Commuting to one’s job is often a more challenging task than the work itself. It is both physically and mentally draining, and requires a weighted balance of passiveness and aggressiveness. Too much of either will only make matters worse.
Some people live by the old adage, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” These are usually your most considerate commuters. I say usually, as some in this group don’t care what you do to them, and thus don’t necessarily care what they do to you.
Next, you have the people who believe they subscribe to that mantra, but actually not so much. This is a less considerate crew, but at the very least they are still aware that their presence and actions have an effect on those around them. Much better than the masses, which for the most part are composed of the slightly oblivious, the almost oblivious, and finally the totally oblivious.
But don’t be too quick to wake these dolts out of their self-absorbed stupors. Sometimes – many times, in fact – when alerted to their incognizance, these people just don’t give a flying fiddle whether it affected you in some way or other.
They don’t care if you just slammed into a pole trying to avoid them because they abruptly stopped walking directly in front of you to answer an all-important text message from an all-important friend. Don’t you dare show any displeasure. Don’t even sigh quietly. That only serves to antagonize them. “Wow, what a jerk,” tourists regularly bark at me. “What, I’m not allowed to stop walking if I want?”
No! No you’re not! Not with a stream of five, 10, 15, 150 others behind you. It’s rude and inconsiderate to a city of others around you. It causes people pileups. And that can lead to many unhappy commuters. Unhappy commuters lead to an imbalance in the passive-aggressive commuter scale. And we’ve all seen what that can look like.
Not many can say they have a worse commute than I.
It begins with a 15- to 20-minute drive at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, so the median age of the motorists around me is somewhere in the high 70s.
When I finally find a parking spot, I begin the trek to the train platform, which includes a urine-soaked stairway peppered with broken glass from beer bottles. And this is the suburbs.
Getting on the train is an adventure, as the LIRR likes to have a couple of cars closed in the back of off-hour trains so its employees have somewhere nice and quiet to sit with their feet up – extra-cold on hot summer days.
Forty-five minutes later, the train stops in Penn Station, and the real rat race begins.
People rushing up the stairs, while the dirty, dusty construction workers push their way down.
I have actually had people rush past me, cutting me off or brushing past me, to get to an escalator only to stand and ride it up. Almost like taking a step is going to hurt them. And the worst is when they stand in the middle so you can’t get past them if you’re not adverse to a little exercise.
Now I get to choose whether I want to walk in the tourist trap that is Herald Square or the tourist trap that is Times Square. Either way, I’m certain to encounter the denizens described above. I usually allow the traffic lights to make the decision for me.
An hour-and-a-half after my journey began, I arrive at work. Boy, am I wiped.