"CJG Now Thankfully Living In The North" wrote in
message m...

1) Walk to barrier
2) Realise what that little piece of card they were given half an hour
later is for
3) Open handbag (because it usually is a woman)
4) Rake around in handbag for a bit
5) Get out purse
6) Find ticket in purse
7) Try to insert ticket in top of machine
8) Realise mistake and insert ticket in the front of the machine
9) Stand there for a bit wondering why gates haven't opened
10) Take ticket from machine, gates open
11) Stand there for a bit wondering if it's safe to go through
12) Pass through the barrier

.... or is it just me who comes across these idiots?


In (2), I think you mean "earlier", not "later"!

No, I come across this sort of person very often whenever I go up to London.
Their mistake is not that they are unaware of how to use ticket barriers
(everyone's got to learn somehow), it's that they stand in front of the
barriers behaving like clueless morons instead of having the nouse and the
courtesy to stand on one side watching what everyone else does until they've
got the hang of things. While they're standing aside, they can also find
their ticket.

Sadly many people seem to be congenitally incapable of finding their ticket
in advance of needing it (eg as they are walking up to the barrier), in the
same way that a lot of people (a large proportion of them being women) don't
start to look for their cash or credit card in a supermarket queue until
they are presented with the bill.

One thing that most people do manage to get right is the
stand-on-the-right-overtake-on-the-left rule on escalators on the
Underground. If only they would do the same on escalators in shops instead
of standing side-by-side blocking the whole width.