This morning as I was going through the turnstiles, entering the subway, I noticed the little digital display read “No Tokens.” I must have read this about 1000 times before today. But for some reason, this morning, I decided to think about it for a minute. Why in the world does the MTA feel like they still have to inform riders that the turnstiles no longer accept tokens? People haven’t been able to use Tokens in the subway since 2003. Is the MTA afraid that someone is going to awake from a coma and try to get on the subway with a token, then sue when they can’t because they didn’t realize that tokens were no longer used?
Another observation/pet peeve, witnessed this morning, was the guy walking along in front of me chatting it up on his phone. With the “hands free” piece installed, he held the microphone portion right in front of his mouth. How long have cell phones been around now? Has that poor sap still not figured out that the mic on his hands-free wire will pick up noises on the other side of the street, let alone the words coming out of his mouth, if he lets it dangle (like it is designed to do) 6 inches from his face? Doesn’t he realize that by holding that thing against his bottom lip, he is not only muffling his words, but probably blowing out the eardrums of the person on the other end? Also, if you are going to go through the trouble of holding something next to your face, why use “hands free” at all? Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose?
Maybe I’m totally missing a key factor in both of these issues, that is preventing me from understanding the logic. Can someone explain it to me?
Comments
3 responses to “Observations”
Had you kept following that guy with the hands free iPhone, you would have seen him go down into the subway and try and get through the turnstile with his circa-2003 token. It’s a good thing they have that warning.
I can almost guarantee that he doesn’t realize he doesn’t have to talk into his phone. He thinks the earpiece is just for him to hear the conversation, and has no idea it picks up his voice as well.
I may have been guilty of this once upon a time, but to my credit it only took a few minutes before I caught on.
I totally agree about the ‘no tokens’ thing. That is super dumb. Like, where would one be able to insert a token, with the way that the turnstiles are built? I think the MTA must be preparing for someone who comes out of a coma. What a sad, rude awakening when poor coma dude realizes all his tokens from when he fell asleep in 2002 wont work now. F the MTA.