300,000,000

[Moonliner]

Ok, that's it. There are three hundred million of you out there now and I need to have a little chat with about 289,000,000 or so of you....

It is no longer 1960. Gone are the carefree days of old where you could take you own sweet time with everything ok? Now here in the O's there are people in line behind you. Always, everywhere, no matter what you are doing. At the grocery store, get your credit card out and swipe it WHILE the checker is scanning your groceries. Do NOT wait until everything is scanned and then start digging in your wallet or purse for it. On the highway, keep up with the person in front of you and for god's sake turn right on red when there is no traffic coming from your left. Also when making a left, it's OK to pull out into the intersection while waiting for traffic to clear. Remember we are all in this together and you need to step up your game. Thank you.

[scaeagles]

I was having a chat at work about cultural differences in terms of personal space and general tempo.

One guy is from NJ where you don't look at people, keep a certain amount of space between you, and if you aren't moving fast enough, everyone behind you lets you know it loud and clear.

Another guy is from the outskirts Atlanta and it is completely the opposite. Southern mentality....slow pace, ultra friendly, and if you don't greet everyone you see you are considered to be rude. No one much seems to care how long something takes. My father in law, who spent a large portion of his life in Hawaii, said it's pretty much the same there.

Yet another is from South Africa, where apparently there is not much of a concept of personal space. Think Seinfeld "close talker" episode.

It's amazing how this varies by region and country. I find myself to be more like Moonliner described (having grown up in CA).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Yet another is from South Africa, where apparently there is not much of a concept of personal space. Think Seinfeld "close talker" episode.

Interesting - my mom is from SA and in my visit there I didn't sense this. Granted, I was 14 at the time and probably far too distracted by the racial relations down there to notice anything else.

Easy-going, slow-moving strangers that want to tell you their life stories bug the sh.t out of me. Get out of my face and get a move on!

[innerSpaceman]

Hahaha, to the New Yorker in me, So. Cal is about as mellow as I can handle.


Now, move it, granny ... that means you!.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

Always, everywhere, no matter what you are doing. At the grocery store, get your credit card out and swipe it WHILE the checker is scanning your groceries.

It's funny. 20 years ago we bitched because the person didn't start writing their check until after everything was wrung up. This took a 2 minute payment transaction and turned it into a 4 minute payment transaction.

Now that a 20 second payment transaction is turned into a 40 second payment transaction by similar thoughtlessness we still bitch just as much.

In a decade when instanteous debiting is widely available we'll probably bitch just as much at the person who is too slow and makes 5 seconds take 8.


I'm more in the opposite direction. I hate having to make small talk with strangers but otherwise am pretty laid back about such things. The more you're in a hurry the slower it feels like you're getting there. If I get stuck behind a slow car in the fast lane, oh well, they'll move eventually. As things get crowded I think we need to be become more tolerant of the standard deviation in human behavior because we are more likely to run into the extremes, not increase the pressure for everybody to conform, which just increases the tension.

The other day at Safeway I ended up in line behind a woman from Europe somewhere who was experiencing some confusion about how to pay for with her credit card and there were communication problems that caused more delay. I swear, if the guy behind me in line had a nuclear bomb he would have used it to release the anger he was feeling at this horrible injustice to his time.

Plus, if you honk at me for not driving the way you want me to drive (which generally isn't entirely legal or safe), I guarantee I'm about to make your live much worse. Flash your highbeams at me because I'm passing someone on 5 at 85 miles per hour rather than your preferred 187 miles per hour and I'm likely to experience a sudden loss of power that results in me exactly matching the speed of the car I'm passing. It could take several miles to resolve depending on how insistant you are.

[sleepyjeff]

I was at Safeway the other day too. I had only 4 items and was just hopping into the fast lane when some guy with a crazed look about him shows me his 1 item and pretty much jumps in front of me(I guess he just assumed that since he only had one item it was ok to line jump....whatever). He gets up to the cashier, starts rapping his fingers rapidly on the counter and asks her, not too nicely, "where are the .33 cent candy bars?" She tells him and he leaves the line, comes back with 6 bars(he was quick, but still... )

Piece of work.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

I wonder if they specified who the 3 millionth person was? And did they get a free churro?

[Nephythys]

bwa ha ha!

I hear there is a birth ever 5-6 minutes- but what is the death rate?

[Alex]

You heard wrong. The US Census statistic is a birth every 7 seconds and a death every 13.

What I've hated about the 300,000,000 is that news agencies don't seem to understand (or don't care to convey) the difference between a statistical probably and an actual event.

So on the news last night I had to hear about how the 300,000,000th American would be a white boy born in Los Anges County this morning. Hell, they probably staked out the hospitals so that they could see if a star shined over the annointed one.

They have no idea exactly how many people there are in the country and when or where the 300,000,000th was born. It is a statistical model. When they did the 2000 census they found that their statistical model was off by 7 million people though they've since made changes to improve it, as we get farther away from the decennial census it becomes a fuzzier picture.


As an interesting aside, if I fly to Iraq tomorrow I will still count as one of the 300,000,000. But when a serviceman (such as my brother-in-law) is deployed to Iraq s/he is removed from the rolls until returned to the States. So we would have hit 300,00,000 a couple months earlier if it hadn't been for the massive deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. So think of those wars as Bush's pandering to the anti-population growth people.

[Nephythys]

The 5-6 minutes may have been a Colorado #- a birth every 5-6 minutes here.