I went a couple years in my workplace without this knowledge. The nature of the white tile, the size of the crack between the stall wall and lighting is such that you can see the back of the toilet bowl. Yeah…
Posts Tagged ‘personal space’
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I was playing New Super Mario Bros. on the subway and there was this guy watching me play. He didn’t have any dramatic reactions, but he was definitely watching me for a while. He had bad B.O.
Sometimes life really is all about looking at the people in line and not the line itself. Just like in that episode of “The Simpsons” where Apu and Marge are in the express lane at the Monstro Mart
Apu: Mrs. Simpson, the express lane is the fastest not always. Let’s go to that line.
Marge: But that one’s the longest!
Apu: Yes but look, all pathetic single men. Only cash, no chit-chat.
I do this when looking at people getting in line to swipe Metrocards and in this situation it was at a movie theater. There were two lines I was nearby, the guy on the left was occasionally peering over at the guy to his right to see what the heck he was doing. I got in the right line.
All right, I fully admit that Seinfeld has covered this ground already, but that doesn’t change the fact that that list exists. One thing I learned out is that the two residents across the hall from me are women which I had no idea. Actually I knew one was and that she was leaving her boxes in the hallway to the point that the super posted a notice that we can’t do that. The other woman I still haven’t seen yet either in the hallway or elevator.
I always want to do this to people arrogantly taking up two seats in this fashion.
It doesn’t happen often but every now and then you get into a situation in the three person block of seats when a space frees up and the person doesn’t move over. In the trains where it’s one large block of seats going from door to door that’s more normal, because you’re more likely to be moving close to another person. In this case it was an Asian girl watching something funny on her PSP and when the space freed up she stayed in the middle seat. I was only irritated because the PSP’s viewing angle is crap and I couldn’t figure out what it was she was laughing at.
This felt like a comic I had already done before, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t. I’m sure you could see the punchline a mile away but that doesn’t change the fact that this actually happened to me on the subway and I felt so dumb for doing it. I think the other guy did too because as it happened and we both switched seats so now we were next to each other we shared this embarrassed smile. I’m sure it looked very amusing to the people on the other side.
This happens all the time to me in a variety of situations. One is when you get a person who goes into the subway and immediately stops because they see that there are no seats available so they decide that they’re going to take one of the two coveted door standing areas even though they know that people are still trying to get in. Or it could be that you’re just trying to get out and it’s crowded so they don’t want to lose their standing space by making room for the people who need to get out.
You say “excuse me” and both backs are turned and sometimes they’ll shuffle in place a bit in place without actually making any room for you to get by because they’re both gambling the other person is going to be the one to move. Should this happen you’re forced to touch both of them more than you intended to as you squeeze between them or maybe rudely push through them because you’re frustrated and you want to make your point. My approach is always the former because I’m not looking to actually shove people around despite how much I might enjoy it.
I admit I’m guilty of this whenever I can get a clear view of someone’s iPod. I’m just curious about what they might be listening to. Last night when I was taking the subway home I was listening to Ron D. Moore’s podcast for Battlestar Galactica and this guy sitting next to me took several looks down at my iPod to see what I was listening to. Either that or he was eyeing my small duck god plushie from Spirited Away.
I was on the subway sitting in the corner seat next to this guy reading something that had CONFIDENTIAL in big letters across the page. I couldn’t really tell what it was about, but it just felt kind of funny this person reading confidential material on the subway. I guess there’s a lot of stuff that’s confidential and if it was earth shatteringly secret a person would have enough common sense not to read it where others are looking over their shoulder. Still it feels kind of cool dealing with high security stuff, like at my old job when we would get movie scripts printed on red paper so you couldn’t xerox it.
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