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Hamilton's GO Station annoys me.
Talking about panhandling is such a thin knife, given... many things that I'd rather not discuss. Here's the deal: if I have change, I'll toss it out. This is probably bad, but hey, whatever. What they do with the money is on their guilt or lack of it.
However, the aggressive panhandling at the Hamilton GO station is driving me insane. Either there's someone blocking the stairway to the train platform or someone crying and walking up and down by the line for the bus.
The worst is when they try to bum fare, but refuse for you to go in and buy the ticket. No, wait, that COMPLETE worst for me was when I managed to give someone a bus ticket when someone asked for bus fare and then he had the nerve to beg me for the rest of my bus ticket strip - "Um, I might want to go somewhere else today, so I'll need more fare and you probably have the change for pay for the bus. I need the tickets more than you do.". However, this was on a HSR bus platform and therefore doesn't count.
Anywho, I was heading into the GO Station this morning and get stopped by the usual suspect - a person in need of bus fare - and normally, I would spare a buck or something, except...
"You look like the type of person who has never suffered or known pain in her whole life, so you have no idea how hard life is for me..."
...
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. If you expect someone to give you money without thinking twice about you, don't make assumptions about them! I don't think that I even look "well-off", because I came to work in a jean jacket and my Space Odyssey t-shirt (gotta love a workplace that lets you do that!). If anything, I look like a geek or a university student.
For the record, when I started working again I didn't have any money for bus fare, which is why I'm probably so twitchy on this. Not asking for sympathy, though, but respect in that I was smart enough to budget out credit card use and payments in a way that allowed me to commute for the first two months and get ahead enough that I no longer had to go into debt to buy GO Transit passes by the third month. I understand that this is not an option to everyone and the economics of commuting in Southern Ontario are a total bitch.
And before anyone slams me and says "...And you want to move to TORONTO?!", let me say that I have only once had a problem with aggressive panhandling on the combined Toronto GO stations, TTC and, for good measure, the Greyhound station. That problem was a panhandler on the Bloor line who would ask people for "A quarter to use the pay phone" while opening counting the fistful of quarters he had already had. For all I know, he could have been suffering from some sort of mental illness.
Talking about panhandling is such a thin knife, given... many things that I'd rather not discuss. Here's the deal: if I have change, I'll toss it out. This is probably bad, but hey, whatever. What they do with the money is on their guilt or lack of it.
However, the aggressive panhandling at the Hamilton GO station is driving me insane. Either there's someone blocking the stairway to the train platform or someone crying and walking up and down by the line for the bus.
The worst is when they try to bum fare, but refuse for you to go in and buy the ticket. No, wait, that COMPLETE worst for me was when I managed to give someone a bus ticket when someone asked for bus fare and then he had the nerve to beg me for the rest of my bus ticket strip - "Um, I might want to go somewhere else today, so I'll need more fare and you probably have the change for pay for the bus. I need the tickets more than you do.". However, this was on a HSR bus platform and therefore doesn't count.
Anywho, I was heading into the GO Station this morning and get stopped by the usual suspect - a person in need of bus fare - and normally, I would spare a buck or something, except...
"You look like the type of person who has never suffered or known pain in her whole life, so you have no idea how hard life is for me..."
...
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. If you expect someone to give you money without thinking twice about you, don't make assumptions about them! I don't think that I even look "well-off", because I came to work in a jean jacket and my Space Odyssey t-shirt (gotta love a workplace that lets you do that!). If anything, I look like a geek or a university student.
For the record, when I started working again I didn't have any money for bus fare, which is why I'm probably so twitchy on this. Not asking for sympathy, though, but respect in that I was smart enough to budget out credit card use and payments in a way that allowed me to commute for the first two months and get ahead enough that I no longer had to go into debt to buy GO Transit passes by the third month. I understand that this is not an option to everyone and the economics of commuting in Southern Ontario are a total bitch.
And before anyone slams me and says "...And you want to move to TORONTO?!", let me say that I have only once had a problem with aggressive panhandling on the combined Toronto GO stations, TTC and, for good measure, the Greyhound station. That problem was a panhandler on the Bloor line who would ask people for "A quarter to use the pay phone" while opening counting the fistful of quarters he had already had. For all I know, he could have been suffering from some sort of mental illness.
