Dear SF Ethicist,
It’s bad enough that the N Judah is so crowded I have to squeeze on most mornings. What’s worse is when I’m hanging on with one hand for dear life and holding my iPhone with the other, and someone ends up close enough to see my screen. And it’s not even the Plus size! I’ve stopped texting my lover on the train, just in case. I’m creeped out by some drooler possibly reading about our polyamorous commitments at Tantric cooking class.
Yesterday I was watching a video of my friend Charlotte doing her demo in last year’s Burning Man Yoga-Yogurt Yurt — putting the “bi” back in macrobiotic, she likes to say — when I felt nasty nose breath on my neck. I turned and caught a peeper, and put my phone down. It was pretty clear from my fierce face that I was not down with sharing, even if Charlotte wouldn’t mind. The lady looked annoyed, as if I was being rude by depriving her! Should I have told her off, or just gotten over it and switched over to Rachel Maddow highlights?
Step Off My Sexy Business, Y’all
Dear SOMSBY,
I commend you and everyone else for surviving the N during rush hour without going over to the Dark Side. Muni says the new trains are coming this year, with better braking systems — which hopefully means less chance for those “oops!” groper moments. Anyway, you’re entirely within your rights to enjoy the ferment of, um, pickles and polyamory in the privacy of your own phone. I’m wondering whether, in the heat of the moment when you find yourself pressed against other people, you would consider podcasts.
Dear SF Ethicist,
Summer is almost here, and it’s a stressful time for team leaders like me. Last year I dealt with colleagues “working from home” who were obviously with their kids at Disneyland. Now I’m slammed with the Q4 road map, and as I’m pulling in and out of the driveway I have enough trouble getting Bluetooth to sync to my car display. I don’t have the time to hear from Malcolm next door about his adventures in home-brewing, or to chat with Ashok and Priya and their twins on the way to charter school.
Exhibit A: Last weekend there was yet another block party on my street — complete with a screeching blower for the jumpy house, of course. Do you think I’m going to waste my Saturday making conversation around a keg as if I were an overpaid developer at the company happy hour? Instead of pretending to like sports and tortilla chips, I hit the road. Of course I get judged; I can see the looks as I back my Cayenne out and avoid the cornhole game.
Next time, rather than flagging all my neighbors’ “community” emails as junk, I just want to ask a question: Can’t you tell I’m hustling here? Why am I the terrible person because I want to meet my benchmarks? Let’s take this offline.
Doing Iteration Sprints Requires Unbelievable Push Times
Dear DISRUPT,
I know, right? Why can’t efficiency be the new efficiency? In the global 24/7, the slow lane can feel like the death lane to people like you — and there certainly are a lot of you! Let the haters hate and the chatters chat. Not everyone can be a good neighbor and a change agent at once. Just don’t run over anyone’s dog when you’re racing toward the information superhighway.
Dear SF Ethicist,
The other day I saw my neighbor putting milk cartons in his blue bin. It’s not the first time I’ve seen him flouting the guidelines, but I usually give him the benefit of the doubt. All those different plastics!
But come on, milk cartons? It’s right there on the sticker inside the lid. NO MILK CARTONS. Maybe his shit-disturber nine-year-old peeled it off, just like he peeled off my “Peskin For Mayor” bumper sticker and jammed it in my mailbox with a gob of Bubble Yum inside. I know it was him.
Still, no excuse. Only an idiot doesn’t know that milk cartons are wax-lined and therefore ineligible for the blue bin.
So when he put out his bins last week, I fished out the cartons at 2 a.m. and stacked them up on his front porch. I think he got the message, especially because they were on fire. I’ve watched him do his recycling the past two weeks, and I haven’t seen a single milk carton in the mix. But I wonder if the ends have justified the means. Does this make me a bad person?
Sorting Neighbor Oughta Be Smarter
Dear SNOBS,
The market (along with the cow) brings us milk in several kinds of containers, and it’s up to all of us to be aware and take care.
Once that happens, who can sleep at night knowing that the root of the problem is right across the street, cavalierly tossing wax-lined cartons into the wrong bin? Life’s disappointments build up like food scraps in Ed Lee’s mustache, and you can understand why some people snap at the gum-chewing barista or become terminally disgusted by their whining kids.
Nobody wants that. So do your neighbor a large and leave a sticky note with a smiley face on it. If he responds by posting a nasty note back, seek out a quiet and calming place, go for a long run, a cortado — whatever works to center yourself. He’s probably not rinsing his jars out either, and you can add that project for next year.
Got concerns about others that reveal your own lack of self-awareness? Let us know at thefrisc AT gmail.com. No attachments, please. We’ve got enough of our own.
Photo by Osbornb via Creative Commons.