The Commuter's diary

It takes me about 45 minutes to get to work (door-to-door). And I pretty much hate every single minute of it. To be perfectly honest, I am surprised that I haven't yet had a heart attack in the rush hour or got stabbed... We are all in the same boat, but instead of trying to make this a little more bearable, we make it worse for each other. Isn't it bad enough that we regularly have to deal with signal failures and "minor" delays due to a broken down train? There aren't that many rules to follow nor are they complicated and they still seem to overburden the average commuter (and even more so the tourists...).

Here are my top three public transport annoyances:

1. People who do not understand the announcement to let people get OFF the train first. Seriously: why is this so difficult? Do they not realize that they are slowing up the whole process and they will NOT get on any quicker?
   
2. People who get on the tube and then just stand there. Moving down, anyone?
   
3. People who push and push in. We all need to get somewhere!

Rant over. The story I want to share today is actually a sweet one:
This morning at Limehouse, a family got on the DLR: Mum, Dad and toddler (about 2 years old, I would guess). Mum sits down next to me and pulls toddler on to her lap. Boy wriggles free and off her lap. Points at my seat and says: I want to sit THERE! Mum: smiles apologetically at me and says to boy: But the lady is already sitting there. A couple of minutes later, we approach the next station. Boy starts waving at me and says: Bye-bye lady. Nice tactic! And it worked! Well, I had to get off anyway. So I got up and did say to the parents that I had to get off anyway. For some reason they still thanked me. Not entirely sure what for...

(You had to be there really ... doesn't sound as cute in writing as it was in real life! Also, in case you think that I should have given up my seat: there were other free seats around.)