That. Guy.

There's this One.Guy. Almost everything he does bugs me, and I found out the other day that I'm not the only one who groans when they see him in the slug line. My reaction is literally to roll my eyes and sigh when I see him.

I was riding in with a driver I've ridden with many times before who is very nice, has a spacious car and plays some weird music fairly loudly--but I don't mind because she's pleasant and I can put my headphones in if I want. She was friends with the other guy who got in the car with us (referenced this guy in the previous post, as well) and they were talking about some unpleasant experiences they'd had with one particular man who goes to the same destination as all of us so she has driven him before.

I don't know how it started because I wasn't really paying attention to their conversation, but after I got bored with Facebook and my email on my phone I heard her say that there's one man she is tempted to actually refuse to pick up. She doesn't seem like the type of person who would actually say no to him, but she said that she had seen someone change their destination because he was at the front of the line and the driver didn't want to take him. For slugging, that's pretty drastic.

She went on to explain her encounters with him, one of which involved him questioning HOW she was going to take three riders if she had a CARSEAT, in a disapproving tone. She said that she just looked at him and said, "three" again. (She's one of the generous drivers who will always offer to take 3.) They both went on telling stories of some of the rude things he's done in line, and after the first comment I had an idea of who it was, but didn't want to say anything. It got to the point where I just had to know. So I spoke up after their 3rd or 4th story and said, "Is it the guy with..." and went on to describe him in three or four more words. They said "yes" simultaneously and I just laughed. I said, "Oh, I know him." Their reply was, "Everyone does."

It was amusing to me that there's someone who is that rude that everyone knows him in the line and tries to avoid him. He's That Guy. He blatantly turns around and stares at me in a judgmental way whenever I approach the afternoon slug line (yes, I see him in the afternoon and the morning on many occasions). I've literally brought my hands up in an inquisitive manner so as to say, "Is there a problem?!" and turned to S in the line next to me like, is he kidding? Because he just stares at me, and looks me up and down like, what's she doing here. I'm always tempted to say something. He's stood so close to me before when I'm in front of him that I've had to inch forward towards the person in front of me to avoid his deep breathing. Another thing he likes to do is yell at people if they do the slightest thing wrong. "YES, they're going to the Pentagon!!" It's 7:30am buddy, give them a half a second to react. "SOMEone go check the cars!" The guy needs anger management or a chill pill or something.

Either way his demeanor, attitude and actions have given him a name for himself at the line. I always wonder if people notice and remember me in a certain way at the slug line (and other places too) but I hope they know me as "that short girl," "the girl who goes to 14th," or "the allergies girl," or something like that rather than "That.Girl."

Preserving the System

I was reminded today how a good amount of DC-Metro area workers have never even heard of slugging. It's always interesting to see people's reactions to the idea, and today I got the response, "That's ballsy!" I told the man that it was actually quite reliable and that I've only heard of one major incident which involved a driver speeding and making a rider uncomfortable enough to ask to be let out. It did give me a certain sense of pride though, seeing this man who looked like he could clearly hold his own saying he wouldn't even get in a stranger's car himself. Maybe I'm just crazier than him.

On some days if the line is long or it's extra hot out, I admit, I get pretty frustrated at the slug line. But typically and overall, it's very efficient, cost-effective, safe and entertaining. I'm definitely happy that I don't have to deal with the Metro at all, and the average door-to-door time is actually shorter than it would be if I were metroing, and on good days much, much shorter.

Another rider that I was in the car with last week was discussing the system with the driver, who he knew as a friend. What he said is something that I think most slugs would relate to:

"I could not believe this system existed when I started doing it so I never want to do anything to jeopardize the system."

This pertains back to my comments in the post about not breaking the rules and why most slugs wouldn't break the rules, such as driving through the parking lot catching people before they get to the line in order to bypass the line of cars. I would say most slugs want to preserve the system so that it continues being as effective as it is now, as this one slug pointed out. It may be "ballsy" and not everyone may feel comfortable with it which is fine, but once you've been slugging for a while you realize it's a whole community in itself with implicit rules that govern the system and keep it running smoothly.

Coincidental Situation

Funny enough, yesterday at the afternoon slug line I had two prime examples of extreme driver types from the post yesterday. The line was longer than usual (I think due to this week being Spring Break for schools). There's two separate lines in the afternoon where I go, one for each destination which that line caters to. The line I stand in always takes longer because the other line's destination is more convenient for driver's since it's right near the HOV exit. So when a car finally pulled up that was going to our line's destination, the woman driver said, "two." She had plenty of room in the back of her car, and seeing this a man a few places ahead of me in line yelled out, "take THREE!" I had to laugh, even though I really wanted her to take three, also, so that I could be closer to getting a ride. Mildly frustrating. It's not as if it was going to put her out, and our line was so long.

The next car that came that was going to our slug lot was the complete opposite. She had a big SUV and the caller yelled that she could take five riders. Five. I felt like I was in a carpool going to practice or something. Bunch of adults climbing into her car, a couple of us in the backseat. All of us expressing our gratitude as we got in, because really--she didn't have to take that many people. Three would have been nice, even.

I thought it was ironic that I saw both of these extremes on the day I'd posted about different driver's personalities, so I thought I'd share some specific examples.

Driver types: Flexible or Stingy?

Just like there's different slug personalities and tendencies that I encounter during my commute, there's also a lot of different driver types. The driver’s decision on how many people he/she can take says a lot about their personality, I think. Most drivers will take the following into consideration:

1. How many people are in line
2. How many cars are behind them
3. If they have a big or small car
4. If they have a carseat or something else in the backseat

Some will say they can take two, and two only, no matter what the situation. But here's some insight into the different variables most of them will take into consideration.

If there are a ton of people in line, and few cars behind them in line, hopefully the driver will accept taking three riders in their car. If there's a ton of people in line, but also a sufficient number of cars, often the driver will just take the minimal two riders because they know that the cars behind them need to get filled up, too. If there's a long line of cars, and few riders, the people in the cars behind the first car will actually get angry if the first car takes more than necessary because then there are no slugs left for them and they have to wait.

The other two variables have more to do with what's physically possible with the driver's car. When there's a long line of people it's physically painful sometimes when a big SUV or van only accepts two riders. That's kind of rare. And most slugs, at least at the lines that I go to, will walk up to the car if they're that third person and ask if the driver can take three rather than just two. When a driver turns that request down, barring the aforementioned variables in line length, and has a spacious car and no carseats or large objects filling up their backseat, it's kind of annoying. I know it's the driver's prerogative, but if it were me I don't see why I wouldn't let the third person come if it wasn't takings slugs away from other drivers behind me.

And you can really tell the difference in personality between those people who won't let three people ride even if they have roomy cars, and the people that will get out of their car to move stuff from their backseat to their trunk in order to make more room for riders.

What I have noticed is that there are many drivers that used to be on the other side of things as a slug, and these are the drivers that clearly try to help the slugs out whenever they can and be flexible. It's like they're on our team. A few of them have even said, "Oh I used to be a slug, I know how it goes," on days when the wait was particularly bad and so they've adjusted to make the process go more quickly or smoothly. Some drivers will change their destination if the destinations aren't too far apart to pick up slugs that are getting bypassed by other more convenient slug lots.

I definitely have some favorite drivers because I know they're flexible and try to help out when they can, and I have some drivers that I groan about riding with because of one thing or another. This one particular variable of how many riders a driver allows to ride with them in certain situations is definitely a trademark one to notice people by, though.

Old Faces in New Scenes

This morning I slugged in with the parents of one of my good friends from high school. We used to hang out at his house a lot so I know his parents fairly well, but I hadn't seen them in a while so I didn't immediately put it together. I couldn't really see their faces once I got in the back seat so I was kind of leaning and trying to see if it was them. Not creepy at all. I was pretty sure it was, but I didn't want to ride the rest of the way in awkward silence if I said something and it turned out not to be. The other guy who rode with us happened to know my friend's dad, as well, so when he said his name kind of hesitantly since he didn't seem to be 100% sure either, it was confirmed.

There's yet another twist to the story. My friend's dad is the president of the temp agency that I went through to get hired in my current job. He's also placed a bunch of our friendsin companies where they've been hired full time. The first thing he asked was how I was doing at my company, and he remembered specifically where I was. I was impressed especially since he wasn't even the one handling my case at the time.

We caught up and talked about our work and some of our mutual friends during the excessively long trip into DC (395 traffic was horrible since it was drizzling). I play my friend in WordsWithFriends on my iPhone and his dad just recently got the iPhone and downloaded it. He accidentally resigned while we were driving in, and was pretty upset because he had "quark" all ready to go. I've done that before so I felt his pain. Plus his son's kicking my ass right now. (Shout out to one of my six followers, haha.) It was pretty funny seeing them in the slugging scene, but he's been slugging for a long time and as my friend pointed out, it was bound to happen at some point. I always like seeing them anyways. Plus I found out I have common ground with the other guy who was riding with us, who I recognize and am familiar with just because we both know we go to the same location and have ridden together before. When he walks up to the lot and I'm standing there, he'll say, "No cars for us, huh?"

I like the connections with people in the slug lot. I also think it's cool when I see old high-school classmates when I'm slugging. I rode in with someone else who graduated my year from high school and his dad. I don't think I'd spoken to him since we graduated. Just adds to the familiarity of the whole process.

Origination of the Term "Slugging"

There's not much written about slugging. Most of the information comes from the website www.slug-lines.com started by David LeBlanc who also wrote a book called "Slugging: The Commuting Alternative for Washington D.C." published in 1999. The website is very informative for slugs and gives news updates in case there are any changes made to the lots, etc.

According to his information, slugging actually started around 35 years ago after the HOV lanes were opened. It began with the HOV lanes and drivers who didn't have the required total 3 passengers to take the HOV lanes. They would drive by bus stops and offer rides to people in order to meet the requirement. Eventually some people decided to take the free ride even though it was being offered by a stranger, either due to long waits for the bus or perhaps the weather conditions influenced them. Word spread and eventually that's how slugging came about. Slugging is very much a word-of-mouth system and the origins are a bit vague being that there's no real government documentation regarding the beginning of slugging.

The origination of the term "slugging" is given on the website run by LeBlanc, and was apparently coined by bus drivers who were at first confused by the people standing in line at the bus stop who never actually took the bus. Since the riders were originally picked up from bus stops, and word began to spread that people could get free rides into DC, or mostly the Pentagon at that time, by waiting there, that's where the lines began. The bus drivers would pass by and stop because they saw people waiting, and the slugs would wave them away. The bus drivers eventually began to recognize who was a "real" bus rider and who wasn't and started to call them "slugs" because that was the term for fake bus tokens.

More to come on the history of slugging, but the origination of the term is one of the most frequently asked questions I get about slugging.

Oddball Slug Lot

S goes to a different slug lot than me, and their system is a little different. The lot she goes to is much smaller than the one I go to in the morning. Their lot is structured so that on one side of the lot is a line of people and cars that go over the 14th street bridge, and on the other side is a line that goes over the Memorial Bridge into DC. This is as opposed to both of the other lots I've gone to where everyone stands in one line, and all the cars are in one line corresponding to it. The benefits of this are that in case the driver changes their mind because of the lack of riders, or if the riders change their destination due to the lack of cars, they can adjust and won't have to change sides of the lot or anything.

It's also different from the lot I go to in that, some of the drivers get out of their car and approach the line of slugs to see where everyone's destination is and just wait there until they find two riders. That's very strange to me. Why would you want to get out of your car into the cold or heat to wait for riders when you could sit in your car and listen to the radio or something. Plus it just makes everything disorganized. It's hard to tell the difference between drivers and riders when you show up, so there's a lot more confusion created and clarification necessary. Seems less efficient.

The benefits of her lot are that all of the drivers go into DC so she doesn't have as wide a range of destinations to weed through (can be a down-side, too, but in our case it's a benefit) and that the lot is right next to the Mixing Bowl and the entry point for the HOV lane on 395. Half of the traffic that I sit in on my morning commute is getting to 395, so she is lucky to get on the HOV lanes basically right away after she gets into a car. Somehow, even though my morning lot is the largest one, there's always more drivers in the afternoon going to her lot, too. I think just because the drivers from my lot go to such a wide range of destinations as opposed to a few specific locations.

I'd go to her lot in the morning, but the traffic going that way from my house is ridiculous and the lot I go to is so close to my house. Plus as I like to tease S about, their system is the oddball out of all the lots so far as I've heard. Too weird for me, I think. She gets some good stories though, more to come from S.