Life After Grad School

… strawberry shortcake. Or chocolate mint.

I’ve been biking to work. The distance is a measly two miles, so not really a great workout, but not only am I twice as fast as if I were taking the T, I also enjoy pleasant scents along the way. Right outside my door I cycle past a candy factory. I still don’t know what product is made there, but it spreads a wonderful and irresistible aroma of chocolate mint and strawberry shortcake. Please don’t tell me what they make, I’m pretty sure I’d rather live in ignorant bliss on this one.

On the other side of the river I ride down Charles Street and then cross the Boston Common, where the smell of freshly cut grass reminds even the busiest of us that it is in fact summer.

I know I have a pretty good commute by any standard, but who else can claim that their commute smells good as well?!

When checking out the MBTA’s new trip planner, I did a search for transit services near my home. As a vast improvement from previous versions the results now include a map. On it I found a curious landmark: the Holy Ghost Hospital. Funny, I didn’t think a hospital with that name existed in Cambridge. A little bit of research unearthed the following facts: the Youville Hospital used to be called the Holy Ghost Hospital for the Incurables (now that will cheer you up!) until it was renamed in 1970 in memory of its founder, Marguerite D’Youville, incidentally the first Canadian born saint. How information this old made it onto a digital map copyrighted in 2007 beats me. But thanks for the history lesson anyways!

A professor at the Wharton School applies some interesting logic to come to the conclusion that bicyclists do more damage to the earth than drivers. While he concedes that biking taxes the environment less than driving, he claims that since cyclists are healthier and live longer, they consume more resources and ultimately do more damage to the planet. Which is definitely a possibility. But even if you disregard the fact that many cyclists are more conscious about environmental issues in general, the main problem with this argument is that it singles out commuter biking as a source of longevity. SUV driving gym members can be just as healthy and live as long as commuting cyclists while polluting the air by circling around the gym parking lot several times to get the closest spot to the entrance.
If we followed the logic of the business school professor, we should all live an unhealthy lifestyle and drop dead as soon as possible to save the earth. And then who would be left to enjoy it?

Suppose the local transit authority announced a hefty fare increase. Suppose you are upset and would like to let them know that you feel a fare increase is unfair. Suppose you decide to speak at a public meeting. Fine idea, perfectly valid. Nobody is excited about paying higher fares. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

A) Anybody will understand that you’re frustrated, that doesn’t exempt you from being civilized.
B) Trust me, you will get a better reception and consideration when you speak or write respectfully rather than spewing off one insult after another. Because, honestly, when was the last time that worked for you?
C) Don’t cut each other off mid-sentence, you’re a grown-up and I am sure want to be treated like one, so act like one. If I hear one more time how disrespectful young kids are today, I will dedicate a whole blog rant to the topic of rude self-righteous adults. Some of the most civilized & respectful people I have seen at public hearings are high school students.
D) Don’t start crying (see C about being a grown-up).
E) A transit agency can’t be all things to all people. Yes, you have a right to be heard, but sometimes the answer is going to be that it can’t be done.
F) All the improvements people want to see cost money, if you are against a fare increase, many of those are unlikely to happen - ever.
G) People (native English speakers, I might add) complain about lack of signage in languages other than English to serve immigrant communities. I’m sorry, is it really so outragously preposterous to expect that immigrants to this country get a basic grasp on the language? People who have lived here for several years and don’t speak enough English to read signs should get language lessons, not be catered to by having everything translated into their language.
H) If you’re going to compare a public agency with a private business in terms of operating efficiencies etc, you have to concede that private businesses have the authority to raise prices without your input or an analysis of how that would affect low-income folks or the environment (and they constantly do so, have the prices of cars not gone up? milk? bread? clothes? Where is the public outrage?).
I) The public transit authority is not the cause of nor the solution for low minimum wages and social security payments.
J) Even if it can sometimes appear that way, public officials are not in the business of making your life miserable.
K) And, as always, think before you speak. Well presented constructive criticism and arguments are always welcome.

The events alluded to in this blog entry are not fictitious. Any similarity to actual events at recent public meetings is entirely intentional.

If you didn’t know that Monday was opening day of the baseball season or that the Women’s NCAA basketball championships were held in Boston yesterday, you had to look no further than the good old MBTA. Local buses prominently displayed “Go Red Sox” and “Welcome NCAA” was flashing for a couple of days in rotation with “1 - Harvard Square”. It’s fun, it makes me smile, but is it a good use of MBTA communications resources? Shouldn’t they instead display the bus route as to not confuse riders who may not be so familiar with the bus line? I mean, I can just see the confusion in the eyes of a foreign visitor: “Red Sox? I thought I was going to Harvard Square?” or “Wonder where NCAA is? You think it’s a nice part of town?” (insert foreign accent here).

Obviously I’m being silly. I suppose the whole thing adds to the uniqueness of Boston, the one place in the country where maps are useless because there is no way to determine your location based on street signs as they are conspicuously absent, where lawyers in suits wear baseball caps to work convinced that it will make the Red Sox win, where year after year Bostonians get tricked into thinking that spring had sprung and then get hit with snow in April and where the letter “r” was dropped from the alphabet a long time ago.