Month: May 2008

Ruh Roh

Is it a good omen or a bad omen when a car explodes on the Green Line tracks on my way in to work?

How about if the truck was a medical supply truck that may have been carrying hazardous chemicals, prompting Hazmat to swarm the area and shut down all outbound lanes of Comm. Ave? Is that good, at least?

Tais-toi!

I have two requests.

First, stop talking during movies and shows.  Just stop.

I even heard a running commentary through a live performance last week that would not be quelled by any number of polite or impolite requests (in that order) to keep quiet. Specifically, I was made acutely aware of how cute the girls behind me found the “tall black guy in the white hat.”

My theory is that home theater systems have gotten so good it’s become impossible to distinguish live theatrical events from images on a plasma screen.  Here’s a tip: look around you.  If you see people you do not recognize, you are in public, and should keep quiet.

Second, if you go to see a French film that has perfectly reasonable English subtitles (standard placement at the bottom of the screen, prominent lettering, decent translation of the French, et cetera), resist the urge to ask your French-speaking friend, “What’d they just say?” throughout the movie.

If you neither understand French nor know how to read, you have made an inappropriate movie selection.  I understand there are several movies out right now that feature marijuana as a major plot point.  Perhaps one of those would be more to your liking.

World of Warcraft, Upside Down?

Girl:  “I’m trying to stick to tattoos that mean something.”

Guy:  “Oh.”

Girl:  “So yours doesn’t mean anything?  It’s just a random design?”

Guy:  “Well, this one says ‘Mom.’  That means something…”

– B Line Train

Where Did All the Power Go?

I’m mildly unnerved to find a giant generator truck parked outside, humming loudly, as if powering a residential high-rise – which, I think, it is.

I’m tempted to calculate the odds that the computer will die in the middle of writing this pos

Can I Press Your Buttons?

“In [a traditional elevator] you have an illusion of control; elevator manufacturers have sought to trick the passengers into thinking they’re driving the conveyance. In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. It’s a little like prayer.” – The New Yorker, 21 April 2008

In my own recently remodeled elevator, the button for my floor doesn’t light up anymore. It still works; it just doesn’t light up.

This is completely unimportant in my daily routine, but it’s problematic when someone gets on after I’ve pressed it. When one of the many college girls in the building follows me into the elevator and presses, say, 4, on an otherwise unlit and apparently untouched panel, it must be creepy to see me standing there motionless, grinning passively as if to say, “I know exactly where I’m getting off tonight, baby.”

Even when she’s rushed out at the fourth floor and sees that I’ve stayed behind, I still look like a lunatic who’s just standing in an elevator not doing anything, like a homeless guy riding back and forth on the S train in Manhattan all day.

Basically what I’m saying is: “Maybe the next time you guys remodel the elevators, you should check to make sure all the buttons on the new control panel light up.”

A Tip for American Airlines

“American Airlines, which lost a federal lawsuit filed by skycaps at Logan International Airport over tips they earn, ratcheted up the feud yesterday by imposing a ban on tips at the Boston airport.” – Boston Globe, 2 May 2008

Let me quickly recap the events.

Back in 2004, American Airlines started charging a fee of $2 per bag for checking in bags at the curb. This fee went to the airline, and not its skycaps, but the traveling public tended not to draw the distinction, and tipped less.

True, signs at the curb informed travelers that the fee didn’t include a gratuity, but those signs used comically small lettering. Other signs at airports discuss things like the legal penalties for taking explosive devices onto a 480-ton Boeing 747 with 415 other passengers aboard, so we can forgive a hurried traveler for not paying adequate attention to American’s tiny lettering about gratuities.

Other travelers may have read and disregarded the notice, having already decided what they were willing to pay for curbside check-in. “I’ll pay $5 for this,” such miserly people thought, “even if 40% of it now goes in the airline’s pocket.”

American Airlines advances the reasonable belief that decreasing tips had more to do with decreasing air travel overall than with any fee or airline policy.

The reason isn’t important. Tips fell, and skycaps were angry. Skycaps took the airline to court, and got a verdict in their favor last month. American has to repay $325,000 in lost tips to nine employees.

That was April 17.

Two weeks later, we find that American has prohibited tipping of any kind and has promised disciplinary action to any skycap who accepts money from a passenger.

They raised skycaps’ pay above minimum wage to make the whole thing legal, but the move is still mean-spirited and below the belt. Penalizing skycaps at Logan – and only at Logan – comes off as childish.

I won’t be flying American anymore.