He writes:
I was collecting tickets on an early morning train when I came upon a bench/row where all three seats were occupied by passengers. Being observant, I noticed that I had previously placed two seat checks in front of two of the passengers here. This meant that there was a recent arrival and someone owed me a ticket. I used logic and assumed that the gentleman sitting on the aisle was the last to enter the row…therefore, he was the one who owed me the fare.
“Tickets please!” I addressed the well dressed African-American businessman in the aisle seat. He ignored me.
“Excuse me sir…can I get your ticket please.”
The man slowly folded his newspaper and looked up at me with daggers in his eyes and smoke coming out of his ears.
“Let me ask you something conductor…There’s three of us sitting here.” He pointed to his two seatmates, a white woman sandwiched next to him, and a white man whose face was crammed against the window. “And yet… you only ask ME for a ticket.”
The rest of the yarn is on his Derailed blog.
Is passenger behavior different on MNR than on the LIRR and NJT? On those roads, the middle seats of three-seaters, being the least desirable, are almost always the last to fill up. Occasionally a passenger in the aisle seat will slide over, but it’s rare (and certainly not to be expected by someone with as much of a chip on his shoulder as the passenger in this anecdote).
Since I’m not black, it’s impossible for me to say whether this sensitivity is justified. I’ve certainly seen plenty of racial profiling by cops, but never by a railroad ticket collector. Nevertheless, while there’s not much collectors can do about passengers’ attitudes, they can adjust their own by not jumping to conclusions, whatever their basis. “Who owes me a ticket here?” would have saved everyone some hurt feelings.