Subtitled: Hurry Up And Wait! Mundane Thoughts and a Doper Poll From A Rather Impatient Man.
This thread is inspired by a completely maddening occurrence I witnessed on the road a couple of Sundays ago:
As I was slowly passing by the remnants of what looked to me like a minor fender bender on a heavily traveled four lane street, I noticed 2 policemen sitting in their squad cars with their lights flashing. They weren’t filling out accident reports. They weren’t waiting for their flares to burn away. They were just sitting there. One police car was in the left lane on the southbound side of the road, the other was in the northbound lane. Apparently, they wanted every vehicle in either direction to merge into the right lane as they passed the scene of the accident. It was odd. Odd and inconvenient. The vehicles that were involved had already been removed from the scene (whether they were towed or were able to drive away on their own is anyone’s guess). Yet these two cops were quite content to sit there and watch four pounds of shit try and squeeze into a two pound bag. There were no chalk marks on the asphalt. No one was doing any investigational work with a measuring wheel. There weren’t any strewn automotive (or human) body parts in view. I didn’t even see any blood or radiator fluid for that matter. Just a whole bunch of traffic, and what appeared to be bits of shatter-resistant glass on the median between the two policemen’s cars.
Fast-forward three hours: What do you know? I’m on the same road, passing the same spot (going northbound this time) and what do I see? The same congestion. The same two policemen in the same two squad cars. The same number of glass shards.
I was moving. I had just finished my errands. But back at that accident scene it appeared the laws of physics had been turned on their head - somehow time had been frozen. My first cynical instinct was the cops decided to take a 180 minute break from work; mainly due to the fact there was a Dunkin Donut shop about 100 yards from where they were blocking traffic.
Ten minutes later, as I once again squeezed by the clusterfuck caused by the long-since cleared accident, I finally realized why those cops were sitting there:
They were preventing motorists from driving over the glass.
Here I am, once again squeezing by in the right lane and all the while I had a feeling of helplessness & impatience. Having now figured out that two cops were getting paid to sit there (at $40/hour each) got me aggravated. I called my friend Pete from my cell phone.
“Officer Ellison”
“Hey Pete, it’s me.”
“What’s up?”
“I have to ask you something. After a car accident, when there’s broken glass on the road, what’s the correct police procedure.”
“We cordon off the area until the highway department comes to clean up, why?”
"Because I just saw 2 of your fellow officers doing what you just described for over 3 hours! Just sitting on their asses doing jack squat while traffic backs up for over a mile in both directions.”
“Yeah, so what’s the big deal? And by the way, they weren’t doing jack squat, they were preventing people from driving over glass”
“I’m dumbfounded. That’s the deal. Besides, that glass isn’t even sharp. It’s like little pieces of Pez."
“I still don’t see what your problem is. Get over it, you were inconvenienced for a few minutes. And you know as well as I do it was a policeman’s salary that kept food on your mother’s dinner table”
"You know, a couple of years ago, before my father retired from the force, he always said it was the police department’s first duty to get traffic moving as quickly as possible at any accident scene. Why can’t you guys just keep one of those broom and dustpan sets janitors use in the trunk and sweep up after an accident?”
“Are you nuts? That’s highway’s responsibility. Do you suggest we keep a bag speedy dry on hand to sop up oil and radiator fluid off the road too?
“Yeah. I do. If it speeds up the process. Besides, it’s Sunday. Highway crews don’t work on Sundays. This is a totally asinine policy.”
“It’s called overtime. Get outta the private sector and you’ll learn all about it”
“Fuck off. I’ve heard it before. You guys get paid for the security you provide, not the amount of work that you do. Blah-blah-blah. Now I know exactly what mayors mean when they start calling for productivity give backs from the municipal & civil service unions. As far as I’m concerned, the whole lot of you can go choke on my big 10-4. I’ll talk to ya later.”
OK. Be good. And if you see your Dad, tell him I said ‘hello’.”
As I closed the flap on my Nextel, I was completely miffed. Hundred of drivers were being unnecessarily inconvenienced and no one could do a thing about it. A few people were waving their arms. Several rolled their eyes. One or two beeped their horns – but that was it. Each and every motorist that drove by that scene from 2PM until at least 5:30 was being delayed and every one of them, including me, was completely unable to remedy the situation.
When I got home, the first thing I did was put a whisk broom and dust pan in my trunk. I made a vow to myself that I’ll never remove it until the day I sell my car. I’ll be damned if I’m ever forced to feel as helpless as I was that day. In fact, if I had my broom and pan with me earlier that day: I would’ve pulled over, walked up between those two squad cars and swept up the glass myself. I would’ve shooed the cops away and told them to go do something important; like enforce the sealt belt laws, the smoking ban or the hands-free cell phone regulations. Whether I would’ve gotten a baton crack upside the head is anyone’s guess.
Ok. I blabbed on for far too long already. Now on to the topic of this thread - A poll of sorts: Have you, or someone else you’ve noticed, ever done something irrational, nonsensical or irrational in a vain attempt to speed up the process?
I have. The first two that come to mind are something I’m occasionally guilty of and witness all too often. Oddly enough, both have to do with pushing buttons. Go figure.
-
The “Already Lit” Elevator Button.
God, do I hate elevators. I hate them more than I hate escalators. If I see a stairway, even if I have to go up 20 floors, I’ll opt for it. On those occasions where a staircase door is locked or I’m required to go over my ‘300 steps limit’ and I’m forced into taking an elevator - I hate waiting for it. Even when I can clearly see the illuminated ‘Up Button’ on the ground floor has been pushed by someone else waiting for a ride up, it’s very difficult to control the urge to push that damn button again. Common sense tells me repressing a button isn’t going to make the elevator move more quickly – but on more times than I care to admit - I can’t control myself and need to hit it just one more time. -
The Pedestrian ‘Push to Cross Street / Walk Signal’ Button
Alright, I admit I’ve pushed more than a couple pedestrian buttons in my day, but I’m fairly convinced none I’ve ever come across even operate. I think they’re installed by municipalities to give people something to do while waiting to cross the street safely and aren’t even wired to the signal controls. I gave up trying them a few years ago and have now reverted to dodging traffic.
So tell me – No tell the world: What little things do you do (or have witnessed other impatient souls doing) in a fruitless attempt to ‘crank it up a notch’. I’m sure there are many others that aren’t coming to mind at the moment…a good number of which I’m probably guilty of as well.
Come on. Hurry up with those responses. I don’t have all day here!
