If Anyone Can Travel, Who Will Enforce Etiquette On the Boorish?
Competitive individualism and globalization allow the uncouth to roam about the world unchecked. I offer a solution.
Travel always makes for sublime observations of people in their habits of entitlement. What I think could be considered bad form is taking liberties with reclining your seat just because you can. For many people, this means reclining it as far back as it will go—who gives a shit if there is another person sitting behind you— your comfort is of the utmost importance in a world that’s made up of other people who aren’t you.
I felt bad for the guy on that long, packed Amtrak train heading toward New York City. He was absorbed in his work on his laptop, and this lady gets on at some point, unlatches the tray in front of her, spreads her food and beverage out, and reclines her seat all the way back, pressing coarsely on the button even after the seat clearly couldn’t go back any further and as though she was attempting to be horizontal.
It shoved against the guy's laptop behind her, and he sat there for a while trying to continue his work with his laptop positioned at an awkward angle, unable to directly see his own screen, and clutching at it to keep from sliding off the fold-down tray. After about twenty minutes, he got up and went in search of another seat on the crowded train, while the lady continued lounging in what she thought was her bed, and chewed noisily on her carrots and celery for the remainder of the trip.
What a mad world we live in when the behaviors of the ill-bred and self-serving are acceded to just to avoid conflict. Suddenly your day that was easy and calm is interrupted by a clown. You’re forced to react in some way to these brutes who obstruct the steady flow of things when you just want to be in peace, amongst other people who also try to keep public order. I can understand why the guy just got up and troubled himself to find another seat—and in the US it becomes more thorny when a man challenges a female with the traits of a bully.
How you react comes down to several factors: your personality, your mood at the time, race dynamics and how you feel about yourself, setting, how willing you are to embarrass a person (in the same way they didn’t hesitate to do to you), etc.
I personally think the best solution, because everything else doesn’t work, is to have sassy gay men as conductors and flight attendants. The types who’re no-nonsense and aren’t afraid of calling out something out of order when they see it. The ones who’d just walk up to an obnoxious passenger, lean down, and loudly, and snarkily say, “Hi, do you mind putting your seat up a little because your inconsiderate behavior towards other passengers is super tacky? The world doesn’t revolve around you. Thaaaaaank you soooo much.”
They’re in that gray area where men and women can’t really mess with or they’d be branded as homophobes and trying to argue with a sassy gay man in a uniform usually throws people off.
More often than not, useless people are put in positions of authority. Useless people are not problem solvers, and they have no people management skills. They actually don’t want to manage problems and turn a blind eye to serenity-destroyers, so they rarely get things done. It all comes down to who’s best for the job, and different jobs require different requirements. Makes sense that a firefighter’s job application be rejected if he’s overweight or obese, someone who’s not a people person to not work in customer service, and for uncompromising, opinionated gay men to run the travel sector.
I think it’s society’s best bet.
