Sam, in all seriousness, you are going to have to speak up for yourself or admit that speaking up for yourself is more painful than your arthritis. It’s no shame to admit that - we all make trade offs for different types of pain. But you really can’t expect other people to intuit your desire for a seat (even if they’ve noticed your disability - lots of disabled people have trouble sitting down/getting up and prefer to stand).
Possible scripts:
When there are a bunch of people between you and the seats:
“Excuse me, I need to get over to the seats.” You can add “before the train starts moving” or “…or I will be in pain” if you want to, but just state your need.
When you get to the seats:
“Excuse me, I need to sit here. Can you please give me this seat?”
There will be some days when people just get out of your way and let you sit, there will be some days when some kind soul at the door clears everyone else out of the way and rousts the people in the handicapped seats for you, there will be days when everyone ignores you and you have to ask again or stand. If the latter type of days become too prevalent, you will need to speak up and request the services that jsgoddess mentions, or speak up and ask your HR department about changing your hours to less busy times, etc. But really, you need to start speaking up for yourself.
Typical thread - someone comes in and says something innocuous (“you should just ask for a seat”), a bunch of assholes criticize him rudely for this perfectly reasonable suggestion, then more posters come along and agree with him, and then a consensus starts to develop, and the assholes disappear.
Asking someone for a seat on a rush-hour train gets you scoffing, sighing, eye-rolling, or some other micro-aggression. If I break my leg and have to do this for a few months, it’s bad enough. But to endure it twice a day, every day must be really shitty. I’m an able-bodied commuter on the NYC subway when everyone stands cheek-and-jowl and there are indignities enough. You have my sympathy, Sam. I will try to look up from my book every now and again to see if I can spare someone this and offer him a seat.
If you need someone to politely move out of your way so you can get off a bus but they don’t see you or can’t tell, you politely ask, and people usually politely move.
Same thing goes for politely asking someone for a seat. Happens every day all over the world.
In any event, what’s the alternative?
And here’s the thing - I wasn’t just disagreed with, I was rudely attacked for the suggestion.
I think I see the problem.
In most cities, most people aren’t rude assholes.
But as a New Yorker, you should be supportive of the idea that people should speak up for themselves when confronted with a crowd. Duh.
So your solution to her problem is for you, who lives on a different continent, to look out for people who need seats. And, I suppose, for her to go to every message board out there and try to reach every commuter in London to convince them to do the same.
I made a reasonable suggestion, and said what someone needed to hear, and the rest of you realize I was right but you don’t have the integrity or the balls to admit it.
As a New Yorker, I can tell you that you’re worth less than the shit I scrape off my Ferragamos after a good day kicking homeless people. No, the idea of asking for a seat isn’t crazy or outlandish. It’s just that you are such a fucking tool, you’d find some way to piss off a man dying of dehydration by suggesting he drink a glass of water. You were attacked because you are an asshole. You were a little rubber cheerio floating around your mother’s womb, and, emboldened by the anonymous internet, you have achieved the nadir of human potential. Congratulations, asshole.
It’s not a solution. I can’t solve Sam’s problem and neither can you. I can make life a little easier for someone else in Sam’s situation, though. Unsurprisingly, since you are an asshole, that would have never occurred to you.
Here’s how to make it fit what really happened: a dying thirsty man asks for help on how to get people to give him a drink when they can’t tell he’s thirsty (being thirsty isn’t always obvious, after all). I suggested he just say “I’m dying of dehydration, could I have a drink?”
No, I made a perfectly reasonable suggestion, which many posters have agreed is reasonable.
There was no reason to attack me whatsoever.
Your crazy, irrational response here demonstrates that you are indeed from New York.
No you can’t. You don’t live in London. She didn’t ask you for a seat, she asked for advice. I gave her good advice, for what it’s worth. I can’t solve her problem, but I can make her life easier by offering advice, which is what she requested.
I am not an asshole. You are, for calling me one. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?
So YOU agree with me too. That’s all I was saying.
So you’re one of those people I was talking about who attacked me for no reason and now ADMITS I was right all along.
Perhaps you were confused about what I was saying the first time. Which is kind of dumb, since it was pretty clear.
Maybe you’re so busy getting all flustered and mad that you didn’t even bother to read what I said carefully. Maybe you should STFU and read harder and talk less.
I’m not a New Yorker, so I won’t try to out-insult you. I won’t post what I think of you–I’ll just think it. Starting now.
I wasn’t being rude, smartass. It was a genuine observation. You have anger issues. That’s not an insult, it’s a fact. Either that or you just like sounding tough on the internet because in real life, you’d probably get your ass kicked. You need a hug, buddy? I have free ones.
And then enter Captain Lance Obvious over here, saying to ask for a seat because “there is no alternative.” This is why you are an asshole, asshole. Telling people in a shitty situations to do something shitty “because there is no alternative” when they didn’t even come to you for fucking advice in the first place is the apotheosis of asshole.
Read this twice more, I wouldn’t want you to miss something.