I was on BART coming home yesterday and the man sitting next to me was furiously typing away on his laptop. He was composing (and recomposing and re-recomposing) an email and muttering swear words under his breath. He was clearly agitated. It was a strange scene. So, of course, I decided to be a snoop.

He was carefully crafting an angry email to a co-worker about some report or something. He kept editing exactly which angry swear word he wanted to use. It was funny/sad watching him type out FUCK, and then backspace it and add DAMN, and then delete that put DANG.

I immediately placed him as a frustrated middle manager, who had no ability to change anything (and I felt his pain. That was me a few months ago.) But then, he took the bull by the horns. He pulled out his phone, apparently called the person he was writing the email to, and tersely said "I'm sick of this. You can take your report and shove them up your ass" before hanging up.

After he hung up, he let out a large sigh more tension release than anything else I think, and then deleted the draft email. I got off the train wondering if he was going to be fired tomorrow, and noticing how happy he looked. Ah, the small victories of the powerless. I know them well.

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