Observations

I've been commuting between NJ and NY for four days now. It's been a very interesting experience! Will jot down some observations.

1. People never rush in and out of trains or on the platform. No matter how crowded the platform is and no matter how quick the train takes off, people will never rush or push aside others. Extremely patient, tolerant and considerate of others. Something of blaring contrast with Indian mentality.

2. Two guys never sit together in the trains even if they know each other well. If you are a man, sitting close to another man is looked upon as suspiciously gay behavior. I have been observing people on the trains. I never saw two guys sitting on a 2-person seat. And when they sit on a 3-person seat, they sit on far corners, trying to maintain as much distance as possible.

3. On the escalators, 2 people can stand side by side like all escalators. But interesting thing is that the left queue always moves. That is if you want to stand on the escalator, you are supposed to stand on the right side. If you want to climb up or down, you are supposed to be on the left queue.

4. On the NJ Transit (NJ to NY) the ticket checker comes to every seat, takes the ticket from you and places a chit (A colored strip of paper with some numbers written on it) with a punch hole on the head of the seat in front of you. There is a leather pocket on the seat in which they slip this piece of paper. And when your destination station is about to come, they come and take this chit back.

5. You can buy ticket on the train also but you need cash. I had a bad experience when I was carrying the pass but the pass was of next month and the conductor said you will have to buy ticket as this pass is not valid in this month. I had to get down at the next station. I did so even if the conductor didn't ask me to. Plain old ego! Lesson learned: Always keep your eyes open, inspect the things you buy and carry some cash in your pocket always.

6. NY people have complete disregard for walk signs on the road. They act just like we do in India. They will look at both the sides for coming vehicles and if there is no vehicle till a reasonable distance, they will cross the street even if the walk-sign is off. How I love this spirit :P

7. Within Bloomberg, the free food is consumed in same quantity as it would have been in India somewhere. People here in US do not feel embarrassed about free food. Even in my school, I hear people mentioning free food every now and then. In the school, we have this custom of having cookies, coffee etc on every special lecture organized by the department every week. And the subject line of the email always reads 'Free food now on the 9th floor atrium !'.

8. Bloomberg has TV screens here and there in the office space. Recently they are showing the photographs of new hires. It was fun to see my photo being displayed across all the floors of the office :)