Remember the lady who got kicked off the train for loud-talking into her phone for sixteen consecutive hours?
Well, the etiquette police on New York’s Metro North train were clamping down on another discourteous transit passenger, this one carrying on a cell phone conversation that included more than a few “F-bombs.” According to the original uploader of the video, the woman on the left side of the video “was talking too loud on the train when the conductor politely asked her to keep it down and stop using profanity or to take it to the vestibule.”
This led to an uncomfortable exchange that will go down in the historical annals of, as one YouTube commenter put it, “entitled bitchery”.
A video caught by a fellow passenger caught the whole altercation:
Among the nuggets of bitchiness thrown at the conductor were the following:
• “Do you know what schools I’ve been to? How well-educated I am?”
• “I’m sorry, do you think I’m a little hoodlum?”
• “Oh, I touched you! I’m sorry. Now I need to be kicked off!”
Gotta hand it to the conductors, who handled this with an extraordinary amount of calm.
I’m pretty easy going with fellow passengers on trains or planes, but sometimes they can push it too far. I don’t think it was insane for a conductor to make a request to at least stop with loud talking or profanity, especially when the conductor made it clear she was welcome to continue the conversation in the vestibule. So this woman’s reaction was very much uncalled for.
But it’s the nature of her reaction, her claims to be “well educated”, that make this rise above normal videos of conflict. Maybe you did get some solid university credentials, lady, but you obviously never went to etiquette school. Be respectful of other people’s space. It’s not that hard. Being polite in a public space ain’t rocket science.
