Monday blues

Hi everyone, I'm back. Sorry for the lack of posting, but I was enjoying my well earned long weekend. First one since I started working, and it felt good. The hardest thing to get used to when you start working permanently after college is the lack of holidays. School and college provide so much time off, that 20 days vacation time in a whole year when working really sucks. All you have is weekends! And they pass insanely quickly. 20 is not a lot. City jobs give a lot more holidays, my dad works for the railway and he has like 45 days off(or more), lucky bastard. My mom has like 40 too cause she works for the commune. Embassies are not the city :(, so although I really like this job it does have downsides. These are: too damn far away, too few vacation days, only half of my train subscription is paid (which sucks cause it's a whopping 293 euro a month) - city jobs pay the entire thing- and too few co-works + nobody my age. Those are the downsides.
So I wouldn't mind a city job one day! But you need to do an exam to get it nowadays, and they are hard, and you need to be lucky to be to one to get it. I didn't need to do an exam for the embassy, just a job interview, although a difficult one, mad situational questions, hate those!


Anyway back to work today :( not another long weekend till end of April for Easter. Had another stressed morning due to the train being late again, 20 min! It really is starting to get on my nerves, Belgian trains suck, they are barely ever perfectly on time. And if you already have a four hour commute a day, those extra minutes really make you want to punch a trainperson in the face. Beware dad.
Last week was the same thing, some crane fell right on the tracks of a often travelled section, completely destroying all the cables and blocking everything. All the trains going to and from Brussels had to take a giant detour causing every train to be massively delayed. Gah! I was muttering swears on the train a lot last week, I am not a patient person when it comes to waiting on public transport. Also I hate slow drivers, when I finally reach the station at night, I hop in my car and want to race home, so when this old or talkative person drives 45 km/h in front of me I get really really annoyed. You dont want to be in my car then :p MOOOOOOOOOVE YOU
Commutes are not got for my stress level :D

Oh Saint Patrick's day was alright, bit hectic! Didn't enjoy the festivities organised by work much, as I was set in the cloak room with someone from the Permanent Represtation of Ireland to the EU, for three hours. So saw lots of people, but not much fun was had! Nobody even brough us a drink! That kinda sucked, it was insanely busy and not at all like the First Secretary had said that once everyone was there we could enjoy the celebrations and someone else would take over. We were stuck there and nobody came to take over! Stupid recession, they can't even get someone else to do the cloak room. There were plenty of students carrying drinks and so, why couldn't they do it! Ok, it wasn't really tiring, and I mostly chatted away, but I had expected to get some drinks in me to celebrate Paddy Day! Very dissapointing! They got me all the way to Leuven on a holiday for three hours of standing in a cloak room and no perks? Me no likey!
Everyone travel to Ireland and spend lots of money so I don't have to be cloakroom lady next year!

Hope some of you got to be drunk in honor of St Paddy at least :D

Train people

Ok I’m back with a less sad post! As I once mentioned I have a very long commute by train every working day. Two hours to get here and two hours back, so four every day! Sometimes I do stay over at my sort of boyfriend ‘s place, which is only half the distance, so that helps break up the week and makes me a lot less tired in the weekend! But sometimes I do have five days in a row of four hours daily on train, which is pretty hellish. By the time I get home I only have two hours to relax before going to bed, which is the worst about the commute really. Numb sitting area is also a downside, but that’s bearable :D Helpful is my pink netbook, filled with films and series, it really makes time go faster. Now, during all these long traintrips I encounter a lot of people. Some people are really a pain in the arse, making your already annoying journey even more annoying. I decided to categorize them ! Most I have encountered many times, but some pain in the arses are really one of a kind.


The loud headphone/earphone type

I’m sure everyone knows this type! Sitting on public transport and having to listen to the usually obnoxious music of someone who is clearly deaf. If you can hear the song several seats away your music is on too loud! People with earphones who do that are really mad, no wonder so many people have tinutis. Have fun hearing peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep for the rest of your life, idiot.

The who needs headphones type

Possibly worse then the previous one. This person will just listen to music or watch videos without putting on headphones. That way we can all enjoy the usually very soothing music or interesting video you are listening/watching. ..(sarcastic in case you didn’t notice) Really, can you really be that annoying? Are the dozens of evil glares not a hint?


The loud talker type

You can encounter this type anywhere you go, unfortunately almost always women (except on phones, a lot of men also my dad seem to think they need to yell through a phone). Clearly these people have hearing problems and have no idea how loud they are actually talking. I do not care about who is dating who and who you fancy.

The talkative type

Often an old lady, but not always. Not always that annoying, if it’s just an anecdote, but I once had an old lady telling me her entire life on the train, which was a bit awkward. It is however not as annoying as scary not very sane looking man talking to you about weird subjects. I try to just smile and nod when that happens and get out of there as soon as possible.

The possessive paper reader type

Encountered this type just the other day on the train! This lady was reading a paper and as I was not doing anything to entertain myself my eyes wandered to her paper and I couldn’t help but read. A normal person wouldn’t be bothered by this, I was only glancing at the paper, and well I was bored. This lady proceeded in doing various actions to try and prevent me from reading the paper. She sat sideways and turned the paper her way. I glanced at the front page. She lifted up the paper till just under her head, so I couldn’t read along again. Now really, it’s a paper, why so possessive or anti-social, lady! I don’t care if someone stares at my laptop screen when I’m watching something, or reading along a magazine. I’d even lower the magazine so they can read as well just to be nice!

The eager sitter type

Now this person is really annoying. When a train is really not busy and there’s nobody sitting next to me, I’ll just put my bag or purse on the seat next to me, so I can get things out easier. Now this type, when wanting to sit down on that seat, will not even bother asking you to please put down the bag, which I will happily do. I’d do it before asking, but sometimes I’m busy reading or watching and I don’t see them. So instead of asking, this person will just proceed to sit down, on your bag! Squishing all your stuff with their big behind. When you look at them weirdly and say excuse me, you’re sitting on my bag, they’ll just stare at you quizzically as if they did nothing wrong.


The unique ones


The snorer

Also encountered this one a few days ago. I was nearly in Brussels when I suddenly heard the very distinct noise of a very loud rumbly snorer. You should’ve seen everybody’s faces when they heard someone snoring like that. Everyone was shocked and looking around who was the snorer :p It’s a really annoying sound, but I guess he couldn’t really help it, it’s better on the train then in the bed next to you.


The open mouth chewer

This one was really gross. Was sitting opposite this man while he was eating an apple. He was chewing with mouth open, so you could see the whole chewing process going on, and on top of that he was making the annoying smacking noise along with it. When finishing the apple he took some chewing gum. And he chewed it the exact same way as the apple. It was like watching a cow, you couldn’t see what on earth he was chewing on for so long and he kept making the noise, was like watching a mental person. Try sitting in front of that for half an hour, really annoying!

So that’s my list so far! More to come probably. Have you met any annoying people on public transport? Let me know!