High-Viz Ability

I found myself on a train about an hour earlier than usual going to work the other morning.
Without getting into jokes about mixing up my sleeping arrangements & bodily functions, let's just say I won't make a habit of it.
I had thought I was generally an early riser - I get a pre-peak discount, & I'm one of the first in the office. That qualifies me for a level of smugness.
That level has been diminished by sharing the experience of regularly earlier risers.

Waiting on the platform in the cold, I realised that I wouldn't be getting my usual choice seat (where you don't have to worry about someone sitting next to you), as there were so many people lined up where they knew the doors would be, & I just don't have that killer instinct (in the morning, at least), or indeed the desire to measure out where the doors should be at that time of the day.

When the train arrived, I casually joined the back of the throng that wanted to push through the opening doors - asserting their authority for having stood in the same place for however-many years (to the millimetre) - & I found a seat somewhere in the middle of the carriage.
Then I started to look around.
It was too obvious to miss, & I should have seen it before boarding.
This train was going to be full of people whose jobs require them to wear high-viz shirts or vests - of either colour.

You're thinking "So what?" (I can tell.)
The intriguing thing is that, an hour later, the two or three high-viz wearers in my usual carriage truly stand out.
In this carriage, I was the anomaly for not drawing attention to myself (by wearing a standard-issue dark overcoat).
You could say that's ironic (& you'd probably be right, because I'm not even intending to be humorous).
You could say that's defeatist & I should just try harder.
You could say that's bringing the reader too much into the conversation & possibly off track, which is probably the point of these posts anyway.
Let's face it, a post on the track would definitely derail someone's train of thought.

Where on earth were all of these people going?
Well, for one thing, they were going somewhere accessible by public transport, which narrows things down somewhat.
I began to speculate.
I know one minor industrial estate a few stations along.
When no-one got off, I thought that people might change trains a few stations farther on & head off to other industrial estates.
When that didn't pan out, I thought they might change trains to go to some of the stations this train skips.
When that also didn't seem to be the case, I simply sat back & forced myself to stop pointless speculation (leaving such to the time of writing).

Half a carriage worth of travellers (& very few more high-viz wearers joined us) were headed effectively to the airport or the city.
When you think about it, the former makes some sense, but the latter jars with my sensibilities - until I began to question my own prejudices.

1. The city has a lot of construction - whether its infrastructure or high-rise, there are a lot of people on those sites who must wear high-viz.
2. Not everyone in high-viz is being held up by a shovel.
3. High-viz is worn under any circumstance where you think that the people around you cannot distinguish you from the background.

Many of these jobs require admirable skills & experience.

Admittedly, it's possible that quite a few of my travelling companions were not executives, & that professionals in high-viz are as likely to wear light-weight "on site" vests that they carry in a brief case, but I had simply made an assumption that anyone getting on the train that early in high-viz was going to a factory to box chickens or sex light globes or some such quite menial & mindless task.

I hereby apologise for imposing both my presence & my prejudice on the hard-working, early-rising, high-viz accoutred train travellers who never gave me a second thought on the day, because I must have been effectively invisible.

"Not mine," said the Little Black Duck

I got onto an early train the other day - I had things to talk to my overseas team about, so I left the office early to work at home in the evening. Lucky me. By early, I mean the time that saves me more than a dollar because I'm travelling "off peak". Woohoo!

Anyway, I entered the carriage & thought "That's great - an empty bench!", but didn't realise why until I was on top of it. Someone had left a paper cup-like piece of rubbish sitting on the aisle side of the seat. I ignored it & sat on the window side.

So far, so good, but what is the etiquette around finding rubbish on a seat where you don't have to move it or even touch it to sit down? Once upon a time, shifting a newspaper was a common thing. I think I draw the line at rubbish on the seat if it isn't where I want to be. Rubbish under the seat can be discreetly shifted about. Cans & bottles can roll around under foot from one end of the carriage to the other for all I care.

About four stops later, someone entered the carriage & eyed off the seat beside me (without me looking up). When they arrived & looked down, there was the rubbish looking back at them. They transferred their gaze to the next object of scorn & gestured at said cast-off as if it was mine, or at least my responsibility. I tried to think of something witty, but the best I could come up with (glancing up from reading) was "I am unsure whether my friend there has a ticket."

Suffice to say, the chap had no idea what I was talking about, assumed I was being rude (which I suppose I was), & continued down the carriage (probably shaking his head). I turned a shade of red & studiously went back to my fiction.

What is the etiquette here? It's not my rubbish. I have avoided coming into contact with it (assuming any possession), & want to ignore it. It's an SEP (someone else's problem) in the truly Douglas Adams sense. Yet I felt a little guilty. I felt even more so when I got up to leave the train & hoped that no-one noticed that same piece of rubbish still sitting there - as it's unlikely that anyone still in the carriage had noticed who'd left it behind in the first place. Perhaps they could get a stab of guilt for letting said person escape without their ire.

I seem to recall that it was common for train employees to go through with bags to collect rubbish quite regularly. What happened to them? Those pre-peak trains are precisely where they should be - a quick sweep before the bigger crowds, yet I can't recall the last time I saw the grabbers. Cut-backs, I presume.

Now that I've spoken out, I'm going to feel even more guilty each time I simply sit there & do nothing.

Schroedinger's Lift

For all of those who've done high school physics, the concept of Schroedinger's Cat is a bizarre thought experiment that will haunt you for the rest of your days. In a nutshell, the cat, hidden away in a box that has been exposed to subatomic particles, may or may not be dead, & the state of the cat may be dictated or affected by the observation of the cat's state.
Yes, this may be a paradox.

That's exactly why travellers passing through Central station are not surprised to hear that the lift provided by the rail service has a state of existence almost entirely dependent on observation. Paradox comes for free beside the oxymoron of "Public Transport".

Said lift may also be akin to the Hogwart's "Room of Requirement" which can only be found if you are truly in need of it.

To quote the recorded announcement "If you have a pram or luggage, a lift is provided at the end of the platform, near the front of the train."

As you can see, this is a standard conditional statement, implying that if you don't have luggage, or indeed have two prams, then the lift will not be at the end of the platform. It may be somewhere else. The announcement is not clear on this point. It also may not be available in working order - it is simply provided in the decorative sense.

Perhaps, to continue the Harry Potter reference, I have been consistently arriving at platform 9 3/4, on which only those holding the equivalent of wizarding paraphernalia (in this case, a pram) can approach the lift without ramming their afore-said perambulator into a post.

If I might skip between my transport & language blogs, it can be seen that conditional statements are not only unnecessary under the circumstances, but downright confusing. It would have been much simpler to say "The lift IS at the end of the platform" without befuddling the morning-time brains of commuters with existentialist tosh.

That being said, platform announcements would become more honest & less tedious if they took the track of simplification to the point of no return: "The next train intended for platform 24 may be heading south soon"

Spread, Cross, or Curl

Everyone who travels on public transport is well aware of the "spreader" - the man whose knees are magnets of the same polarity & have to be as far apart as his legs will allow (independent of the space provided). This is the bane of bus travel, which is designed for two people to sit primly on a seat, rather than one to take up twice us much legroom as seat width.

However, I have come to the conclusion that, however bad this is, men are not the only kinds of weird space-hogs. I have found women who travel regularly on trains who try to contort themselves in such a way that they take up far more space than necessary, often imposing on others, & sometimes making it very difficult to "get around" them.

The first of the these is the "crosser". It seems that women's knees have opposite polarity. Admittedly, some men cross their legs on the train, but not that many compared to the number of women who try valiantly to squeeze one leg over the other in the cramped space, often dangling a foot out into the aisle to trip an unsuspecting passer-by. In the process of crossing, they half-turn in their seat & project a knee towards their seat-mates.
Note - on a crowded train, this usually only happens on the aisle-side, so, when one of those seat-mates attempts an exit, it becomes a major un-contortioning to get out.

The final example of strange behaviour in public is that of the "curler". This is someone for whom public transport is so terrifying that they have to go into the foetal position to cope with the stresses of not having to drive themselves. In this case, they leave a lot of floor-space unused - potentially a bonus, but instead of allowing someone the shoulder or elbow space to sit forward next to them, there is now no option but to either be pressed hard up against the curled form, or else be squeezed against the window (or into the aisle).

Curlers often sleep in this position (or simply pretend). Some will simply sit with their feet up on the seat like a bird on a perch, their wings wrapped around them protectively. Curlers can sometimes also grasp their belongings close to their chest - somewhat like a homeless person taking a nap.

The only other kind of space hog on the train that comes to mind is the precious bag. The precious bag must have its own seat. In fact, the precious bag gets quite grumpy if forced to move from its seat. I've even known a precious bag's companion to give up their own space so that the precious bag can be comfortable. Because the precious bag is not human, it's outside of the domain of this particular blog.