End of Work, Train Game

Today was my last day of working at GreenbergFarrow until August. While I’ll hold off talking about my full summer experience there until after I’ve finished my stint when I return from bike and build, I thought I would speak of matters much more trivial and exciting.

There were many observations that I made in my month sampling of the real world.
1) I have a lot more respect for my dad, and for all working people, who wake up early, commute to work, work a full day doing something that’s probably not a whole lot exciting, commute home, to only then have to deal with all of the responsibilities of home before going to sleep because you have to repeat the same deal tomorrow. Regardless of how exciting your job is, or what you make, work is tough and mentally demanding, plain and simple. Every time I sample the working world, I’m reminded of how fortunate I am to still be a student with lots of freedom and few responsibilities. It’s difficult to be as grateful to your parents as one should be until you actually experience the working world.
2) I’ve realized that in the working world, groundbreaking ideas and enlightening days are far and few between. I’ve realized life is better broken down into the small moral victories of the everyday. There were many ways to take the mundane everyday, and create excitement in that time. A sampling of my favorite games I would play…

a) Train game-
The LIRR features a row of 2 seats on one side, 3 seats on the other side of the aisle. About 75% of the aisle of 3 will feature a third person in the middle, where about 90% of the aisle of the 2 will feature both people. I would leave the office at 5:30 for a 5:46 train which usually left me with the option of
1) taking the aisle seat in the row of 3 and play the odds of having my own space surrounded by the aisle and the extra middle seat at the risk of an overweight burly man sweating profusely squeezing into the middle seat or
2) picking the person I would spend the next hour sitting next to which cut off the chance factor, and left you with a little more space then if you were part of the 3

Usually I would go for the aisle seat of 3, for no other reason then the suspense of continuing this game. Now came the tough part. If 80% of the seats are going to be filled with a 3rd middle person, how do you maximize your odds of being one of the lucky few? Usually, if you have to pick a middle seat, you look for at least 1 if not both people to be preferably thin, and/or female, mainly because both groups took considerably less space than overweight men. Not that anyone is going to describe me as lanky, but my smaller size only further hurt my odds of being in that 20%. There were several strategies I would play, some in combinations with another, in my attempts to create a personal space for the next hour.
Strategy I: I would try to take up as much space with my smaller body as possible, further filling up space by leaving my chrome messenger bag in the middle seat.
Strategy II: Electronics- I might try to take out my laptop and headphones and begin blogging as soon as I get on the train so that I already have large electronics already out, so people don’t want to deal with the hassle of me having to awkwardly get up with all my stuff so they can squeeze in.
Strategy III: cell phones- nobody likes sitting next to that blabbermouth on the train, so it didn’t hurt to place a strategic phone call and try talking loudy
Strategy IV: Rarely used, but sometimes Id pretend to already be sleeping, as it was easier to sit with someone else than to have to bother waking me up.

There were other strategies as well, such as taking one of the two seats on one end of the train that did not feature a window, which could potentially shield you from other sitters.

You may think this is totally ridiculous, and I’ll admit there is no empirical evidence that suggests that any of what I’ve described has helped at all, but it certainly keeps things more exciting then had I just viewed this hour experience as an hour that I can never get back from my life.

b) Elevator game- there are 3 elevators that are in my office building, and there is no indication of where each one is on every floor. This simple game played on the way to work, on the way to lunch, on the way back from lunch, and on the way home involves guessing which elevator is the one to pick you up.

c) Ketchup game- guessing the number of individual wrapped ketchup packets that would be included with my burger special

There are many more games that I play every day, that makes the everyday exciting. These small victories may be as simple as finding a new, quicker route to take to work once I leave Penn Station, or finding a cheaper lunch deal than the Korean deli you tried yesterday. As the hustling accapella group on my subway today said, do things everyday that bring you up, not down.