Ryan
Court Jester
GML,
In principle, I agree with you, making life difficult for those with that kind of power can be foolish. Here's my reasoning for handling things the way that I did. First, like you suggested, I wasn't on a tight timeline - I actually left work about 30 minutes earlier than I needed to in order to catch my train to devote the time to taking pictures. I pushed back as hard as I did on the first guy that approached me because he was just a track worker-type. If a station manager or police officer had initiated things, I likely would have handled things a little differently. Once the station manager and transit police were involved, I was nothing but sweetness and charm to both of them (while still maintaining my ground that I was correct). In both my written complaint and conversation I had with the Superintendent yesterday, I went out of my way to say that while misinformed on the rules (which is easily corrected), the station manager did an exemplary job of handling the situation. She was polite and got the hostile track worker out of the picture and back on the job, defusing the situation. Same with the transit police when they showed up. As far as their ability to harass me, I'm always completely within the rules on the train - easy to do as long as you don't eat or drink and pay your fare.
Thanks for the thoughtful commentary - it's great advice to keep in mind and not all situations will end up as nicely as this one.
In principle, I agree with you, making life difficult for those with that kind of power can be foolish. Here's my reasoning for handling things the way that I did. First, like you suggested, I wasn't on a tight timeline - I actually left work about 30 minutes earlier than I needed to in order to catch my train to devote the time to taking pictures. I pushed back as hard as I did on the first guy that approached me because he was just a track worker-type. If a station manager or police officer had initiated things, I likely would have handled things a little differently. Once the station manager and transit police were involved, I was nothing but sweetness and charm to both of them (while still maintaining my ground that I was correct). In both my written complaint and conversation I had with the Superintendent yesterday, I went out of my way to say that while misinformed on the rules (which is easily corrected), the station manager did an exemplary job of handling the situation. She was polite and got the hostile track worker out of the picture and back on the job, defusing the situation. Same with the transit police when they showed up. As far as their ability to harass me, I'm always completely within the rules on the train - easy to do as long as you don't eat or drink and pay your fare.
Thanks for the thoughtful commentary - it's great advice to keep in mind and not all situations will end up as nicely as this one.
