This is another one of those “WTF are they thinking - oh, wait, obviously they are not thinking” things.
OK, it’s rush hour. You’re in a train station, the train is coming, people are rushing up the up escalator - rumble rumble rumble - and some daft asshole gets to the top of the moving stair and –
STOPS!!
That’s right - just stops on the decanting end of a conveyor belt of people, totally blocking all traffic. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? You are stopping to admire the view? You enjoy being trampled to death? What?
Anyone else have the urge to shove the assholes forward, like I do?
I’ve never understood this either. Yes, if you want to stand rather than walk on the escalator, then go right ahead, as long as you stand on the RIGHT and give walkers room to pass you on the left, got it? (And this still holds when you’re with your friend or sweetie: you stand one in front of the other and converse from your different heights, not next to each other where you block the walkers behind you! But that’s a whole other rant.)
But if you’re walking up the escalator, why would you stop walking when it levels out at the top? Did you finally get tired? Are you afraid of tripping on the flattening-out steps? Were you told that this is some sort of safety measure that you should follow? What’s it all about?
However, giving people who do this a shove from behind, or even “accidentally” walking into them, is, unfortunately, a no-no.
I must respectfuly disagree. Being the passive aggressive sort, I rarely have the balls to tell someone off. But being a big fella, “accidentally” crashing into one of these morons (especially when they stop at the bottom of a down escalator) brightens up my day.
However, they don’t annoy me as much as the fuckers who don’t understand the Prime Directive of Escalator Etiquette. It’s always one fucking dickhead who stands on the left and blocks the entire column of walkers. FWIW, I’m usually a stander, unless I’m in a rush, but I sure do sympathize with the pained expressions on the faces of the people who get blocked by these dweebs.
Totally with you guys on this one. Those folks that stand on the left? You can tell they got nothing going on upstairs. I either roughly brush by on the left and loudly say “excuse me,” or ask them loudly and impatiently to step to the right so everyone can get by. Things do sometimes slow down at the top, but I don’t remember seeing anyone just stop there for no reason.
That does not piss me off as much as kiddies who press the stop buttons on them forcing you to walk the several hundred steps (esp London under ground steps can go into the thousands) .But its not the walking on oddly shaped stairs that bothers me much (some how escalator steps are awkard to walk up or down when they are still). But its 500 people on the escalator who have inertia and topple ending in dominoes and the fact that police can’t charge these youths for any crime either.
Always one of my favorite topics. Here in Atlanta we seem to get people who’ve never ridden an escalator before. They also like to glare at you when you say “excuse me”. So, during Tourist Season, I’ve learned to speak up and not be afraid of glaring back when absolutely necessary.
People who make comments about the myth of southern politeness after that need to know that when it’s time for me to go home, I want to go, not stand on the escalator.
I worked at a trade show in Chicago in the summer of 2000. During the show people who helped set up were fed, though the food consisted mostly of dry, tasteless chicken and turkey. This occasionally produced noxious emissions. After one such meal, I was riding the escalator up, and felt a clear urge to crack one off. I glanced over my shoulder to be sure nobody was behind me, and finding the escalator clear, let loose. In seconds, I heard “JESUS CHRIST” at about the level of my waist. Apparently a man in a wheelchair had gotten on the escalator immediately behind me, and was hanging onto the handrails and leaning forward. In glancing over my shoulder, he was too close behind me and too low for me to see, until I turned completely around to notice him wrenching his head violently from side to side attempting in vain to get out of the way of my emission. Letting go would have plunged him, wheelchair and all, backwards down the (otherwise empty)escalator. So he had no choice but to stay and bear the gas, which had exited my backside a scant ten or twelve inches from his face. OBTW, there was a functioning elevator not twenty feet from the escalator, and it wasn’t busy.
I am dumbstruck by the parents who let their kids goof off around the escalators. Fuck, kids get their LIMBS MANGLED in those things! Don’t let your goddamn offspring treat them like a piece of playground equipment!!!
For the same reason, I’m not very sympathetic to parents who ignore the signs about not dragging a stroller up the escalator. It’s dangerous, fer crissakes. Not just to those who are also riding, but especially to that little crumbsnatcher in the stroller. Come on, go find the elevator. I know it’s inconvenient, but jeez.
I want to know where all of you live where you regularly encounter/see/are someone who walks up or down an escalator. This is a phenomena that I have only heard about on this board, and have since been actively looking for it. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only people that walk up or down escalators are you people, and thus there is a huge lack of education on standing to the right being the etiquette du jour.
However, I don’t visit the big cities these days, and even when I am in Chicago, I’m rarely on an escalator. But, and once finals are over I’m going to test this out, I highly doubt that there is any significant time gain in walking on the escalator. Can’t be more than 10 seconds.
I think it’s the feeling of being hemmed in that’s aggravating. Also, it’s easy to imagine that you will “just miss” your train if the guy in front of you won’t get out of the way. Also the feeling of being put upon by another human being.
I think about this subject a lot because I spend a lot of time in Manhattan, and am constantly facing minor delays due to the thoughtlessness of others.
For example, frequently you will be driving “cross-town”, and waiting for a light to turn green. Just as the light turns green, the taxi-cab right in front of you decides to drop someone off, without pulling over to let traffic by. So you miss the light, and have to wait a whole extra cycle.
Things like this are totally annoying, even though the net loss of time is pretty minimal – a minute or so.
Frankly, I’m annoyed at myself for getting annoyed!
OK. I can go along with the need to resume walking when the escalator is done lifting you up. But what the fuck are you doing walking up the escalator while it is in motion? This is not only against the rules, it is dangerous, assholes. Stay put. If you really want to walk up stairs, USE THE STAIRS!
(musically, and with a big, not terribly sincere smile) thank you!
Sorry if I gave you a fright but you were blocking my way. Don’t get into town much, huh? That might be why you call all us complete strangers assholes. Bye!
I would say let the little bastards disembowel themselves for being stupid little fuckwits with no-brain parents. However, the nanocerebrate oxygen bandits of parents would probably just sue someone over it and make a shitload of cash anyway, just because they let junior become yet another Darwin Award.
Damn it! I wanna be able to sue someone so I can get a sweet payout!
*** THE TWO FRIENDS:** ah, so you’ve spotted your friend behind you on the escalator, but there are a few people between you? No problem, simply stop at the very end of the escalator and WAIT RIGHT THERE until he/she gets to the end. Please don’t step aside or move forward out of the way–this may break eye contact with your friend! The bruising that ensues as people smash into you is minor compared to the inconvienience of not staring at your friend for 5 seconds.
*** THE SURVEYOR:** so you’ve just gotten off the escalator and don’t know where to go? Don’t move forward, step aside and then look around! No! That’s for chumps! Please… stop immediately and look around like the idiot you are as everyone else behind you piles up into you.
*** THE DYSLEXIC:** Please, for God’s sake, when you’re going to disembarking to the left, make sure you stand on the right side of escalator. If you’re going to be turning right at the end of the escalator, make sure you walk on the left. See, this way you immediately cut into the path of those behind and to the side of you ensuring much hilarity as everyone crashes into you and mutters obscentities in your general direction!
*** THE CUT-OFF:** Find yourself standing on the right but you’ve changed your mind and want to walk on the left of the escalator? Well go right ahead and boldly step into the left side. Don’t bother looking to see if anyone is coming down on the left that you’ll step in front of and onto–manners are only for the Great Unwashed!
*** OMIGODIMABOUTTOMISSMYTRAIN!:** Got a long escalator ride? Everyone standing? No one walking? About to miss your train? Hmmmm… how to get to that train through this crowd. Well, go right ahead and start pushing against the backs of the people in front of you while frantically repeating your retard-mantra, Thatsmytrainthatsmytrainthatsmytrain!" Surely the dozens in front of you will part like the Red Sea did for Moses.
love that part of the movie 
