everybody fucking inconsiderate and oblivious? It seems that when people are at work or in small social settings, they’re pretty tolerable. But as soon as they step out into the public realm, their thin façade of common courtesy vanishes, revealing the thoughtless brutes they truly are.

Escalators are a prime example. Especially during morning and evening rush hours, when escalators in train stations are packed with frantic suits running up and down. Well, I’m one of those suits, and I’m running because I’ve calculated my morning commute precisely in order to maximize sleep while leaving a few precious minutes to grab an ice coffee and a muffin before hitting the workday. So it is with great dismay that I observe, almost daily, some oblivious buffoon parked obnoxiously on the left side of the escalator, a long line of late but too-polite businesspeople crammed behind him (though women are just as guilty), making faces of disgust and theatrically checking their watches. Is it not a well-understood rule of common courtesy—no, common decency—that the right side of an escalator is for lazy loafers, while the left side is for people in a rush? Most people seem to have gotten this routine down pat, but all it takes is one asshole to rebel against the system and clog the whole escalator!

While we’re on the topic of train stations, subways are another breeding ground of good manners. Whereas I’m generally a rusher on escalators and use the appropriate left lane to scamper up, when it comes to getting onto a subway car during rush hour, I’m more reserved. Why? Because the system does not work when everyone immediately bum rushes the doors like a rabid pack of tweens at some shitty MySpace emo band concert. There is a simple but time-tested logic that must be observed when it comes to busy subways. When the train comes to a stop and the doors open, THERE ARE PEOPLE INSIDE THE TRAIN THAT HAVE TO GET OUT BEFORE YOU CAN GET IN! As soon as the first shithead starts getting pushy at the front, everyone behind him starts pushing in too in lemming-like fashion, making it increasingly difficult for the people inside the train to get out and delaying the process for everyone involved. What has the world come to when subway operators actually have to get on the intercom to say, “Let the passengers exit the train before entering”? You’d expect a second grade teacher to tell that to her class of booger-eaters on their first class trip into adult, common sense society. Instead, a miserable train operator has to repeatedly tell that to grown adults. I love people.