Dining Car Work Rules

The train was rolling northwards across Central Texas somewhere south of Ft. Worth. Outside, the parched prairie shone in the bright summer sun. Inside, it was cool and the tablecloths were clean and white. It was lunch time, and we were ready to eat.

The dining car attendant seated us at a table with another couple, and we were all looking over the menu and considering our options. Although the prices were steep, meals come with a sleeper car. Price was not an issue.

After we signed the ticket as the attendant had instructed us to do, we circled our selections as I recalled you are supposed to do. Then the attendant came back to check our signatures. She looked down for a moment and her smiling face turned stern.

She glanced down the aisle and then quietly said, You're not supposed to circle these. That's her job. And she pointed to another attendant two tables down. She left the tickets on the table and quickly walked away. Her job was done. The other couple left their tickets untouched on the tabletop.

When the other woman got to us, she asked us what we'd have. Then, as her work rules undoubtedly required her to do, she circled our selections on the tickets, overcircling the circles we'd put there ourselves. After a brief pause, she said, You're not supposed to circle these. That's my job.

She was not impressed. Neither were we.

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Amtrak Texas Eagle, northbound for Chicago
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Lessig on banning technology

It's hard to think about property in the era of digital everything. The RIAA and MPAA would have us think exclusively in terms of theft. In an interview with the Library Journal, copyright expert Lawrence Lessig offers an equally potent analogy to illuminate the other side:

If we don't ban technologies that kill people, I don't think we should ban technology that could be used for lots of completely legitimate purposes, like enabling blind people to read text or to move text between computers.

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