My dear friends,
I have to commute about 30 miles to work everyday, one way. Whenever I can, I use public transportation in my case BART, Bay Area Rapid Transit, a train line that connects half of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sure, it takes a little longer and sometimes it smells a little weird inside (keep a wet towel on your porch for a couple of days and you get a pretty good idea), but I’m willing to take that.
I enjoy the 10 minutes bike ride from the last station to the office. That’s my daily dose of fresh air and keeps me connected to my surroundings. Riding the train also provides a great opportunity to catch up with some reading. I still prefer reading from good old paper over sitting in my car struggling with the Bay Area traffic and listening to audio books on my iPod. In fact, I don’t even have an iPod.
But the main reason why I like riding the train is because of the other 320,000 people that use BART every week. As I watch people getting on and off the train it always strikes me that I will probably never see that person, that particular face, again in my life. Granted, the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most densely populated areas in the United States, but that does not lessen my fascination. Every single face in this crowd belongs to a person with a different story.
That nervously looking teenager standing right next to the doors, will he apply for his first job today? He definitely looks out of place with his suit and the tie. Or that older Chinese man who is studying an ad-paper with the same serious look as the business man behind him the Financial Times. Was he born in China? Maybe he grew up in San Francisco China Town, bursting with pride when he was left alone for the first time to overlook his parents laundry-salon when he was eleven years old. That women over there in a nurse’s uniform. She looks tired. Is she on the way home to her loved ones after a long night shift at the hospital?
Simply looking at all these people and imagining what could be their story provides a great source of inspiration. And sometimes all I have to do is watch and listen. On a busy Tuesday morning I sat across a mid-aged guy, wearing glasses, a little overweight, thin hair, in a dark shirt with a suit case on his lap. His wife probably put that shirt on a chair so he could find it in the morning when he was getting ready for the office. If you have seen the movie Office Space, he was a little bit like that stapler guy, without a stapler and not as nervous, but you could see he’s a little shy. Anyway, the train was approaching the next station and people queued up in front of the door.
While the train was still moving, he got in line and for a fraction of a second made eye contact with another guy joining the queue. He was in good spirits and greeted with a: “How are you doing?” A little embarrassed, stapler guy answered: “Fine, thanks.” His reply was followed by another question: “How is the analysis coming along?”
Here we obviously had an attempt to start off some small-talk. “Pretty well, thanks.” And as dry as a James Bond martini, happy guy said: “Yeah, I hate my job too.” At this point the doors opened, they left the train and parted in different directions. I never figured out if they knew each other or not.
