So today was my first “special” day, or “early bird special day” as I just decided to call it, a day that I had to be at work at 7:30 (usually it’s 8:30). Now ,to the teacher types in the crowd, this may not seem too too early, but when you have to take the first train that exists in the morning, it just doesn’t sit well psychologically.
I naively thought that going in early would mean I would “beat the commuters” but the Red Line was just as crowded as always, if not more so! The commuters are everywhere at all times.
[Side Note: There's probably something funny I could write about the past few days of commuting but let me just say now that I have come to appreciate the part of the Red Line I take far more after an evening of further-inbound Red Line and Green Line--yikes.]
Getting back to the general early-bird theme, let’s talk a little bit about lines.
People LOVE lining up. At certain train stations (like mine) people totally BREAK the “first come, first serve” idea in the morning and pretend as if we all got there at the exact same time and so they just hop on board as they see fit. This is in surprising opposition to the way these very same people behave when getting off the train. To get off the train, people LOVE lining up. Even though the commuter rail gives you ample time to get off the train, people feel the need to get up and get in line 10+ minutes ahead of time. After sneaky sneaking on the train before other people who were at the stop before them to find the most ideal seat with the most ideal seat-partner**, people just hop up to stand and wait! I (clearly) just don’t get that. Ohh people.
Lesson of the day: Don’t even TRY to get into the walking lane (left) on the escalator if you don’t get into it immediately. It’s an impossible merge. People love that line way too much.
**Seat-partner picking strategies will have to be further examined in another post, once I have a few more examples…I find it quite fascinating though.
A note on the escalator riding: Apparently no one in Nashville understands the stand/walk rule. I have only seen this violation in the airport because Nashville, the backwards Southern city that it is, does not have a subway system. I enjoy walking on a escalator on the left side, but people are always standing in my way! I only run into this problem once a month-ish, but I thought that it was interesting that it was the opposite of your escalator problem.