No. no way. I have no interest in having weird, potentially hostile, interactions with strangers.

I’m a pretty chill person though. Loud music or a yelling kid at the grocery store might be annoying but it doesn’t get under my skin and I’d much rather move on that make a whole thing of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not intervene or confront. Never.

On a crowded subway? Never confront. Keep sunglasses on and ignore. I, once, was mindlessly looking at a young "lady." She became irate/threatening/belligerent. That's when I instituted the sunglasses rule.

+1 I was once told randomly that I would never make it into veterinary school. Ooookay lady.

+2

In the last couple years, I've started asking people listening to music or other audio in public without headphones to turn it down. I am very polite when I do it ("Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you but your music is a bit loud. Would you mind turning it down?") and don't act angry with people.

Almost every single time I've done this, the person has turned their music down, and in most cases they've simply turned it off (or in a couple cases where I was in a coffee shop, gone outside). I can only think of one time where a person flatly, and rudely, refused. That was a bit awkward but even in that case I knew I'd been polite and was in the right so I didn't regret it.

So that's my advice: just ask. Maybe no one has ever asked these people to adjust their behavior to accommodate others, so they figure, why not.

I know trains are different from buses, and trains passengers are more or less on their own, but I’m a bus driver and music or videos without headphones is my biggest pet peeve. I’ll give it about thirty seconds to turn it down before I’m on the microphone asking for it to be turned down as a courtesy to everyone on the bus. Usually that works, if I have to ask a third time I’ll pull over and sit with the door open until they leave. Peer pressure can be very effective for most people.

One thing I’ve noticed is there can be a cultural component to this where the perpetrator may not speak English as a first language and not understand that I’m asking them to turn it down or that Americans perceive it as rude. I try to give a pass in that case, but it’s still annoying.

If you feel safe doing so, when the driver makes an announcement, it can be really helpful if the passengers back up what the driver said and ask the person to turn it down. But never put yourself in a potentially unsafe situation to do so. You never know if the person is ready to blow and looking for a fight, just testing boundaries or oblivious to the fact there are other people in the world.

Are they a toddler or no?

Anonymous wrote:Metro used to be different, maybe 15 years ago (pre-smart phone when everyone read the Express paper). Lots of feds willing to enforce the rules. Went downhill after smartphones, and people just started burying their nose in the phone instead of confronting. Metro culture is not the same. You can eat a whole fast food meal and no one will say anything.

That might the only time they have to eat on between working three part-time jobs because late stage capitalism has robbed them of their dignity.

And people wonder why public transportation isn’t more popular

Anonymous wrote:I am fascinated by the societal norms that go into this sort of decisionmaking. Those of us that follow rules (maybe to a fault?) are so nervous to confront those that break them. There must be a psychological/sociological reason for this, right?

Here's my example from this morning: on a very crowded metro, and a person boards, choosing to play very loud, very inappropriate music without headphones. You could literally feel the anxiety of people as they (me included) tried to avoid making direct eye contact with the offender. Yes, in the grand scheme, I guess it doesn't matter, but why do a group of people allow one person to dictate terms like that?

Tell him to turn it down or off, or it's going to the next level.

Then back it up if he calls your bluff. Be sure you want the excitement.