You Should Never, Under Any Circumstances, Strike Up A Conversation With Someone Who Is Trying To Peacefully Get Through Their Daily Commute
Despite what some people may think, we still do live in a society. A society that has rules.
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One of those rules is thus: No talking or interaction of any kind with other people while on your commute to work.
The commute is a sacred time. You're either mentally preparing to walk into the thunder dome that is your office or you're heading to the sanctuary of your home after putting up with your boss all day and Susan from Accounting putting fish in the communal microwave for the third time this month (That's another discussion for another day). Either way, we all have our routine for the bus/train/walk/drive that we like to stick to no matter what.
Me? I'm a podcast guy. If I've already listened to the latest Zero Blog Thirty, I will queue up one of the other podcasts from Barstool that I listen to regularly because I'm a #TeamGuy. If it's Friday afternoon I'll throw on music to take me into the weekend - song/genre is weather dependent.
Whatever your poison, you look forward to that time, that peaceful time not in the cube, not on the phone, not "circling back" or "net net'ing", so the last thing you want is to run into someone you know. Why? Because they are going to want to invade your cocoon of silence to chit chat and interrupt your sacred time.
If you're lucky you'll run into someone who knows the rules:
That's the thing too - it doesn't matter who the person is that you run into on the commute. Kate ran into Duggs. Duggs is the nicest guy imaginable. But I'm sorry, I do not wish to speak with you on the PATH, Duggsy. If I ran into my best friend in the whole world, Nick Turani, I STILL wouldn't want to talk. It is inevitably going to be small talk that you already know most of the answers to anyway but you both keep talking to avoid awkward silence until someone is at their stop. It's brutal. That lull in the conversation before the chatty Cathy brings up the Q2 reports, just nooooo. Stop it. Stop it all.
This isn't about being rude, it's about respecting another person's time. One of the best inventions the good Lord bestowed upon us are the noise canceling headphones…so I can cancel out the big world and get lost in my own little world.
For the love of God please don't motion for me to take them off my ears. I don't need you coming over to tap me on the shoulder to tell me about Timmy getting into Princeton and that Sydni is going to be lifeguarding this summer. I want to put on my favorite songs and daydream about being on the beach or shooting a 65. If we are friends, I'll see you soon enough and we can catch up properly over a beer. I still won't care about Timmy and Sydni but at least I can pretend to with a drink in my hand.
Until then, a head nod of acknowledgement is more than enough. Have a safe commute!