Commuter Terrorists – The Blocker

As I am a salaryman, my primary means of transportation is of course, the subway and commuter trains. I use this to and from work as well as to appointments outside the office with outside parties (customers, suppliers, whatever). To say that I like the trains would be pushing it, but they are quick and effective means of transportation, especially compared to taxis which can end up quite costly and time consuming.

Taking a train during the day or weekends is usually no big deal, it’s pretty easy and not too crowded and for longer trips you usually can sit down as well. The problem is during the rush hours where the trains are crowded, smelly, humid and hot. However, as this is the only reasonable way and humans are quick to adapt this pretty quickly becomes routine and something you accept as a part of daily life, but not necessarily like.

But… there are some types of people that makes the commute a lot more unpleasant than it has to be and I thought I should start a brief series about these people that disturb my otherwise peaceful commute. This first time I thought I should mention “The Blocker” (note that “the public porno reader” who so annoys many female commuters will not be included in this series since I find them pretty entertaining, they usually look… a little less than savvy…)

The Blocker is usually a middle aged woman, looking like she is not commuting to work, probably is taking the train on another errand and is not used to commuting in rush hours (us Salarymen have evolved into some form of hivemind most of the time and automatically fall in line into proper commuting manners). The problem comes up when I enter the train and, like all veteran commuters, I try to get into the “corridor” of the train in front of the seats. This has a few purposes; 1. it frees up space for people coming in after me 2. It allows me to put my bag up on the shelf or at least be lined up for it if I end up behind someone, and finally 3. It puts me in a pole position to sit down later on if the person sitting in front of me gets off before me.

The Blocker is usually standing at the “entrance” to the corridor blocking the path into it and forcing me to stand in the vicinity of the doors, which is commuting hell since you have to move at every station to let people out and in. The Blocker usually has lots of space behind her in the corridor but is not receptive to the thought that people might want to get past her into the peaceful corridor of the train. You could think that this is a strategy from her since she’s getting off at a station close by and does not want to move back and forth from the depths of the “corridor” too much, but this is not always the case. On many cases have I’ve seen a blocker ride over 10 stations…

I have not yet found a good solution to this issue, the only thing that actually seem to work is to pretty violently try to push your way through, but a good blocker doesn't care and resists.

Coming up next: "The Hanger"