I occasionally violate the food on the subway one.
Oh, I've been guilty of a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich on the train on occasional mornings, but I know I'm being inconsiderate. But the guy has a nicely precise approach -- he's right that I don't mind if you eat, I just don't want to be able to smell your food. His descriptions of how to walk properly are also dead on.
His descriptions of how to walk properly are also dead on.
Yes, #3 infuriates me.
Subway eating is one area where DC has a better setup than New York. The "No Food or Drink on the Subway" rule ends up being better in the long run for everybody.
Do they actually enforce that in DC these days? I pretty routinely ate food on the trains way back when. And while I'm in confession mode, while all the walking and personal space rules are things I generally follow, I've occasionally violated most of them.
4 gets it right. I believe eating is allowed here.
Its possible the moors have changed since the Metro-riding days of my youth. But I don't recall ever having to avoid the puddle of someone else's spilled Pepsi on the Red Line.
Maybe that kind of shit happens on the Yellow Line, those Virginians are pretty messy.
Of course, only a few of these are really NYC, instead of just city. Maybe "US city", for local standards of personal space.
Yeah, as a parochial New Yorker I'm the wrong audience -- I can identify everything as "That's what out-of-towners are consistently doing wrong", but I don't know what's particularly locally unique. I do have the impression that NYC is, among American cities, way over on one side of how crowded the sidewalks are, which makes the walking etiquette imperative. You could get by in Chicago just fine walking like an idiot, because the sidewalks are a mile wide.
I don't have a pull/chin-up bar at home. The DC metro, however, has these lovely convenient bars suspended from the ceiling of the train cars. When I am on the metro and there is lots of clear space around one of these, I will do a set of pull-ups or chin-ups.
Is this okay, or terrible? Why?
It is terrible because it makes you look like a crazy person, and everyone on the train needs to devote fifteen seconds to watching you stealthily out of the corner of their eyes to figure out if you're likely to be dangerously/intrusively crazy or if you're not their problem. Fifteen seconds times everyone who can see you is more annoyance than you're entitled to impose on the people around you.
I have spoken.
13: If you're not flailing your legs or really struggling, totally OK and possibly kind of cute.
Uh oh, I'm clearly wrong if I'm disagreeing with LB.
I do have my pet peeves about DC transportation idiots, but they rarely have anything to do with sidewalks. The worst are people who get on a metro car, and stop immediately, blocking the door so the people behind them can't get on. The second worst are people who stand on the left on the escalators.
Some idiot also tried to use their SmartTrip card to let my girlfriend exit the Metro, when hers wasn't working. That sort of shit might fly in New York, but not in DC where each entry has to be matched with an exit for the system to work.
13: I do this periodically on the Berlin U-Bahn and ask myself the same question. Seems harmless, but I've never seen anyone else ever do it.
16: The worst is the assholes who get off the escalator and stop because they're not sure which way to go, causing the rest to trip over them. Or the assholes who stop right before the escalator to take a fucking picture. This happens a lot at my stop because it's a very tall escalator. For the stand on the left people, you can at least say something. They normally move, even if they're rude about it.
14: Hmm, I can kind of do a total utility calculation if I assume everyone's time is equally valuable. I would calculate how many seconds I would be willing to go out of my way to do a set of pull-ups, and if that's less than the total time cost imposed on the other people in the car, then it's not worth it.
Or I could just announce preemptively that I'm not crazy and no one has anything to worry about, before doing my set.
15: I don't flail my legs, am careful to do only as many reps as I can do without horizontal motion or swinging, and don't make sounds.
I think I got more funny/worried looks when I walked the length of the car back-and-forth to increase my step count for the day, than when I did pull-ups. So I stopped doing the former.
Its possible the moors have changed since the Metro-riding days of my youth.
Racist. To 6, I don't think they enforce the food/drink ban much in the sense of routinely issuing citations (though there was the infamous french fry arrest a while back), but it is fairly well observed. I mean, several times a week my blood boils at someone--like teraz, apparently--who thinks their snacking is more important than the fundamental rules of civilization, but it's definitely non-routine to see people doing more than furtively sipping at their water bottles or lidded coffee cups.
14 accepts a bad equilibrium as unchangeable gospel. If it was normal to exercise on trains, the need for those 15 seconds would disappear! Benquo, you have my blessing to do pullups, chinups, lunges, stretches, and whatever other kind of exercise you can think of while on public transportation of any kind, as long as you're not invading anyone else's space.
19: I'll go with kinda cute then. I like people doing benign but unusual things. The pacing would bother me, though - I kind of keep track of who's nearby, and it would just make me pay a bunch of attention as you oscillated past.
Actually, we should go all the way and make it illegal not to do pullups on public transportation.
16, 18: I was going to say, they should issue the sidewalk- and transit-related rules to DC visitors at airports, train stations, and border crossings--especially at this tourist-saturated time of year--and quiz them before entry. But ha ha who am I kidding, it's not like the actual residents have any idea how to board a subway or keep the sidewalks moving.
14: I don't think you'd get the same kind of crazy-person presumption that you'd get in NY. The DC metro is disproportionately low on actual crazy people, so I don't think people would be likely to leap to that conclusion. Annoying weirdo, however, sure.
I mean, several times a week my blood boils at someone--like teraz, apparently--who thinks their snacking is more important than the fundamental rules of civilization
So asinine. If people don't make a mess, don't take up space, and don't foul the air (with either noise or smells), then you should just button it and screw right off.
I have tried doing pullups on the Tube but the bar is so close to the ceiling that I cracked my head on the ceiling. I therefore desisted. Also on most lines the Tube carriages are so low that I am only about 3 inches below the ceiling in the first place. It's OK on the Met line but then you crack your head anyway.
I have seen people attempting to poledance on the vertical handholds on the Tube. Like a dog walking on its hind legs, it wasn't that they were doing it well, but that they were attempting it at all that made it worth watching.
we should go all the way and make it illegal not to do pullups on public transportation.
"The more power you generate, ladies and gentlemen, the faster this train goes. Drummer! Commuting speed!"
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM
I'm not absolutely dogmatic about not doing chin-ups. If you watch people and they're not going through the watchful/reassured/back to ignoring you cycle I described, then it's probably not so bad.
I would also like to say that 15 seconds is a massive overestimation of how long it would take to determine that a train pull-uper is a threat, by at least a factor of 15, but then I'm a confessed train pull-uper so perhaps I'm biassed...
Or I could just announce preemptively that I'm not crazy and no one has anything to worry about, before doing my set.
Ever notice how, when someone tells you they aren't crazy, it doesn't reassure you?
Why be so concerned about exercise that you have to squeeze it in on the Metro, anyway? Sorry to violate the sanctity of off-blog meetings, but If I remember correctly, you're a twig. If you're training for some marathon or something, talk to one of the Crossfit cultists instead of bothering people on the Metro, but if you just want to stay healthy, congratulations, you're there.
25: Everyone thinks they are not going to be the one who spills a big cup of steaming hot noodles on my head, but statistics suggest that if everyone were snacking on the train sooner or later it's bound to happen. It's not like refraining from eating on the train is some hideous hardship, is it?
There's the Wrong line, and the Weirdo line, and although there are times exercise on the train might not be over the Wrong line, it's always over the Weirdo line.
No eating makes sense as a rule because you're all fat if you let several thousand people eat in a small space each day, no matter how careful they are, that space is going to be much dirtier than it otherwise would have been. If your city has the budget/you don't mind the increased fares to clean that mess, fine.
If people don't make a mess, don't take up space, and don't foul the air (with either noise or smells)
But they often do make a mess and foul the air. They also often take up more space than they are entitled to, but this is a generic Metro passenger issue not particularly tied to eating/drinking.
31: That's a very specific example. Has it happened? Ew.
31: I don't actually mind the "no eating" rule very much (although back when I had a long Metro commute it would have been nice to be able to breakfast on the train), but "no drinking" is a problem - what if I'm only halfway through my coffee when I have to take the train?
Liquids in spill resistant containers will be permitted in my transit system of the future. It's spills and crumbs (rats!) that are the issue. Things with a low probability of making a mess ought to be permitted.
30: It's not so much that I'm concerned with squeezing in every possible moment of exercise, as that if any component of my workout requires me to go even a few minutes out of my way, I won't do it. So this is my only opportunity to do this kind of upper-body pulling work. (For everything else, there's my kettlebells.)
Also, thanks for the info about how I look (this is not sarcastic, I genuinely have no idea what I look like relative to others), but AFAIK exercise for weight loss is basically a myth - I'm working on muscle gain, plus raising my baseline before the inevitable decline with age. My body fat percentage is somewhere in the neighborhood of 17% if my scale is to be trusted, and I can only do about 5 pull-ups at a time, so I could be doing better.
With the exception that we stand in and not on lines, these rules apply here.
And take your damn backpack off, or at least sling it around front, when on crowded transport. It sticks out way more than you think and you're going to smack someone/block the aisle.
#49 is great.
Breakfast sandwiches and the natural history museum are the two things I miss most about NYC.
24 The DC metro is disproportionately low on actual crazy people
I guess Republican lawmakers and libertarian thinktankers drive instead of taking public transit.
#76 is a little unnecessarily bitchy.
The actual tips though are of course what all right-thinking people should do at all times. I like that "how I remember their basic structures" for the West Village is the complete non-tip of "bring a map." Spoiled by grids!
I guess Republican lawmakers and libertarian thinktankers drive have drivers instead of taking public transit.
43: They don't bark and drool as much as you'd expect, so it's hard to ID them sometimes.
I'd just like to second #3 (both the tip in the link and the comment in this thread).
You could get by in Chicago just fine walking like an idiot, because the sidewalks are a mile wide.
YMClearlyV. Attempting to walk from office to train station presents an increasing level of wanting to punch people walking like idiots between 5 and 5:45.
WRT #86, WTF do New Yorkers put in the garbage?! Any time you do smell garbage in NYC it is always that horrifyingly putrescent sickly-sweet smell like a mixture of rotten shrimp and dirty diapers. So gross.
Other than that, a lot of it just seems to be standard big city stuff, although as noted above, teensy-weensy Manhattan sidewalks are a big factor.
Some asshole on the bus was all "boo-hoo, you didn't say 'excuse me'" yesterday. Fucker. You know how often people excuse themselves to me? Like 1 out of 10 times they brush past AT THE MOST. I *always* do so. I am so sick of street culture. Maybe I should learn to drive and get a car or something. Taking the bus year after year is driving me crazy.
I miss New York. I haven't been there in over a decade. Jammies has never been. None of the professional associations I'm part of ever hold meetings in New York, which is not surprising, so there doesn't even seem to be a mechanism to get me there.
19: Or I could just announce preemptively that I'm not crazy and no one has anything to worry about
If I was going to embarrass myself like this, it would be for the purpose of ensuring no one took the seat next to me. Maybe I'll experiment with that the next time I have a lot of bus rides in one day.
52: how have you not taken your kids to the Elevator Historical Society yet?!? They're deprived! Get everybody on a plane!
You could get by in Chicago just fine walking like an idiot, because the sidewalks are a mile wide
I assumed this was so obviously wrong as to be undisguised teasing.
I'm sure I've said this before, but what always strikes me about these presentations is the implied contrast. The newbie is assumed to be from some low density place, and the opposite pole is, and could only be New Yawk!. But aside from the pretentious local argot in the piece, everything he says and I mean everything applies equally to the crowded parts of Chicago, and probably to some other places as well.
For this jackass, there's the country and then there's NYC, nothing else.
In DC, I wouldn't think crazy, I'd think entitled.
I was just daydreaming about my grandparents' apartment on the East Side the other day. It was absolutely amazing.
Huh. New York doesn't feel cramped to Chicagoans? That was my strongest "this is weird" reaction to Chicago -- that is, to the Loop -- that it looked and felt very much like NY except that there was more space everywhere. Big wide sidewalks and so on.
I guess it can be much more spacious than NY and still crowded enough to require the same manners.
WRT #86, WTF do New Yorkers put in the garbage?! Any time you do smell garbage in NYC it is always that horrifyingly putrescent sickly-sweet smell like a mixture of rotten shrimp and dirty diapers. So gross.
I think that's actually the weird steam that's constantly venting from the gateways to Hell under certain manholes. Another NYC specialty.
New York felt cramped to this particular Chicagoan. Cramped and dirty. #Chicagochauvinism
And Idp, and I say this with love, why is it offensively pretentious for New Yorkers to use localisms? It's a place. People live here. We're fond of it. There are local usages, which we, you know, use, and to the extent that they're intentional rather than unconscious give us a feeling of belonging and community.
I don't find it annoying or pretentious for Chicagoans to insist on calling their business district the Loop; it's incomprehensible to anyone who's not familiar with the usage, but that's okay with me. You're allowed to have local words for things, and it's kind of charming. What makes it pretentious when it comes from New York?
No, you'r right, this is an appropriate rebuke. It's this guy, and everything he represents, that's got me seeing red, and bumping into things because of it.
51: Yesterday at Union Station some provincial scout leader or somesuch backed into my path while addressing his troop--he said "excuse me" but I guess I failed to sufficiently suppress my scowl reflex (I try to be patient with visitors but in my defense, my train had been stuck on the tracks for over 2 hrs in the wireless-uncovered wilds of Maryland so I was unusually grouchy and very late) because he followed it up with a pissy "well I did say excuse me!"
And take your damn backpack off, or at least sling it around front, when on crowded transport. It sticks out way more than you think and you're going to smack someone/block the aisle.
This is an important lesson that applies even on the buses in Columbus. It tooks me years to figure it out -- I guess because the buses aren't that crowded very often.
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Didn't we have a conversation about this place?
Sounds fun!
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New York doesn't feel cramped to Chicagoans?
I haven't actually been to NYC ever, so. Perhaps a little time there would put my city and its idiots who don't know how to walk, use escalators, etc. in perspective.
But also, most of my bitching is confined to rush hour in the Loop. Looking out the window now, sidewalks are empty.
52 None of the professional associations I'm part of ever hold meetings in New York, which is not surprising, because New York hotel rooms are like a factor of three more expensive than in any other city in the US. Which makes me sad, because I'd like to go there more often.
And take your damn backpack off, or at least sling it around front, when on crowded transport. It sticks out way more than you think and you're going to smack someone/block the aisle.
When I was taking the train through Belgium a few years ago the backpackers were a menace. The backpacks in question were all of the huge "everything you need to live in the wilderness for a week" variety and wearers acted totally oblivious to who or what they might be smashing into.
59: I love the street steam. The deal with that is that the power company pipes steam from its turbines all over downtown and buildings use it for heating (which was maddening after Hurricane Sandy, because that plant got hit, which meant that half of downtown, including both my mother's apartment and my office, had no heat for two weeks), and I guess there are vents or leaks from the pipes. It has a particular weird smell, but not one I find offensive. Summer garbage, on the other hand, does smell terrible, and it seems to be worse here than in other cities, I'm not sure why.
why is it offensively pretentious for New Yorkers to use localisms?
One of the great things about 9/11 (there, I said it) was that all the parts of the country that only ever thought of New York as a cesspit of Jews and Gays had to pretend to love it for a while.
The other common bus complaint I have is that people aren't willing enough to move to the back. There are ten people crammed into the deadly "you should never stand up here" zone by the driver because you don't have the situational awareness to notice you're blocking the aisle and there's room for twenty people behind you.
The problem with New York is the constant screeching squealing brakes, especially of buses. Soul destroying. Other than that, I have a parallel pretend life where I settled down there somehow.
I grew up just outside NYC, but my dad's a Chicagoan so I've been there a bunch, and I don't see how one can deny the difference in body density out on the sidewalk. Wacker Drive induces agoraphobia; I'm not sure I've been anywhere on the entire island of Manhattan that was so wide open, and certainly not in business districts.
And the reason that this stuff is more salient in New York is that it's applicable to a much bigger area and for, literally, millions more people. IOW, 600,000 people are in the Loop for 9 hours a day, experiencing Manhattan-like conditions during lunch and 2 rush hours. In Manhattan (and some bits of the non-Staten Island Outer Boroughs), these density-driven rules are applicable on most blocks ~10 hours a day, and commercial districts 18 hours a day. Really not comparable in terms of salience.
Summer garbage, on the other hand, does smell terrible, and it seems to be worse here than in other cities, I'm not sure why.
Aside from, again, density, isn't it that there's no such thing as alleys and back doors? I think it's simply the case that, far moreso than most large, dense cities, Manhattan has nowhere to put trash except the primary sidewalks. The alley behind my house can get ripe in late July, and that's on a block of single family detached houses with plenty of airspace for fumes to dissipate.
It's entirely possible that other cities with comparable street situations do a better job of whisking away trash before it reeks, but I think it's largely that most American cities have better options for hiding the trash.
Probably worth noting that buildings used to incinerate their trash, but aren't allowed to anymore (right?), so the old system doesn't work anymore.
68: they are actually not much cheaper in the metropolitan area in which you currently reside, if that makes you feel better.
That's true -- we still called the garbage chute in my building the incinerator, but of course it never was in my lifetime.
Oh, hey, this is an active thread, so possibly my plaintive appeal won't fall flat this time. Any Bostonians want to have brunch on May 11? I have that idiotic Jeopardy audition in the afternoon, and while we've decided not to make a weekend trip of it, I should be there early enough to hang out for a couple of hours.
I imagine the strains of bacteria that colonize trash are somewhat unique, city to city. Its possible that New York is dominated by a particularly foul smelling one.
Sure, your bacteria is great too, Sify.
38: $0.02: Get a pull-up bar that fits neatly over your bedroom door, and quit being a doofus on the train.
83: she has shown herself to be a fan of brunch. Are you staying in the city proper?
I'm not staying in Boston -- I'm taking the T in from a morning shuttle, and then the audition is at 3 in the Sheraton downtown (right by the Prudential center). So an 11:00 brunch someplace downtown would work nicely.
38
30: It's not so much that I'm concerned with squeezing in every possible moment of exercise, as that if any component of my workout requires me to go even a few minutes out of my way, I won't do it.
Fair enough, I get that. I was never able to stick with any kind of exercise until I figured out how to make commuting by bike practical. This leaves me with no upper-body work myself. Gardening and owning an old house in frequent need of work might provide a little, but not much.
Ohhh I get it. I will check with Blume and/or get her to weigh in on this thread. Baby friendly brunch joint downtown on mother's day might = somewhat logistically complicated.
Oh, damn, I forgot about Mother's Day. Never mind, that probably does put it into the way too much hassle zone.
Yeah, I'd like to add a vote for the fact that someone doing pull-ups in the train would make me uncomfortable/annoyed.
As a lurker I don't really feel like I'm entitled to this kind of thread hijack, but : anyone have any thoughts/opinions on Swansea (Wales)? Spouse is applying for a job there and I am doing some serious deep-breathing as I contemplate a second major international move in a calendar year. (Essar probably knows about this job posting, if that helps narrow the field)
Second international move in a year! Good lord.
77: Seems to depend on time of year or something? I feel like NY is always expensive. When my apartment flooded two years ago and I was living in hotels here for a couple months, I found cheap-ish rooms. But we hosted a little mini-conference last summer and called local hotels asking if they would offer our guests special discounts and they just kind of laughed at us and told us it would be $250 or $300 a night.
I mis-typed: 12months, not calendar year. Still too soon. I've only just started learning my way around the shops and figuring out where to buy the foods I like. Ack ack ack. And swansea seems a bit... isolated.
90.last: I'm starting to get the feeling I should be more circumspect in things I say around here.
92 When my apartment flooded two years ago and I was living in hotels here for a couple months in winter, I meant to say. I think the "winter" part had something to do with the cheapness.
94: Perhaps not worth it for my sake? This is from years of lurking. Though I did find it amusing when you mentioned your travels and meetings with (international) government bureaucrats not too long ago - we could've arranged a small meet up, I think.
93: it seems like a pretty short drive to Cardiff, and per Human Traffic there was at least one really fun looking party there at some point in the '90s.
95: I imagine there's something of a seasonal cycle in NYC too, although maybe attenuated. Anyhow I just meant to point out that the Boston metro area has shockingly high hotel room prices, for reasons I've never really been able to figure out (I mean presumably less supply than demand, but anyhow).
essear, look out! parodie's right behind you!
And while I'm serial commenting, given the unusualness of parodie's job it doesn't seem like it'd be too tough for essear to make the reverse inference.
Pay no attention to this curtain, there is no one behind it.
I'm sure I've said this before, but what always strikes me about these presentations is the implied contrast. The newbie is assumed to be from some low density place, and the opposite pole is, and could only be New Yawk!. But aside from the pretentious local argot in the piece, everything he says and I mean everything applies equally to the crowded parts of Chicago, and probably to some other places as well.
I dunno. I consider myself reasonably worldly, but on my last trip to New York, my main reaction was 'Jesus Christ I'm a hick'. That was a super fun outing, because I had a few hours to kill between flights. I happened to call Anand, who was bored, so he remotely controlled me around New York. He told me what subway lines to take and the stops and the addresses to go to, but not where I was going. He directed me to lunch, then coffee, then the Highline before I had to get back to the airport. I recommend being Anand's puppet if you have free hours in New York.
Also, I was pretty surprised in Paris, where the rule seems to be Walker Beware, not Stander Make Way.
essear, look out! parodie's right behind you!
Get out! The comments are coming from inside the blog!
84: Do you know of any that won't either damage the doorframe or fall off unexpectedly? Every single one I've looked up, people who've used it say it has one of these problems, or both.
|| Sorry to have been in such dudgeon.
I made the mistake of picking up The Atlantic when I was already low yesterday. The article asserting that what women need is the confidence of men.
I hate confidence. The great blessing of my working life has been the thing they complain about: people, overwhelmingly women who by nature are not full of themselves.
I'm profoundly alienated by the esteem "confidence" has, especially to women. A recurring unpleasantness in my life is the woman who bubbles cheerfully "If I had your voice, and was as big as you, I'd be such an asshole! Thank you very much, Ms Worldly-Wisewoman, now I know what to think of you.
My constant impulse is to relinquish privilege. I know I've confused some of you by wishing not to be so big, or by being annoyed at my voice being thought persuasive.
The best representation I've ever encountered of my bias is Faulkner's The Bear The mystical reverence of boyhood, and the hard choices of adulthood are beautifully captured there. As Bayard is forcefully reminded, to relinquish is to repudiate.
I can assume roles: I can function as a lawyer, and stand up on stage and sing, but those are performances. I don't want to do it when I get back to the office.
Where does this come from? Canadianness, having never recovered from immigration during middle-school, and a particularly Puritan response to the gospels and their demands, I think.
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104: just put one of these in your ceiling. No more damage than hanging a picture. And rock solid--it will not fall.
@105: I haven't read the Atlantic piece in question, but it does seem like the "Women of the 1%: time to step and start behaving like entitled assholes just like the men!" genre is becoming a staple of New York Time Magazine, Atlantic, Slate, Salon & etc. opinion pieces.
Yeah, I don't think the answer is for women to become more confident. I think men need to be less confident. There are way too many people in the world who are totally confident and yet actually have no idea what the fuck they are doing.
We have this idiotic thing. Doesn't fall, doesn't wobble, doesn't damage the doorframe. But I can't use it to do an ordinary fucking pull-up because the two bars that stick out (with the red dots) correspond to where I'd like to put my hands. Sure, I could learn to do a pull up with my hands by my ears, but one thing at a time, doofus-bar-designer.
These are so great, especially the cat beaming into the bodega. Yeah I'm sort of the "can't hug every cat" lady right now. Anyway this made me nostalgic for a city I was very ready to leave.
Yeah, enraging though it may be to Idp, I liked them for catching a very precisely local feeling. The advice may be generalizable, but the drawings are right here. (I wouldn't suggest that anyone hold their breath on figuring out the Union Square subway station, though. That's right where I grew up, and I still get turned around in there.)
Anti-vertical-videoism is puro get off my lawn. People hold their phones vertically, they shoot relatively stationary subjects in close range, and they show each other the videos on their phones. New medium, new art.
Never had trouble with my "Door Gym," which was designed exactly like the one Heebie links to. You have to figure that some number of people are going to complain about anything. My rule of thumb is that if more than about 15-20% of reviews are bad, there's probably a real problem.
I've got the same thing, and it has left a little scar on the paint on each side where the crossbar rests on the doorframe. But it's not a big deal unless you're super fussy.
Which does make me wonder how Ogged tolerates it, come to think.
Oh yay I just read a thing about the new subway cars here (well, the here of the future) and they supposedly have better air conditioning.
102: I know what you mean about New York. I think I adapted fairly well, but still, my last trip there was baffling for a while. I'm used to the DC metro. The New York metro has stations with no maps in them, stations where you can only access the train in one direction or the other from a given entrance, and high-tech real-time digital displays showing the entire route (or close enough) inside the cars, making other references unnecessary sometimes.
After a while I figured out a rule of thumb: sometimes they didn't bother putting maps in stations or giving you bidirectional access if the trains only went one direction. Grand Central Station had the user-friendliness I was used to (the size made it hard to figure out, but it has the maps and access and stuff.) But at some random stop nowhere near any hub, designers just expected us to know whether we wanted to go uptown or downtown and plan accordingly before going undergrownd at all. So we had to pay more attention than we were used to.
105
I hate confidence. The great blessing of my working life has been the thing they complain about: people, overwhelmingly women who by nature are not full of themselves.
One of the latest bits of white-collar-professional conventional wisdom is that confidence and ambition are the main cause of the gender pay gap, the glass ceiling, whatever. That Lean In book, and I read a while back that female political candidates do as well as male ones once they become serious candidates, but fewer of them get early support or the encouragement to run to begin with. Stuff like that. Confidence is a self-fulfilling prophesy, except when it isn't.
I'm not very confident or ambitious myself, but as a man, that means I'm a feminist. For a woman to knowingly be unambitious means giving up on feminism.
The Lean In book is great because of the parody script it sparked, which features the heroine exclaiming with wonder to her mentor, "You keep the baby in your desk!?", which I text to my sister, newly returned from maternity leave, regularly to keep her spirits up.
118.last: Can't there be good confidence and bad confidence? I mean, the problem is both that "the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity". People who are unjustifiably full of themselves should shut up and sit down (and stop standing in my doorway droning on endlessly), while people who know what they're doing should be assertive about getting things done right.
The gender thing is mostly a rule of thumb; that women are likelier to not be confident in situations where it would be good (and not jerky) for them to be confident, and men are likelier to be confident where they shouldn't be. Everyone should be aiming at the same golden mean, but to get there you need to do some introspection about whether you're above it or below it already, and your gender is probably useful information in that regard.
I can't tell if it's a regional thing or just one of those basic rules of civilization that have gone out of vogue since I came out west (like using turn signals), but the holding the door open when it's cold out makes me apoplectic. If you did that in Vermont, you would rightfully be shunned, for obvious reasons, but people do it here all the time, having long goodbyes in the doorway as all the precious warm air rushes out. CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR.
make me wonder how Ogged tolerates it
I'm caked in poop these days, thanks. It did make little scuff marks, but if the alternative is drilling, I think it's fair to say that's "no issues." In our current place, the doors go to the ceiling, so I took the door gym apart and hung the bar from beneath the stairs.
I'm caked in poop these days, thanks. It did make little scuff marks
From the cheese-grater?
Everyone should be aiming at the same golden mean
Sure, but it's where to put that's in dispute. I want it close to where women are now, the authors want it close to where men are now.
With respect, idp, isn't part of the problem exactly what you're doing? Women, if you're confident, that means you're a bitch, and we don't want that. Many women, in being more confident, would not be noticeably assholish, but they might get the raise that they deserve.
To take a small moment to try vainly to promulgate a social norm: I think you should look at the soundscape in a restaurant or bar as shared bandwidth, and consider that you are being a jerk if you take up too much of it with your jollity. I think of myself as a sometimes problematically loud person, and so if I register people as loud, they're really loud. This is destined to be fruitless on my part because the vast majority of proprietors of social gathering places in NYC like people screaming, and turn up their music to try to enforce it, because they think, maybe correctly, that that makes the place seem gay and lively and attracts passersby. But it sucks to try to have a conversation with one other person and be seated next to the party of five, usually women, who are intent on letting everyone know how much fun they are having by the volume and intensity of their screams.
/curmudgeon
who are intent on letting everyone know how much fun they are having by the volume and intensity of their screams.
I thought that was something special women did for me.
I'm sure the authors would say that it's the only way to get justice, or a raise, or whatever.
Why can't there be consensus to punish the overconfident? Why are they so esteemed, respected, loved? Why do they have honor, riches and the love of women?
If getting ahead is so important, go right ahead.
126: people in loud bars and restaurants drink more.
128: Because in any group of people trying to get something done, someone's got to make the decision to actually do it. While overconfidence can make you a maddening jerk, almost by definition events are going to be disproportionately influenced by the people who have the confidence to make their views heard and take action based on the results.
I probably hate blowhards as much as you do, but being insufficiently confident when you're right about what needs to be done is a different, but still very significant, problem.
I probably hate blowhards as much as you do, but being insufficiently confident when you're right about what needs to be done is a different, but still very significant, problem.
It seems like there's a big difference between being insufficiently confident that you're right about what needs to be done, and being insufficiently assertive when you know what needs to be done. In the first case, you may be right, but you could be wrong. Recognizing that is helpful. It sucks if your opinion is always overridden by a blowhard who is at least as likely to be wrong as you are, but I'm not sure I'd call that a significant problem. In the second case, yes, speak up. Not doing so is a problem.
You were probably sweeping that distinction away with the adverb "insufficiently". But I'm not sure that's helpful in practice.
130:
I'm not talking about insufficient confidence when you're sure about being right. I've got that, and cheerfully use every tool I have if I'm sure that it's important and I'm right.
And if part of the point is that women aren't rousable sleeping bears like me, and need to be trained to assert enough to get fair results for themselves and the good of all, well then point taken.
Part of my irritation is that the writers are journalists, and the examples of getting ahead they use seem to be from fields like advertizing and pr. That confidence is the game there, as in trading floors, is not really a recommendation.
By the way, if I say I want the stylus moved to the woman's position, doesn't that imply that I like women's behavior now, and think it's men that should be shot down? I know, not going to happen, which is reason 587 why we're all f~~~d
Anyway, this thread reminds me that the best career advice I ever received was to take an acting class in college. Learn to act in character as a scared person. Learn to act in character as an angry person. And, most importantly, learn to act in character as a highly confident person. Then, in the real world, in your career, dating life or whatever, whenever you need to appear confident, self-consciously act confident, as if you were a character in a play. You don't actually have to be confident, as long as you act that way. And if you are confident that you know how to act confident, because you've practiced doing so, you'll pull it off well.
Of course, I didn't follow this advice, which at the time I thought sounded stupid. But, as the years have passed, I've become convinced that it's great advice.
And if part of the point is that women aren't rousable sleeping bears like me, and need to be trained to assert enough to get fair results for themselves and the good of all, well then point taken.
I think that's most of it, tbh. The Lean In framing is annoying, because to the extent a lack of confidence/assertiveness holds women back, it's wrong to think of it primarily as a problem affecting CEOs, and more the kind of thing that keeps someone working at an ordinary job asking for a raise, or refusing the umpteenth committee assignment, and so forth.
134: My gf occasionally teaches "acting for business professionals" workshops for a local theater that offers them regularly, in which (as I understand it) they teach those very skills (well, not the dating life part). Apparently reasonably popular around here, which may say more about DC than anything else. And a few times she's been hired to do something similar in-house at law firms (which sounds excruciating, but I suppose no more so than some of the other role-playing law firm training I've had to endure from time to time). So it might not be too late for you!
133: The point I was trying to make is that whatever the social standards for what's acceptable in terms of confidence/assertiveness, the people who are right up at the top end of that scale without tipping over into unacceptable behavior are always going to be disproportionately influencing events. You can fiddle with where the line is for what's socially acceptable and what isn't, but within the realm of acceptable behavior, I don't think you can change things so that the shyly retiring have as much influence as the confidently assertive.
Disliking particular obnoxious behavior that being overconfident engenders is reasonable, and wanting to see people socially penalized for it is as well. Having a problem with confident people generally, on the other hand, doesn't seem to me as if it's going to lead you in any useful direction.
OK, I'm getting a Door Gym, since it has lots of reviews and 4.5 stars. Yay!
137: Interesting. Got a link to the workshop schedule? Or if you don't want to put that out here for some reason, could you e-mail me? I might never go, and I'm not one of the Type A Capitol Hill types it's apparently meant for (my wife is more like that than me, but not much), but I'm curious.
134: but where do you get your script from in real life?? That's the problem. When I lack confidence it's because I don't 'know' what to say and my head gets stuck in the loop around 'that is what to say'/'that is a stupid thing to say'.
137, 141: politics is a form of theatre so it's perfect for DC. Sometimes I sit outside people watching and think 'what fraction of these passers by are paid to lie'.
141: If you google the quoted phrase in 137 it should be obvious enough among the top hits; if not, add "STC" to the search and it will be. (FWIW the individual listed as teaching the currently-advertised workshop is no relation.) From what I gather the audience is typically not top-tier Capitol Hill Type As--those people already have the requisite skills in spades--but more Type A wannabes. Which might be worse.
143: It's not lying, it's zealous advocacy.
Having a problem with confident people generally, on the other hand, doesn't seem to me as if it's going to lead you in any useful direction
I don't have a problem with confident people. To be conscious of worth and power is sustaining. I've been thinking lately of Milton and of Louis Sullivan; both knew their worth and it sustained them in defeat, as they both were.
It's a beautiful day here in Chicago. I walked along Wabash, under the el, thinking of crowds and sidewalk widths, to touch the recently-rediscovered ornament on a Sullivan storefront. Then around front, the old Carson's building, to see how far down the alley the ornament went. Disturbed a guy peeing, whatever. Who cares that it's a Target now? It wasn't always Carson's but it's always been a department store.
Yesterday morning I texted my son to ask where Sullivan's Kindergarten Chats was. He replied promptly, describing the pile and how far down it would be. He knew where it was, and he knows what's in it.
My joy in these expensive liberal artists is unbounded.
It's not lying, it's zealous advocacy.
yeah. I've been in many meetings where I sat there thinking, "I wish I had the skills to convincingly pretend to believe what is about to come out of my mouth". Your GFs class sounds just right for me!
See, this kind of shit is why people can't be trusted to use their discretion as to what foods are appropriate for consumption on public transit.
That had to have been a stunt, rather than a snack. No one could possibly think that was a normal thing to do.
I know. 147 may not have been entirely serious.
I know. 147 may not have been entirely serious.
145: Don't you think it's a bit harsh to characterize Milton Sullivan as defeated? Maybe he didn't make as big a splash in the world of sculpture teaching as some of his contemporaries, but I'm sure thousands of students were enriched by his lectures and mentorship. Southern Illinois University is a fine school, and they don't let just anyone into their art department. Is that really defeat?
But I am now sitting on a metro car littered with pumpkin seed shells. Perhaps not the end of civilization but it's pretty fucking inconsiderate.
But I am now sitting on a metro car littered with pumpkin seed shells. Perhaps not the end of civilization but it's pretty fucking inconsiderate.
146: I'm probably taking this more seriously than it deserves, but pretending doesn't work for the vast majority of people, and you probably can't make yourself one of the minority if you didn't start off that way. The trick is in first persuading yourself that the thing you need to say is true before you walk into the room; or, better, finding something to say that is actually true but that still gets you what you need.
An opponent asked for an extension to file a reply today on the basis that the arguments I made were really complex. I'm telling you all because of all my confidence.
Wales
I've always want to see Wales. I'm not sure why.
151:
I liked this, and tried to find out something about him, but there isn't much.
I'm not sure I'd want to live in Wales, but still, it would be nice to see it.
This would probably be better in the other thread.
Hold on, hold on. Carson Pirie Scott is now a fucking TARGET?
While I try to process this information, it seems that you're telling me that they've done something good with it, so I'll focus on that information while I breathe deeply.
When I graduated, I had a vague notion that I'd go to Chicago, a city that appreciates great architecture. The primary reason I didn't was BOGF, but I don't know that I would have gone regardless. My entire professional career has been sustained on social bonds, and I'm not sure how that would/could have worked in a city in which I knew literally not a soul. Well, one soul who lived out in Hinshaw. Probably not a reliable source for work and tips on work. What a different path to contemplate!
I missed the earlier comment and searched the thread to reassure myself that we weren't supposed to find and kill this Scott guy.
I bet the Welsh know fuck all about walking down the sidewalk.
Anyway, I've seen the Lake District and Scotland. If I get to Wales, I'll have seen all the nature in Britain.
They've probably never even seen sidewalks.
164: there are no sidewalks on the Wale-Roads?
Or violas if Jamie Oliver isn't able to get to them in time.
138: If we assume that influence is a combination of how right you are, how your true level of rightness affects your confidence in your own rightness, and how your level of confidence affects your willingness to be loud, if we decrease the variance on willingness to be loud and rightness->confidence dimensions, we get more emphasis on people actually being right. Is IDP's point, I think.
A lot of the points about confidence we're making are made more interesting by the research the article refers to. I recommend the article for that alone.
Basically what I dislike is the authors' idea of what constitutes success; grant that and it's a reasonable point of view.
Anyway, I've seen the Lake District and Scotland. If I get to Wales, I'll have seen all the nature in Britain.
Don't make me come over there and drop you off in the middle of Dartmoor.
When you're starving on Dartmoor I'll pick you up and dump you in Dove Dale.
Wales is lovely and various. You should go. It has its post-industrial wastelands too, but don't we all?
154: I see it a little differently. Most people have problems pretending to believe something that they absolutely oppose, but most people also have a very large set of things they could sort of half-believe, given the right incentives. The trick is finding something that you can give at least some creedence to that also helps your case, and then forgetting the questions you have about it or issues you see with it. Once people become very practiced at this they lose the distinction between half-believing something and believing it all the way, and just get good at ignoring the problems with the case they need to make. The problem with advocacy.
They've probably never even seen sidewalks.
I do think you'll find we have "pavements" here, dear lass.
172: I think we do have different perspectives. It's probably fair to modify "true" in 154 to "believable." But I don't actually think a good advocate ignores the weaknesses in their case (even taken just as a matter of advocacy, as opposed to a matter of integrity). You look for the best responses, of course, and you don't give up too much in the moment, but if you can't also step back and see how it looks from the perspective of someone who disagrees with you, you're operating with a major handicap.
I do think it's very difficult to separate yourself from a particular position you've been arguing for a sufficiently long time. (Which maybe is more the situation in policy -- you do policy, right? Apologies if I'm misremembering.) Or for lawyers, people who practice in one particular area and who always represent one particular type of party. It's hard not to buy in more permanently under those circumstances.
It has its post-industrial wastelands too, but don't we all?
Yes. I got enough of those nearby. At least until they all get redeveloped.
Seriously though, according to Wikipedia, Dartmoor has 33,000 residents in 368 square miles. By way of comparison, my home county has a population of 10,000 people in 2,400 square miles. In some sense, Dartmoor is probably more natural in that the land isn't used for agriculture, but it's hard to picture how it's some kind of an empty wilderness.