Odpowiedzialność Społeczna

Czyli kto ma robić, żeby inni nie musieli robić?

Ostatnio przejeżdżając się ulicami Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy na jednym ze skrzyżowań zauważyłem przewrócony pachołek, czy inną blokadę drogową. Znajdowała się ona na środku pasa; wszystkie samochody grzecznie omijały ją i nie przeszkadzały jej w spoczynku. Zacząłem zastanawiać się – co z tym fantem zrobić? Czy w obowiązku ‘dobrego obywatela’ należy trzymanie się, podniesienie pachołka? Rozwiązało by to problem natychmiastowo. Ale, bo zawsze są jakieś ale, po pierwsze z prawnego punktu widzenia nie można ot tak zatrzymać się na drodze bo stajemy się zagrożeniem dla ruchy (znacznie większym niż pachołek?). Dlatego, należałoby zatrzymać się na poboczu/chodniku i wtedy przejść się i pachołek uprzątnąć. Zamykając uprzednio oczywiście samochód – dobry obywatel w większości przypadków w oczach ‘zwykłych obywateli’ to frajer.

Ale dlaczego ja mam to robić? Śpieszę się do pracy! Nie będę sobie brudził rąk. Po to są służby porządkowe, aby przyjechały i udrożniły przejazd. Jedynym problemem jest to, że służby porządkowe nie działają (jeszcze) jak Batman i nie są wszędzie. Prędzej czy później przeszkodę usuną, jak ją znajdą. Można oczywiście powiadomić je telefonicznie. Ale czy ktoś zna numer? No i mam jeszcze za to płacić?! No i tak wyszło, że pachołek jak był tak jest, a my wygodnie, czysto i szybko tłoczymy się na jednym pasie.

Podróżuj z Klasą

Radek S. przywrócił Jolce K. paszport dyplomatyczny. Ja też poproszę jeden, albo jeszcze dla brata.

Nie byłaby to wcale zaskakująca wiadomość, ponieważ paszport dyplomatyczny może otrzymać żona każdego byłego prezydenta, szczególnie jeżeli naprawdę go potrzebuje. I ja też nie zawracałbym państwu gitary tą błahą informacją, gdy by pani K. faktycznie podróżowała codziennie z misją dyplomatyczną do 7 krajów na wszystkich kontynentach, i z powodu długiej odprawy spóźniała się lub miała problemy z połączeniem.

Ale pani K. żali się, że “z mężem mogła przechodzić przez salonik VIP, a kiedy podróżowała sama, była kontrolowana. W obecności ludzi ściągała buty, żakiet, przeszukiwali jej torebkę” (dziennik.pl, środa 17 czerwca 2009 10:30). I to jeszcze w dodatku żali się w wywiadzie dla ‘Gali”… Chodzi mi tutaj tylko i wyłącznie o powód żalów pani ex-prezydentowej. Widać nie leciała pani nigdy Ryanair’em z Etiudy; w salonikach VIP są pewnie darmowe drinki a zdejmowanie butów  chyba popsuło atmosferę….

Toilets

Why the doors to toilets in clubs and pubs open towards the inside? Not safe and not hygienic!

It is comfortable when you are wasted and walking into the toilet – you open the doors with one swift kick and you’re in. Fast, and you look cool. Also you don’t need to touch the doors with you hand – safe with the Swine flu around. But it doesn’t make sense when you want to get out. First of all, after you washed your hands (if you did you filthy person) you have to pull to open = touch the handle and get all the nasty stuff other people have on the their hands. Second, when you reach for the handle and somebody coming in tries to look cool, he or she breaks you hand. Not cool. Third, in case of fire, it is easier to push the doors to get out. Also, toilets are often small and crowded, so when you get in you always hit someone.

Any ideas?

Students

Over the last few days of the revision I went through many books from the uni library. What I noticed in some of them was a really annoying tendency for underlining and highlighting. I understand people have different learning techniques. Some like to take notes, others just read, some like to use highlighters. All the different colours that have specific meanings. It helps them to focus and memorize important information. I obviously do it as well – underline important quotes, names, definitions. But what I found in on of the books was an entire chapter of 30 pages underlined line after line with a pencil.

First of all – how can everything be this important? If everything is, than nothing is….It probably took this person more time and effort to underline everything, than to read the chapter and remember it. Second of all, it is a real pain to read this now. When I look at a page where something is highlighted I automatically focus on the highlighted part and ignore words in between – not the best way to study. So, when you highlight stuff in a book to help you study, you disturb my studying. Besides, you ruin a public book that belongs to the library by painting it all over.  There is also a difference between using a pencil that you can erase, and a highlighter that destroys the book.

Evil bananas

Something light to cheer up dull moods and break with sophisticated academic discussion.

Every few month ‘scientists’ working in laboratories ‘somewhere there’ came up with a new revelation about food, diet and lifestyle. The one I personally despise is the Evil Banana Theory. Many times when I was in a shop with different people, and mentioned I wanted some fruit, maybe a banana they said ‘oh you know bananas make you fat, they the most fattening of all fruit!’. My last year house mate used to say ‘oh sh*t up, it’s a fruit, it has all the vitamins and stuff inside, don’t tell me it’s bad’ and it makes sense pretty much. Bananas have simply became a victim of this new diet craze, that is turning more ridiculous. Instead of following a normal, healthy and balanced diet, which can in short be described as don’t eat junk food, they come up with weir ideas. Just veg, no carbs, only fruit, only water, only air. I’m not gotta stuff myself with 5 bananas (this sounds really weird), I just want to eat a good, healthy fruit, so back off!

I gets more silly and funny here in the UK with their Five-A-Day programme: eat five pieces of something green to be healthy. I’m telling you, they really need it here – just look at them. It gets even funnier when you look what counts for one of the five. For example juice. You may think ‘it makes sense – juice is healthy‘. But here the most crap juice from concentrate, with seven spoons of sugar per serving and taste designed in a lab, counts. What else? Does pepper on mi pizza count? Or salad (I don’t believe it’s made of veg) in my kebab? And potatoes chips are made from? The very fact that the welfare state wastes money on campaigns like this shows how bad things are down here. To all fancy diets – there is no perfect one. I think that when you eat things that don’t make you feel crap, it’s all good.

You find these revelations in newspapers and magazines mostly laying around in toilets and bathrooms. In one of them I found and article saying that swimming makes people fat, because ‘swimming in cold water, for instance, tends to make people crave high-fat foods such as buiscuits’ while other activities such as ‘running on a hot day’ suppress hunger. How am I supposed to run on a hot day in the UK? That means like 4 joggs per month in here! It’s like saying ‘walking on the left turns out to be more healthy, because statistically more destinations on Earth are on the left-hand side’ or ‘it is better to go out during the day than night because sun makes us sweat and lose callories’. Instead of spending money on useful research like this, find the cure for cancer!

People that…

Are on facebook  in the library when you desperately need a computer to print out your essay and you have 5 minutes.

I need to specify what I’m talking here about first. I don’t want to ban people from doing anything they want or watch anything they want on the library computers. But, timing is crucial. Around 11 am library is probably the most crowded place on campus. Short loan and long loan books have to be returned on the hour, and in ‘Essay Period’ people are finishing and printing their assessments before the 12 am deadline. There are no free computers in any room, and a informal queue (oh, glory to institutionalism and RTC for their analysis on queues) is appearing in the back. Immediately, all people who try to be smart and sneak through the back door are institutionalized.

In these hours, when the tension in the air is so thick you can let go of your books and they will float in the air, there’s always somebody chillin’ on facebook. Ok, I understand, you just printed your stuff, just wanna check messages. But there are people watching pictures from last night, showing their mates the girl they made out with last night (completely wasted, wearing those baggy skirts/shirts and stilettos in which they can’t walk properly), there are people making a dumb quiz (how does your poo smell like?) or stalking hot boys from the rugby team that got high yesterday in Oceana and were photographed kissing in ladies’ toilet.

First of all, I don’t understand why are you doing this here, in the library? Why not home? Why get up this early (10 is early) to sit here? Why now? Nobody would care if it’d be 11 pm. Maybe you want to show off? Well, you are not cool, just annoying. All I ask again is common sense. You can say ‘I got here first, I can do whatever I want on these computers’. First of all – I’m not so sure. I think library computers are prescribed for academic work. Second of all, you don’t see me playing minesweeper, or anybody watching XXX. Should facebook and similar be banned on library PCs? I say no. It’s up to people to behave reasonably.

People that…

Stop for a chat in the most inappropriate place.

This is not an over exaggeration, and I’m not being too provocative. I’ve noticed this phenomena very common here in the UK. Groups of people walking on the pavement suddenly stop, possibly in the thinnest and most crowded place, to begin their polite and fake conversations “OOOOH, haven’t seen you in ageeeees! How’s revision going?!” and gossip about how wasted they got last night. In most cases they are females (yes! Feminists, I said it! Stereotype, label, socially constructed gender!). They don’t move to the side to let anybody pass them. Then even give you attitude when you say ‘sorry’. Most annoyingly, they do it in the library – in the doorway, on the stairs, in the tightest possible spot. This extremely convenient whey you run to return your books before 11am and it’s 1 to…..

Another annoying thing about the library: there are only 3 swipe card gates, located around 5 meters from the coursed revolving doors. Now it takes some time, after you swipe your uni ID, for gates to open. It all usually goes smoothly and without a giant queue, even during rush hours. Disaster happens when somebody with a huge bag (yes! Feminists. A woman!) gets to the gates and then starts to look for her/his (if you know any lad with a giant bags…) card, which is somewhere on the bottom. Queue gets longer and people at the end die a terrible death in the doors.

Common sense – stop on the side….you bas*ard.

How about….

People that take the lift to the 1st floor.

Now this is an old classic. I don’t really like lifts, I prefer taking the stairs. Another rule of thumb I apply in this case -  don’t take the lift when it actually is faster to get there on foot. In most cases it means 1st and second floor. Back home I live on the 4th floor, and  I generally take the lift every time. Now, we must take some presumptions here. For me lifts are there for people in need – with heavy bags, with baby trolleys, for elderly, disabled or many other. What I’d like to focus on here is the case of absolutely healthy, fit people taking the lift to the 1st floor, or even worse, one floor down.

Some case studies. In the Old Tow in Warsaw few years ago city council decided to open few escalators and a lift from the bus stop to the hilltop. Brilliant idea – first sign of Warsaw finally thinking about people in need. The escalators are a bit useless, but tourists can take pictures and you can be even more lazy than you already are. Soon after the opening, me and my mate took the lift just for ‘fun’ and to this day I’m ashamed. While we were gently floating down in the brand new glass-and-steel-and-concrete lift we saw a security guy waiting for us on the ground floor. It was too late, and there was no escape. “I can’t see you two lads disabled”. I mean, he probably couldn’t punish us in any terrible way and finally let us go, but it was pretty embarrassing and made me think about it.

In my block of flats somebody opened a private company on the first floor. Since then, I’ve been suffering people taking the lift for 3 seconds every day with me inside. First of all, in time the lift comes down from 6th floor I can bloody carry you up there on my back. Second of all, people don’t really know how to use lifts any more. You know how slow the doors are closing and opening (this also counts in the time it actually takes to use it) and there’s always somebody to accidentally  touch this safety thingy so they open again. It takes bloody ages. Few days ago I wanted to take the lift to one of my seminars on 5th floor (reasonable) and I immediately regretted my decision. Also, lifts in the UK have this most annoying voice telling you “doors opening. Lift going up”. I’ve heard this at least 4 times before we went up, for 4 seconds, to the first floor where 1/2 people left.

Finally, the people that take lifts one floor down. Why? Are you that tired? Is it that hard to walk down the stairs? Honestly, for some of you out there it’d be better if you take the stairs, you know what I mean…. I don’t want to sound like a total pr*ck and ban people from using lifts. Just mentioning it, so maybe next time you take the stairs.

People on the bus…

that crowd you only because they get out on the next stop.

This is simple, and me complaining about this should not be dismissed by somebody saying that it’s silly and I’m over reacting. I don’t commute every day by bus/tram/underground. But I take it from time to time and that’s enough to know how people behave there.

I’d like to describe a certain annoying behaviour that I encountered many times, which is people that are too eager to get out. Sometimes when you get on a crowded bus, there’s no other place to stand than in front of the door. When the bus gets closer to the stop, people get up and get read for ‘deployment’. But as some people do it reasonably and just wait there without bothering anybody, other try to be closer to the door than you are. If you’re not getting off on the next stop, you can just elbow your way thorough to the back. Also, you can stay where you are, then get off and back on – nice and easy. Obviously you can be a total pr*ck and just do nothing, but you can expect some unpleasant pushing, elbow in your ribs, stepping on your feet, being called ‘an ass*ole’ or get you wallet stolen. But if you are getting off, there’s not much you can do, except explaining to them “you know I’m out now as well so don’t panic, I won’t be in your way”. You can let them stand closer to the door, but what’s the point if you’ll get off as well.

But you are not finished. Hell begins when the next stop is some kind of a hub like central bus station or you are foolish enough to take the bus in peak rush hours. Then, if you want to get out, you face not only those who push you out, but also those pushing in. Fair enough, there’s not much to bitch here about, we can only hope that most people feel the same way, life is life, complaining about buses is silly.

But, what really grinds my gears is those smart evil bastards that are trying to get in. Let’s say you’re a good citizen, somebody standing behind you wants to get out, so although you taking the bus further, you step off to let the person out. You go out, stand on the side, let him/her pass and the bang! Everybody thoughtlessly pushes forward trying to squeeze 123628 people into one bus. You end up pushed against the door window with your arm twisted and foot  between the door.

I know that life isn’t fair, and nobody cares about ‘good citizens’ but please, if you’re one of the pushing in just let the righteous citizen first.

People who…

Say ‘after you’ when you open the door and let them through.

I think it really doesn’t get any simpler. When I open the door for you and let you go first, just go first for God’s sake. I am really annoyed with people that don’t go first, but stand aside and say ‘after you’.  This is a crucial moment. What happens now depends one thing – how stubborn are you. If you are, then you say ‘no no no, after you’ and you think ‘I opened the damn door, this is not the Buckingham Palace, this is a shopping centre’. So here we are, standing and being really kind to each other, but we’re not moving at all and the queue of angry people is growing behind us.

I understand that this person only wants to be nice and all (well, nicer than I am…), but this would be much simpler if she/he would go through. My hand is already twisted in a unnatural way around the doorknob and I’m standing on the side, so it’s easier for you.

Sometimes, when this takes too long I just go, because I hate wasting time on things like this. If your ego is really that big, and it will be a blow to you honour that I let you through, walk really fast and open the next door for me, and we’ll be even. Or you can generally walk fast all the time and open all doors for me, I really don’t mind.

I understand there are some feminists in this world that like to show on every step how equal and strong they are. When I open the door for you, I’m not really thinking “Go you little bunny, you’re just a little weak woman afraid of the Big World”. I do it because I’m nice. I personally have this rule of thumb: the first person that gets to the door, should open it for the other, no matter who it is. Especially, when we come to my place/house. I’m not yet sure if this is proper according to the etiquette, but when you come with me to my house, you go first (I’ll check it and update later).

There is this urban legend that men let women go first because in the ‘old days’ there could be a booby trap in the door so it’s saver to check first (purely reasonable selfish behaviour). However, I’m quite sure that this is not the reason any more.

So, next time just go please.