OMG.
Someone just drove past me on a Segway.
And I'm at work.
They just whizzed by me, down the hallway.
...
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
Whew! Seriously though *wipes tears from eyes* I love rich people. They're so disconnected.
Wait, wait, here he comes again...bwahahaha...I shouldn't laugh, he probably has problems with his legs or something, but I don't understand how the Segway ever got off the drawing board.
Okay, seriously though.
I don't read Glamour magazine, except when it gets slow at Job A, then I might pick it up. Also occasionally my self-esteem is SO HIGH I need a puncture so I flip past the size 000 models and remind myself that I have a long way to go.
Going to need energy. Better get some cake.
One of the things Glamour does is send a hapless intern or reporter or whatever out into the streets of NYC to see how friendly people are. The scenario usually goes like this: hapless intern is carrying eight cups of Starbucks coffee plus bags of pastries. WILL ANYONE HELP HER, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!! Disguised cameraman takes pictures of people walking by looking at her in sympathy, intern notes how the only person who helps her also asked for her number, when intern finally dumps all the coffee, a friendly passer-by helps her pick up the carnage, etc. Last month it was a woman trucking around a pair of giant suitcases.
I find these "articles" interesting on the sociological level. First off, it's always a woman, so already there's something inherently sexist about the experiement. "oh, help me! I am a hapless woman forced to fetch and carry! help! help!" Well honey, I've said it once--if you're going to pack that much luggage, you better be prepared to carry it. Also--if you sign up for an internship, you're going to have to get coffee occasionally. DEAL. (This month's victim noted how she would never EVER make anyone get her coffee. Yeah. Right. Isn't that why God invented interns? I know someday I'm going to get an intern and make her get me coffee. Well, make tea. And she better do it right.) PS: Starbucks, Intelligentisia, Argos Tea, Dunkin' Doughnuts (not that anyone goes to DD--not haute enough, I guess) et al now have these handy little bucket o' coffee containers with a screw on lid. Kind of like a gas can for coffee, only insulated. So there's really no reason to be carrying around eight cups of coffee, unless everyone wanted something different. And if they did--well, that's the point when you'd whip out those quivering eyelashes... "but, but...I can't CARRY eight cups of coffeeee!"
Actually, come to that, I think a gas can would be a GREAT way to carry around coffee. Imagine the looks you'd get emptying a pot at a gas station into your gas can. And then drinking from it.
I would actually have more sympathy for someone carrying a suitcase (been there), and I might also want to show a visitor that yes Virginia, there actually ARE friendly Americans. I don't know about helping someone pull a suitcase down the road, but hitching it up the stairs? Sure. Although--I have been in situations where parents are hiking strollers bearing children up the stairs and I've swept past. I know it's possible to grab the footrest and carry (moms and dads working in tandem have this down) but I'm less anxious to do it when there's a chance that the Precious Cargo might fall out. Even if the parent is holding up traffic.
The other problem with the Glamor 'speriments is, again, the fact that they're always conducted by women. It would be infinitely more interesting if they did it with a woman and also a man and compared results. Especially if the man also asked a passerby to unstick his hair from his lip gloss.
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I think reality tv is sending the whole us into a kind of voyeristic fetish world. Wasn't there a reality show recently where actors would stage fights in the park and the guy would slap the girl or some other such incidents that are low key on the scale of things that can happen to you in life - like a stunt guy purposely falls off his bike and they try to see if anyone around will intervene but when you think about the fact that these are actors - it's all a set up to manipulate ordinary people. Because then if no one steps up the camera crew gets in the face of the nearby people and says Why didn't you help? Did you see that? It was fake but you should have helped! The Daily Show did a spoof on that where people walked by an actor who let out a completely loud sigh and then the camera crew jumped out and said Obviously this person's depressed, why didn't you ask them what was wrong you unfeeling human being.
For the record when I was in New York last year a woman was carrying two plastic shopping bags and one of them broke in the middle of the street and everyone around rushed to help her pick up her stuff and someone nearby even gave her a new plastic bag. No camera crew was on the scene to capture it.
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