My job frequently takes me to different spots on campus, and while I prefer to walk to these meetings, I do sometimes find myself taking the bus. This is on-campus transportation, so I normally find myself sitting with a bunch of students. However, yesterday I hopped on a bus that went to our local transportation center before it came back to campus, and as a result found myself with several people who I think work in food services.
The first person on the bus was pretty boisterous, and seemed not to be aware of the rule that you only speak to other people on public transportation under very specific circumstances. The most important of these rules is that you do not stride halfway across the vehicle to engage someone in conversation. Violating this rule puts you firmly in the category of "loon." Fortunately, once a couple other people boarded, the loon moved on to accost others and left me in peace. Several of the new passengers seemed to know each other, and conversation was pretty lively. If it hadn't been 10:00 in the morning, I would have thought that I was headed for a party.
Once the bus headed into campus and picked up a handful of students, however, the entire dynamic immediately shifted. The students also knew each other, and spoke to each other in fairly hushed tones. What I found particularly amazing, though, is that the originally noisy passengers stopped their conversation entirely once the students boarded. I doubt anyone was consciously aware of it, but the feeling was almost like what you would expect from a group of teenagers when their parents suddenly enter the room. Very weird.
Posted by Jason at December 13, 2006 08:50 PM