Sure, if they drove they’d probably have a slightly better sense of the local geography, if only because of all the 1-way streets. But even parking within walking distance of “the harbor” costs a few hundred bucks a month. They’re taking the T, which means they have no reason to have any sense of the surface geography between wherever they live and wherever they work.
And yeah, while there are plenty of tourists that might visit whatever restaurant the OP had his tantrum at, the vast majority of customers are people who come downtown to work, shop, or go to an event. And most of the tourists probably have their shit together well enough to know where they’re going next.
Next time I run into someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk, gawking at a map, I’ll try to be more thankful that they’re at least making an attempt at figuring out where they’re going…
Some people just have excellent spacial ability. I’m somewhere in the middle, somewhat better than average. When I become familiar with local geography, landmarks and streets, I can visualize it all in three dimensions in my head. But lots of people don’t have that ability.
I’ve found that good spacial ability allows me to extrapolate where things are in the “fog of war” areas between locations I know well. And then getting in the car and driving those extrapolated paths and seeing if I was right or making corrections in my mental model when I discover I was wrong clears that fog so that I then have a complete 3D model of both locations AND the space between them. This works very well in grid street systems, but has a pretty high failure rate in east coast areas where the streets are paved-over ox trails.
I’ve noticed that people with poor or absent spacial ability can’t build mental models, nor can they extrapolate locations in between the places they know. My husband is one of those people and I’ve noticed (with him and other people) that he is very unwilling to explore a route to see if it goes where he wants to go. He tends to find ONE successful route by looking at a map or GPS, and then sticks with it always, and if that route is bogged down in traffic he’s pretty well screwed (and frustrated). We get in arguments occasionally because at times when we need to find alternate routes, I’m comfortable with suggesting them based on my mental model, which to him looks like guessing out of my ass. I think he does have the ability to map the route in his head if we discover it to be successful, but he’s extremely reluctant to commit time to exploring if the route is wrong.
Probably. I have never seen someone ask restaurant staff for directions to destinations, and would not be surprised if I asked restaurant staff for directions and they didn’t know how to get to some random destination that I want to see but doesn’t affect their lives.
It’s so strange that you, who really wanted to go to the harbor, did not have a clue which way it was, but don’t consider yourself moronically oblivious to your surroundings, and instead heap abuse on people who have no interest in going there from where they are. The person who wanted to go to the harbor and brags about his great ability with directions, but neglected to use said ability with directions, have a map on hand, or a working GPS appears much more doltish to me than the people doing their jobs and living their lives without knowing where a random thing they don’t go to is.
BTW, Boston Harbor isn’t really a defined location. If I had to guess I would assume you mean the area around the Aquarium, but that’s only a small section of the waterfront. You might have meant Fort Point Channel, Fan Pier, the Seaport district, Black Falcon Pier, the Coast Guard base, near the Zakim Bridge, by the USS Constitution, or something else. There isn’t really a single well-defined location called “Boston Harbor” which may have confused the issue.
Again, if you had asked me without further clarification I would have sent you to the Aquarium, but I wouldn’t have known the exact best path depending on where we started.
This part has been bugging me in particular. That question is basically nonsense. It’s about as useful as a tourist in DC asking “Do I go left or right to get to The Government?”
For one, as everyone has been harping on for a while now, “Boston harbor” is not a well-defined place. For the other thing, given how fucked the streets are laid out, “left or right” is not useful directions unless you’re already close enough to see the water front from the street. Finally, you probably don’t want the directions I might have given you: “take a left, then a right, then the road curves to the right, then you take two lefts and cut through an alley to Chinatown, make sure you enter the correct side of the station, to take the orange line to State St, switch to the Blue Line to go the Aquarium… or find your own damn map because it’d be faster to walk”
I was taking a friend to a wedding of another friend of both of us and we stopped for lunch on the way. As we left, she went to the restroom and I went up front to pay. And I waited, and waited, and waited.
She finally showed up and I hooked about getting ready to send a search party for her. She said I should have, she got lost between the restroom and the front door. In a not particularly large chain restaurant, she was wandering around unable to find the entrance. She finally saw me over the barrier right before she gave up and asked for help.
Yeah, some people can’t do directions.
Or, more likely, he is like me and just picks up directions like that as he lives his life. I do that just visiting cities for a few days, without even realizing I’ve done it until someone talks about it or asks for directions. (Of course, inevitably, if I rely on that happening it doesn’t work and I make a wrong turn somewhere. :p)
I have never been able to figure out why people stop me on the street and ask me directions. Had it happen in cities all over the continent, in the US and Canada. And in London, Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra. I can’t look like a native in all those places.
Best one was the people that stopped me in DC, on Independence Ave SW, just at the West end of the Smithsonian. A couple speed me and asked if I could tell them where the Washington Monument was. :eek: I pointed straight ahead of me and said, “That’s it, right there.” They looked at it, said thanks, and headed that direction.
Ok it was just 8 blocks away. But just because someone has lived in an area for most of their life, doesn’t mean he or she knows it 100% like the back of their hand. They most likely have never been to a particular area in their own turf because they had no reason to go there. Do you know your city, inside and out and can you tell a stranger where to go exactly in every area?
When I lived in Boston, I could tell you how to get many places on foot or by T. That was of no use to anyone in a car who pulled over to ask me for directions. Once I told someone, “Uh, go to the river and turn left.”
Answering someones simple question about a nearby thing isn’t being someones “personal tour guide”. Do you think it was normal that a city worker in NYC didn’t know what the Empire State Building was?
I didn’t want this to be a Pit thread. But I’ve noticed that this subject has touched a nerve with a few of you. Something else is going on. It’s beyond just disagreeing with me, or that I refer to such ignoramuses as dopes and such. Somethings got some of you pissy. Whats the matter? Angry that you don’t know where the hell anything is where you live? Embarrassed that you’re one of those that walk around all day with ear buds in, staring at your phone or Ipod, oblivious to you surroundings? What is it? What’s rubbed you the wrong way, folks?
It is not ludicrous to assume that someone working in a heavily touristy neighborhood knows where a huge landmark 8 blocks away is.
Not only do I, but you go to any restaurant, bar, or tourist attraction and anyone there will be able to tell you where anything is also. Especially major thing. The Boston Harbor isn’t some obscure, out of the way little place.
However I’m beginning to think this is another millennial trait. The attitude that the world began on the day they were born and nothing previous matters, and only things in their limited intellectual scope and pointless lives matters.
For fuck’s sake, “The Boston Harbor” is not a well specified landmark. If you were in Copley Square and asked for directions to the back bay, you’d get confused reactions. If you were in Inman Square and asked for directions to “the river”, again you’d get confused reactions.
What’s set me off is not my self-absorbed millenial ways. Nor my cluelessness about geography or lack of spatial awareness – in the very city you’re talking about, when the mood struck me I would halfway across it simply because that seemed more interesting than taking the T. I’ve walked all the way from Charlestown to Longwood because it was the first beautiful day of spring, or because it was snowing heavily and I almost had the whole city to msyelf.
No, what’s set me off is you’re cluelessness, entitlement, and willful ignorance. You don’t know where you’re going? Fine. You’re offended that someone can’t read the poorly formed thoughts in your mind? Get over yourself.
He didn’t know what it *was *or he didn’t know if that building was it? Two different things. I’d be surprised if he never heard of it, but not if he simply didn’t know whether that particular building was the ESB. I have lived in NYC for my entire life, and if I were down the block from it , I couldn’t tell you which way to go. Because I’m never in that area , and I’m not familiar with every neighborhood in all five boroughs of NYC. Some people are,but plenty of people aren’t. That city worker you saw may live in Queens and normally work in Brooklyn and was only in the area you saw him for a couple of days. There are no doubt places within 8 blocks of places I’ve worked that I couldn’t give you directions to - for example, today I was working at 40 St and 8th Ave. I could tell you how to get to the Port Authority bus terminal- it’s right across the street. I can tell you how to get to Macy’s because I’ve shopped there. I can tell you how to get to 42 St, because there’s a grid system - but don’t ask me which direction to turn on 42 St to get to Madame Tussaud’s because I don’t know. Actually, I do now because I looked it up- it’s only three blocks from my office but I didn’t know how to get there because I never walk to 42 St.
I’m 53 years old, so it’s not a millennial trait. But here’s my rant. The office I normally work in is near a transit hub in Queens. There are something like fifteen different bus lines within a few blocks of my office. If I am outside, people often ask me where a particular bus stops. Not a problem, but they often get annoyed when I don’t know. But why would I know where each of these 15 buses stop when I drive to work?
I can do that. I have an excellent mental map of my local area. What I don’t get is why you think anyone can automatically know where north/south/east/west are. If a person unfamiliar with an area asks you for directions, telling them to “go east” is useless information because there is no way for them to know which way is east unless it happens to be sunrise and/or they are packing a compass, which few people do.
But then wouldn’t you just say that? I really don’t understand this thread. I get that people are taking the OP to task for thinking so poorly of the restaurant staff, but simply to have any of a group of people, who’ve lived there long-term, suggest right or left? To something as large as a water mass that could be access from several different directions?
And I’ve waited tables before, in an area that wasn’t particularly touristy, but after any length of time, you learn to answer customer’s questions about where crap is just by overhearing stuff. If there was any confusion about his question or the destination, I don’t think it would’ve been too tall an order to ask for clarification… IE: “The Boston Harbor, you say? Well, there’s lots of routes to what would qualify, but I really don’t hang out there. Would it work to just send you to an overall area I think might be what your looking?” Or any such thing.
It’s that you’re being insulting to wait staff for not knowing the answer to a poorly defined question that you were interested in but they aren’t. That you are calling people ‘dopes’ and ‘ignoramuses’ for not knowing what you meant and/or the information that you, not they, care about - and that you’re enough of a dope and ignoramus not to know yourself. You refuse to take responsibility for your own actions, and instead try to somehow paint your own awful communication and travelling skills as the fault of ‘millennials’.
It is ludicrous, especially when, as Boston people keep pointing out, “Boston Harbor” is not actually a single well-defined location.
I am so glad that as I fall dead from whatever cause kills this old pilot, sailor, hiker, driver that I will still know what direction my head is oriented to in the fog and dark of night in my first foray into this particular mountainous area.
Unlike the OP, I like the latest tech if I can afford it. But as for getting around and needing it, I do not. And I am relentless in ragging on people who go about not being prepared.
I also do not understand why so many people are proud of not knowing anything but their one route. And make no effort to learn because they have always been like that and they can not learn any way to do better.
Can’t learn?? Or won’t and refuse to put any real effort in making some kind of progress if they are responsible for any life other than their own.
I do not understand that mind set.
But I do admit that I think anyone who goes or stays East of the Mississippi River has a form of mental illness. I feel the same about California. There is something scary in the water in those places.