“I’m on the train, see you soon”

I Hate

I used to commute into Edinburgh every day for work and my daily irritation was the sound of people chatting on their mobile phones, or hearing constant beep beeps of texts sent and received or the most irritating ring tones in the world.

Why is it that so many people get on the same train, at the same time everyday and still feel the need to call their partners and say “I’m on the train now, so I’ll be back soon” - surely their partners have the intelligence to know what time they’ll be back as they get the same train everday. Ok so if you miss the train you normally catch and have to get a later one, then I could understand, but I witnessed the same people making the same call every day at the same time.

Then you have the business man/woman who are going to a meeting or their other office and have to keep up to date, yadda yadd style, with all the insignificant nonsense that going on at work. It’s so irritating to listen to. Put a plug in it! This is the culture today though - being able to be constantly in touch with everyone, all the time and people take advantage of this and you end up with a 24 hour work ethic where you are always available.

I work for myself, from home. When I take my lunch break, I take a lunch break, which means I don’t answer the phone or emails for an entire hour. If I was working at a company I would do the same. I finish work at the end of the day and the same applies - I don’t answer the phone or emails after hours. But for some reason people assume that as I’m at home and I’m a freelancer it’s OK to call or email me at any time of the day or night or at the weekend. No it’s not.

More irritating is people who text on the train…I was sitting at a table seat, across from a guy the other week who had his phone sitting on the table. It beeped so loud when he got a text that I practically jumped out of my seat. He proceeded to get text after text and it got so irritating that I got up and moved to the next carriage and as I was standing up I explained to him why I was moving…I got the obligatory ‘WHATEVER’ as a response.

Image entitled ‘Office on a Train‘ courtesy of AcombDave