During the holidays, a reader (let's call her
"Marie") from a city in the Northeast hopped on her closest subway
stop to take the train into the city to do some shopping. It was a Saturday
afternoon, so the trains were not as crowded as they might have been during the
weekday commute.
There were several seats open on the car Marie boarded,
so she found one and sat down. Seated across from her was a young woman on her
cellphone. The young woman had a large pocketbook placed on the seat next to
her.
At the next stop, a young man boarded, looked around the
train, which still had many empty seats and then asked the young woman on the
cellphone to move her bag so he could sit on the seat next to her.
At first, the young woman didn't acknowledge him, but then
she took a moment away from her cellphone call and said, "There are plenty
of empty seats. Take one of them." She went back to her call.
The young man responded, "You're kidding me,
right?" and stood staring at the young woman for a few seconds. He looked
around the train at the other passengers, grumbling, "Can you believe
this?" Finally, he moved down the train car and took one of the empty
seats. The young woman remained on her call.
While there were plenty of seats available that the young
man could have taken, Marie believes the young woman was wrong to take up more
than one seat with her bag. Though it certainly wasn't the first time Marie had
seen such discourteous behavior on the subway, it was the first time she had
witnessed such a confrontation where the bag spreader refused to move a bag
when asked. (Twitter is chock full of photos of such culprits tagged #bagspreader or #bagspreading.)
She wonders if she or another passenger should have
weighed in to let the young woman know she should move her bag so the seat was
available for other passengers.
The young woman on the cellphone is wrong to take up more
than one seat on the subway car. She and other passengers should do the right
thing and take up only one seat and hold on their laps any bags they might have
with them. If they have too many bags, they should choose to stand rather than
to take up multiple seats.
Rarely do subway conductors or employees make their way
through the trains. If they did, they should ask riders to take up only one
seat.
But Marie should have felt no obligation to weigh in.
Doing so could escalate the situation more than needed. Since other seats were
available, the right thing was for the young man to chalk the young woman's
behavior up to rudeness and then to find another seat for the ride.
Other riders should avoid following the young woman's
example and instead show some common courtesy while riding public
transportation. It's not the fear of finding a photo of them behaving badly
tweeted widely that should motivate them to take up only one seat. It's the
right thing to do.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's KennedySchool. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
4 comments:
I’m with the “bag-woman.” Why - when there were many (or even just a few) other seats available – would a man ask a woman to accommodate his desire to sit next to her, forcing her to put her large bag on her lap? Not only that, he interrupted her cellphone conversation to do so. I think he was more presumptuous than she was rude (not that I am suggesting any virtue on her part). If and when cars fill up closer to capacity, of course, bag-carrying passengers in general should put them on their laps and not “hog” the adjoining seat.
I agree that this was a matter between the two principals and not one inviting the involvement of others.
I agree with Phil. If I were a single young woman on a train with many empty seats, I would feel very uncomfortable if a man asked me to move my bag so that he could sit right next to me. It's that request that seems inappropriate to me. I think it is ridiculous to expect someone to hold everything on his or her lap when there are plenty of other seats for passengers. If every other seat were taken, that would be a different situation.
I agree with the previous posters. The lady with the bag was not out of line in placing the bag on the empty seat. She was not inconveniencing anyone by doing so. The man was wrong in interrupting the woman's call to insist on the already taken spot rather than any one of the many available seats already open. She was there first. Is this really the level of ethical quandary that we are troubling ourselves with?!? It is more a question of etiquette than ethics.
William Jacobson, esq.
Anaheim, CA
I think the man asking to sit next her is creepy and possibly a danger to her. The bag next to her is signaling her need for a larger personal space. As the train (or elevator, for that matter) becomes more crowded our need for personal space shrinks accordingly unless your claustrophobic. The male passenger was inappropriate.
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