Permit me a rant about how some people conduct themselves in public spaces. I was in Vancouver last weekend for a family wedding. While climbing back into an airplane was much like riding a bike, there were some things I had happily forgotten in my misty recollections of being part of the corporate sky-bound population for so many years.
Loudmouths. Specifically, the loudmouth travellers who consider themselves Very Important. While waiting in the public lounge of a very busy airport, someone decided it was time to flex his importance on the unwitting — and uninterested — crowd of people who were just trying to read their books, scroll their phones or finish the New York Times Sunday crossword on their laptop.
That one was me. “Look, I am going to settle this strike,” boomed Very Important. He was standing over some kind of colleague — I think he was on the other side of this debate, but he very much wanted his colleague to sit down and shut up.
Very Important needs to learn lesson No. 1: read your opponent’s body language. “Let me tell you, I’m about to find out if your people are really cheap or really stupid.
” That is verbatim. He said it several times. As I realized what he was doing, I started typing it down.
I’m sneaky like that and loud is fair game. He went on to delineate facts about strike positions, timing and how he was going to rain hell on those who thought he was playing around. He might have been about 25 or 26.
Nothing wrong with being 25 .
