370: Ruining It for the Rest of Us

Ira Glass

There are people who drive us crazy at our jobs, but science hasn't given that particular problem a lot of thought. Recently, a guy named Will Felps may have made some small progress in this area. He wanted to figure out if one person in the workplace can ruin a workplace. Not just disrupt the way that people get along and fill coworkers with weird feelings and uncomfortable moments that they think about for hours afterwards, but could one person actually lower productivity? Does one bad apple spoil the whole bunch?

Ira Glass

This is Will Felps. I reached him on the phone in the Netherlands, where these days he is an assistant professor of management at the Rotterdam School of Management. But back when he was in grad school doing this research, he read all the relevant studies on teamwork and group dynamics looking for clues about bad apple behavior. And he didn't find much. But he did find-- buried in correlation tables and footnotes-- three personality types, three kinds of behavior that seem to hurt group dynamics and group performance in a bad apple sort of way.

Ira Glass

The actor was a college student named Nick [? Fascitelli ?]. And once Will had him, he started his experiment. It went like this. He got college students and put them into teams of four. That would be three undergraduates, plus the actor who was undercover. The other undergrads didn't know that he was an actor in cahoots with the researchers. Will gave all the groups the same task to do. It was an exercise where they made some basic management decisions. And Will told them that they would be scored, and there would be a prize of $100 per person for the group that did the best. So they were motivated to do well.

Ira Glass

The scripts that the actor used are included in Appendix A of Will's study. And they specify that the depressive pessimist will complain that the task that they're doing is unenjoyable and make statements doubting the group's ability to succeed. That the jerk will state that other people's ideas are not adequate, but will offer no alternatives, himself. And he'll say, you guys need to listen to the expert, me. That the slacker character will say, whatever and I really don't care.

Now the conventional wisdom in the research on this kind of thing is that none of this should have had much effect on the group at all. Groups are powerful. Group dynamics are powerful. And so groups dominate individuals, not the other way around. There is tons of research going back decades demonstrating that people conform to group values and norms. But Will found the opposite.

Ira Glass

In fact, the actor's behavior had a profound effect. In dozens of trials, over and over, when he acted like a bad apple with a group, that group would perform 30% to 40% worse than groups without a bad apple. And even more surprising to Will was how dramatic the effect was on the way people in the groups treated each other.

Ira Glass

When Nick acted like a slacker, the spillover effect would kick in. And eventually someone else in the group would declare that the task they'd been given just wasn't important.

Ira Glass

Well it's This American Life from WBEZ Chicago, distributed by Public Radio International. I'm Ira Glass. Today on our show we have stories of bad apples and people who are accused of being bad apples. Like for example, one family who refused to vaccinate their kids from measles, and then that led to a measles outbreak with quarantines and lots of other kids getting sick. Comedian Mike Birbiglia explains in our show today how he personally, single-handedly ruined a charity fundraiser. And Nancy Updike tells the story of a special place, a magical place, a place where no one is allowed to ruin things for anyone else.

Because in this last week as we've been putting together this show, I've really been struck at how common bad apples are. Truthfully, I've been haunted by my conversation with Will Felps. Hearing about his research, you realize just how easy it is to poison any group. Will Felps told me about this study that somebody did looking at all kinds of industries and businesses. And what they found is that the best predictor of how any team performs is not how great the best member is or what the average member of the group is like. It all comes down to what your worst team member is like. The teams with the worst person at the bottom, those teams perform the poorest. That's harsh.

And I, and I have got to say everybody in our office who's heard Will's interview-- we were talking about this earlier today. Each of us has had moments this past week where we, individually, by ourselves have wondered, am I doing bad apple stuff? Am I the bad apple unwittingly? And when I talked to Will about this, I asked him if he found himself doing this as well in his own workplace. Here's his response.

Ira Glass

Now of course this is just one study in the laboratory. As Will points out, group dynamics in the real world-- where people work together for more than 45 minutes-- may be different in some ways yet to be studied. Though Will did see one glimmer of hope in his research. It was in one group in the study. It was the most surprising thing that happened during this research, something that completely caught Will off guard.

Ira Glass

Seeing this diplomat's son do his thing has led Will to his next research project, which is about whether a group leader can change the dynamics and performance of a group simply by going around and asking questions, soliciting everyone's opinions, making sure everybody is heard. If that is true, if listening is all that it takes to overcome bad behavior, if listening is more powerful than meanness, sloth, or depression, it's like a trick from a children's story, a golden rule lesson that seems way too after-school special to possibly be true. That by listening to each other, trying to understand each other, we can get to the point where nobody can ruin things for everyone else.

[MUSIC - "ONE BAD APPLE" BY THE JACKSON 5]

Ira Glass

Act One, Shots in the Dark. OK, here's a situation where one family has the chance to ruin things for a lot of people. It's when they decide whether or not to vaccinate their kids. As you've probably heard, there's a whole movement of parents who do not vaccinate because they're scared of the vaccines. This is not just in the United States but all over the world. There are books. People tell their stories on daytime TV. The issue from people who believe in vaccines is that unvaccinated kids put everybody in danger. Diseases like measles-- which for all practical purposes were eradicated in the United States-- now can get a foothold because so many children in some communities are unvaccinated.

This is a touchy, divisive and bitter debate. But at least it's usually pretty abstract. It's people arguing over what might happen some day, because outbreaks of these diseases are so rare. But last winter, 12 kids came down with measles in San Diego. And it all started with a child whose parents had decided not to vaccinate him. Susan Burton tell what happened.

Susan Burton

The measles came from Switzerland. A seven year old San Diego boy caught the measles there during a family trip. He flew home to the States without any symptoms. And by the time he got sick, and doctors figured out what it was, the boy had already exposed other children. And the outbreak had begun.

Susan Burton

Every day there were new locations-- Chuck E. Cheese's, a pediatrician's office, a swim school for babies. One child exposed a plane-load of football fans on their way to the NFL Pro Bowl in Hawaii. Meanwhile, the local news was giving everyone a panicky crash course in the disease.

Susan Burton

Measles is like a disease in a horror movie. It's one of the most contagious diseases known to mankind. It lingers in the air for two hours after a person with it has left the room. The rash makes a person look like they've grown a whole new red skin. Measles can be fatal.

And so the San Diego County Health Department immediately launched into detective work on a massive scale. They had to reconstruct the tiniest details of toddlers' lives. Who had been at what birthday party or at whose house for a play date. There were 980 exposures they had to investigate, including 160 from the plane to Hawaii, where the infected child from the flight was now being kept in isolation on a military base. The people at risk were mainly unvaccinated children, either those whose parents had opted out of the shot or babies who were too young to get the shot. It's usually given when kids turn one.

To stop the measles from spreading, the health officials decided to do something old fashioned, something that's rarely used anymore in this country. They instituted a quarantine. And this is the story of what that meant for that community of parents, about what happened when the actions of one family suddenly had a huge effect on dozens of other families and children. Hilary Chambers' daughter, Finlee, had just turned one when she was quarantined.

Susan Burton

Here's how one year old Finlee ended up in the quarantine. Hilary took her to daycare on a Monday morning. And one of the teachers asked, very sweetly, if Finlee had been vaccinated for measles yet. When Hilary said no, she was sent to the daycare office with Finlee in her arms. The room was packed with people. There was all kinds of commotion. And a woman from the Health Department standing there with a clipboard.

Susan Burton

At first Hilary was scared Finlee was going to come down with measles. But she didn't. And after a few days, quarantine wasn't frightening, just tedious. Hilary and Finlee would play downstairs, and then to shake things up they would go upstairs. She got regular calls from the Health Department. Someone checked every other day to make sure Hilary was keeping Finlee quarantined. It was like being under surveillance. She even felt weird taking Finlee outside to blow bubbles in the driveway, like someone would know.

Being cooped up during an epidemic used to be a typical part of motherhood. There's an argument that vaccines have actually made it possible for women to work. Hilary is a radio DJ. And during the outbreak she and her husband tag-teamed.

Susan Burton

Even though Hilary was planning on getting Finlee vaccinated for measles, she was hesitant about it. Vaccine anxiety is pretty standard for a certain kind of over-protective mother-- and I count myself among them-- one who shops at Whole Foods and worries about chemicals in plastic and toys made in China. The shots are scary, because first of all, they're not all natural. There's no organic version of the diphtheria shot. And second of all, you have no control over them, unlike you do over the rest of what goes into your child's body.

Susan Burton

If you've heard anything about vaccines at all, it's probably this. That there's a controversy about whether the shots lead to autism. This idea goes back about 10 years to a paper about the MMR vaccine-- that's measles, mumps and rubella-- that was published in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

That paper has since been discredited. The journal actually retracted it. Study after study confirms that the shot does not cause autism. But it's hard to shake the fear that it might be true, partly because every mom has heard stories of kids who became autistic after getting the MMR shot. There are YouTube videos.

Susan Burton

The stories usually go like this. A mom takes her totally normal baby to the doctor. That baby gets the MMR shot. In the days that follow, he stops babbling, stops making eye contact, just slips inside himself and is never the same again.

Susan Burton

But saying it plainly-- there is no causal relationship between the vaccine and autism-- is asking for a fight. One of the autism researchers I interviewed was reluctant to speak on the radio. He sent me an email about a colleague who has received death threats for saying there's no connection between autism and the MMR. Real death threats, as in when the guy goes to lunch at the CDC in Atlanta he has bodyguards. All the articles I looked at online for this story are the kind that have 1,000 vitriolic comments underneath. And it's not just anti-vaccinators who are saying crazy, mean stuff. There are haters on both sides.

Susan Burton

This is Sybil Carlson. During the outbreak, she talked to a lot of reporters about how she doesn't vaccinate her children.

Susan Burton

Sybil is friends with the mom who went to Switzerland. When the outbreak happened, the Switzerland mom didn't want to talk to the media. In fact, almost none of the non-vaccinators would except Sybil, who became the Switzerland mom's de facto stand in. She and her friends all got together one day. The kids played on the back deck while the mothers hammered out Sybil's talking points. And then Sybil went home and started taking calls from reporters.

Susan Burton

For parents like Sybil who don't vaccinate, autism is just one concern. They're also worried about autoimmune diseases and unknown long term health effects that they believe are caused by lots of different vaccines. They cite medical studies and data they suspect aren't telling us the whole truth about vaccine safety.

I'm pretty sympathetic to this stuff. When Sybil says that aluminum, a vaccine additive, is a known neurotoxin, I'm right there with her. But other things sound shakier. Still, what anyone can understand is the essence of Sybil's position, which is this. She doesn't trust the system. And you're not going to vaccinate if you don't have that faith.

That's the difference between Sybil and parents who do vaccinate. It's not that they're more altruistic. It's just that they trust the system and she doesn't. Sybil deeply believes that getting a shot could permanently harm her child. And that's scary, especially when a doctor is trying to bully you into vaccinating. She tells the story of a time she took her son to the emergency room for a dog bite, and she got into an argument with the doctor about whether her son needed a tetanus shot.

Susan Burton

Sybil gets that by not vaccinating her children, she's putting other children at risk. She doesn't dispute that. But she thinks it's unacceptable that her kids, or anyone's kids, should have to risk serious side effects from a vaccine. So until she's satisfied that the vaccine system is safer, she's willing to risk her kids getting the measles. But I spoke to another mother in San Diego who thought that choice seemed absurd.

Susan Burton

This is Megan Campbell. Her son was 10 months old when he was exposed to measles in the pediatrician's office, which he visited on the same day as the Switzerland family. Megan's baby was one of the first kids affected in the outbreak, before everyone put together what was going on. The doctor kept telling her it was just a run of the mill virus. But as the days went by, Megan's son kept getting sicker.

Susan Burton

Megan took her son to the emergency room. When she told them he might have measles, it took two hours for them to figure out how to get him inside the hospital without exposing everyone else. Finally, they came out with a blanket, wrapped him up, and rushed him into a secure room. He dropped from 18 pounds to 12 pounds in five days.

The first thing they had to do was put in an IV. He was so dehydrated that his veins had collapsed. It took an hour and four nurses to get a needle into his wrist. Her son was screaming. Megan couldn't take it. She had to leave the room.

Susan Burton

While Megan's son was in the hospital, news of the outbreak hit.

Susan Burton

Megan's son was sick for weeks. Megan and her husband both had to take a month off work. They were dumping him into ice baths when his fever spiked, constantly watching for side effects of the measles, blindness, brain swelling. When it was all over, Megan and her husband found they couldn't engage in the vaccine debate.

Susan Burton

But families that opt out of vaccines don't live on an island. They live all over the country, and there are more of them all the time, which is why they are of such concern to the CDC. They threaten the herd. There's this vaccine concept called herd immunity, which means that if a certain percentage of the population is immunized, it's really hard for diseases to spread. And so the most vulnerable people-- babies, people with weak immune systems, old people-- are protected. But when you fall below that percentage, suddenly infections jump exponentially.

And that's what happened here during the last measles epidemic almost 20 years ago, when 123 people died. Back then it was poor kids who weren't getting immunized, kids who didn't have access to the shots. Now it's the well-off kids of highly educated parents. So the CDC is spending a lot of time right now trying to figure out why these parents aren't vaccinating, just trying to understand their concerns. And they're working on a booklet to help doctors deliver the message better, how to reassure nervous parents. And parents nervous about vaccines are legion. A lot of them go to this guy.

Susan Burton

That's Dr. Bob Sears. He's one of the sons of the famous Dr. Sears, William Sears, and author of a big parenting manual, kind of a bible for crunchy moms. Dr. Bob, as people call him, is also the doctor for the non-vaccinating family that went to Switzerland. He's had thousands of conversations with parents about whether they should vaccinate. He's written a book on the subject.

Ira Glass

Susan Burton in New York.

[MUSIC - "GIRL, YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN MEDICINE" BY THE WHITE STRIPES]

Coming up, what it's like to be invited to a big charity event that you then ruin. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our program, of course, we choose a theme and bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Ruining It for the Rest of Us, stories of people who are accused of ruining everything for everybody else or who simply know that they are doing that. We've arrived at act two of our show. Act Two, Tragedy Minus Comedy Equals Time, specifically a long, long time between laughs.

Mike Birbiglia is the kind of working comedian who tours, and he does specials on Comedy Central, but he is not exactly a household name. Recently, he told an audience about a bad experience he had as a performer, one where he personally did not rise to the occasion. In fact, he says it was the worst show he's ever done in his life.

Mike Birbiglia

It happened this year. I was asked to perform at a charity golf tournament in New Jersey. So I woke up for this charity golf event, and I have a-- I realized recently that I'm not a good adult yet. Like I think if you're if a good adult, you plan your outfit according to what will occur when you leave the house. But I don't have that part of my brain. I'm just like, one outfit forever.

So I went and I played golf. And I brought my brother Joe. And Joe is kind of like a bad entourage member. He's never like, you the man, Mike. He 's always like, I don't know what dad would think about this. And, do you think they have any more shrimp? That kind of thing.

But we showed up to play golf and they paired us up with these two other people. It was a celebrity tournament. And the people were like, who do you think our celebrity is going to be? [LAUGHTER]

And Joe and I were like, yeah, who do you think our celebrity is going to be? And then I'm like, oh no, I think it might be me. And then I'm apologizing to these people. I'm like I'm really sorry I'm your celebrity. If you think this is disappointing for you, you can't imagine how I feel.

So I'm apologizing the whole day. And then at the end of the day, sure enough my pants are all wrinkled. And I have to be at this performance, this semi-formal banquet. And I'm like, what about one outfit forever? I thought that was a good plan. And so here's what I do. As damage control, I go to the locker room to iron my own pants. And yeah, it's a pretty good plan. And I find an iron, but I couldn't find a board. So I take off my pants. I'm just ironing them on a bench in the locker room in my underwear, which is a dead giveaway that these are my only pants.

So I'm ironing my pants. And I put them on, and I go up to the event. And this is where the trouble really begins. It's important for me, before I tell you this part of the story, to remind you that you're on my side. [LAUGHTER]

I say to the woman in charge, I go what's the format of the show? And she goes, well there are two speakers, and then you, and then a raffle. And I was like, well that's exciting, because I've never opened for a raffle. And I'm trying to stay optimistic.

And I'm sitting in the back of the room with my brother Joe, and the first speaker comes on the stage. And he's an 11 year old boy who survived leukemia. I know. He's not funny at all. [LAUGHTER] He focuses primarily on the leukemia, and everyone is crying, literally everyone is crying. I'm even crying in the back of the room for two reasons. One, the kid, and two, for me, because I have to perform comedy.

And it gets worse, because Joe leans over and he goes, this ain't looking so good Mike. [LAUGHTER] I said, I concur.

The second speaker was Hall of Fame quarterback Phil Simms. And yeah, he's got one fan here. But he's a broadcaster. And he gives an amazing, inspiring speech. And he even sprinkles in a few jokes about golf that were similar to jokes I had thought of about golf that day. It was like watching the last drops of my joke canteen drip out onto a desert of cancer. [LAUGHTER]

He gets a standing ovation, which he should have. Clearly the show is over. Surely there can't be anyone more famous than Hall of Fame quarterback Phil Simms. But wait, there was. It was Mike Birbiglia, who had no business being at this event. I know there are some entertainers who might have risen to the challenge. And I would love to be one of those entertainers, but I am not.

As a matter of fact, I have a habit in my life of making awkward situations even more awkward. I've said this before, but a few years ago I was moving a new bed into my apartment. And this woman who lived in the building opened the front door for me with her key. And she goes, "I'm not worried, because a rapist wouldn't have a bed like that." That's how she started the conversation. Now what I should have said was nothing. What I did say was, "You'd be surprised." [LAUGHTER] And there's nothing you can say after that. You're just like, see you around the building, that kind of thing.

I've thought about this a lot. And I think there's something wrong with my brain where I don't have an on deck circle for ideas. It's just, batter up. And a lot of the ideas are bad. And they're at the plate going, I don't know about this one Mike. And I just turn into this drunk little league dad. I'm like, you gonna take some cuts, son. [LAUGHTER]

As a comedian, when people laugh it's very exciting. It's a very neat thing. And when they don't, it feels like you're performing jazz. Because they're kind of bobbing their head and looking to the side. And sometimes that's OK. I'm like, I like jazz. But then I get worried, because I'm like sometimes jazz sucks. What if I'm the Kenny G of comedy? What if I think I sound like this, [MIMICS JAZZ] and in fact I sound like this, [MIMICS SMOOTH JAZZ].

So I'm on stage at the charity golf tournament. And I'm just Kenny G'ing it up. I'm just-- for 10 minutes-- [MIMICS JAZZ] just blowing that horn. And I don't want to fail. I mean that's a really important point in this story. These are good people. And I want to succeed for them, but I just can't.

And so I think to myself, why don't I cater my material to this specific event? And everyone has been talking about cancer. [LAUGHTER] I know. I'm in the future also. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] I had that thought on stage for about one second, and then batter up.

I said to the audience-- a true story-- I said I went to the doctor and they told me there was something in my bladder. And whenever they tell you that, it's never anything good, like we found something in your bladder and it's season tickets to the Yankees. [LAUGHTER] That was the response I was hoping for.

At that point, I just threw in the towel. I mean I was just devastated. I thanked the audience and apologized simultaneously, which I've never done. I was like, thank you, sorry for ruining your event. And I just walked off.

And I was so upset. And I walked over to Joe. And I go, Joe, we are leaving now. And that's when Joe said, and I quote, "Mike, I can't. They're just about to start the raffle." [LAUGHTER] "And because everybody left, my odds are amazing." And that is the worst show I have ever done in my entire life.

Ira Glass

Mike Birbiglia. That story's been recorded on one of his CDs, My Secret Public Journal, which was put out by Comedy Central and can be downloaded online at the iTunes store.

[MUSIC - "I STARTED A JOKE," THE BEE GEES]

Ira Glass

Act Three, Disturbing the Peace Train. Nothing is too big to be ruined. Entire civilizations have been ruined. Species have vanished from the earth. And yet, something as small, as mundane, as one person's day can also be ruined. Nancy Updike has the story about the lessons to be learned from small scale ruin, and how, by trying to eradicate a problem, one can become the problem.

Nancy Updike

This story is going to end up exactly where you'd expect it to, at the entrance to a giant, inflatable large intestine. But first, a few words about bad behavior. [SOUND OF CLIPPING NAILS] This is the sound of a person clipping their nails. And this sound in public, I find, is so unexpected and distinctive that it cuts through any other sound that might be going on, dinner being served, a person giving a speech, the hum of an airplane's cabin. It's possible you're having trouble following the words I'm saying right now because this sound is so disturbing.

Public nail clipping, of course, is rare. Maybe that's why it's so memorable when it does happen. But it's part of a category of activities that isn't rare at all, that is in fact happening every day, cutting in line, parking in two spaces at once, kicking the back of someone's seat during a movie, driving on the shoulder in a traffic jam. When these things are not happening to you, it's easy to say, this is small potatoes. Who cares? But we do care. These are the stories we tell our spouses and friends when they ask how our day was. And the questions we have about these encounters are always the same, is it me? Am I alone in finding this irritating? This is bad public behavior, right? Or am I just a crank?

The only way to know for sure is to find other people who feel the same way, which brings us to Amtrak.

Nancy Updike

Now some of you may already have heard of the Quiet Car, but briefly what happened is this. Amtrak's East Coast route from Washington to Boston that goes through Philadelphia and New York is Amtrak's most profitable and most heavily traveled route. And about 10 years ago, a bunch of frequent Philly to DC travelers started asking Amtrak if there could please be one car on the train, just one, in which people would shut up. No cell phones, no beeping games, no yammering. Silence.

The Quiet Car was a huge hit. Amtrak added Quiet Cars to more routes and more times of day. Commuter rail lines started calling about setting up their own Quiet Cars. Amtrak trademarked the name Quiet Car.

Now if the idea of the Quiet Car doesn't appeal to you, just imagine a place where the thing that annoys you most is forbidden, whatever it is. A friend of mine hates it when people in the grocery store get bagels out of the bin with their hands instead of using the little pieces of wax paper. It would be as though she went to the grocery store and they had a special room set aside where bare hands in the bins was not permitted. Utopia.

I started traveling almost every week between Washington and New York, three and a half hours each way. And here's how it went for me in the Quiet Car. Stage one, glee tinged with self-righteousness. See? I'm not an uptight crank. This is an entire train car full of people who agree with me. I am not alone. Stage two, I am an uptight crank. And here's the kind of uptight crank I am. I started taking notes.

August 12, when you walk into the Quiet Car, people look up at you to see whether you're a member of the club. Are you someone who knows the rules and is here on purpose, or are you one of the others, some regular traveling schmo who stumbled into the car by accident, has no idea where you are, and is going to whip out your cell phone and ruin everything?

October 18, a scene in the Quiet Car. A man in a suit starts talking on his cell phone. The man sitting behind him asks him not to use his cell phone. Man in suit, "Relax buddy." Man behind him, "You relax and follow the rules." Suddenly it's mayhem. An old man stands up and says, "Yes, follow the rules. I hope you respect the rules." The man behind the cell phone talker piles on, "Respect the rules. Ignorant people don't respect rules." For a moment it seems like it could actually get violent. But it doesn't. The man on the cell phone keeps talking while he stands up and walks out. There's triumphalism in the air as he leaves. Everything I need to know about the appeal of fascism, I am learning from the Quiet Car.

January 24. I heard the loudest sound today. It was a man behind me, sighing. I had to change seats. After I change seats, someone in the row in front of my new seat gets on his cell phone. I exchange a glance with the man across the aisle, a glance that says, are you hearing what I'm hearing? We're trying to stay calm, no conductor in sight.

The man on the phone says, "Hey Mark, how are you? Hold on, let me get my calendar." I stand up and lean over the seat and whisper, politely I think, "This is the Quiet Car. No cell phones." The man makes an apologetic face, and very pleasantly gets up and leaves. Other people in the car thank me with their eyes.

March 7. The Quiet Car is not bad in and of itself, but it encourages me to see myself as a Quiet Car person. It's tribal. I am quiet and good. Other people are loud and rude. I am the beleaguered hero of my own world. The woman sitting in the row ahead of me now, in her 50's wearing movie star shades and a cute hat, talking at a level I can hear, she's the other kind of person, self- loving, oblivious, spoiled.

I'm better than that, as though my Quiet Car demeanor is a gift I give the world rather than a choice I make for my own reasons. After all, wasn't I the one laughing too loudly a couple of times at dinner last night? Do I only like to be quiet in the places I want to be quiet?

April 10. I've started putting in ear plugs in the Quiet Car. I know this is insane.

June 3. The train lost power, and we're sitting on the tracks not moving. Almost immediately, Quiet Car discipline broke down, as if the silence had been running on the same electrical system as the air conditioning. One woman got on speaker phone. Another woman started talking loudly into her phone about wine making.

I heard someone clipping their nails, no joke. Not just one stray nail, all 10, one after another.

A man start having a loud, boring conversation to escape his boredom. "Yeah, we're stuck. Can you believe it? I don't know. I just called to let you guys know. So what are you up to?"

I am sitting here shocked. I'm thinking loud thoughts at everyone around me. Is this all it takes for you to turn into savages? Where is your pride? Don't we stand for anything? We are Quiet Car people.

January 18. The Quiet Car felt like a revolution at first, an overthrowing of a bad order. But then the revolution comes for you. I got off the train in Washington one night exhausted, seven hours in the Quiet Car up to New York and back in one day. And when I walked into the atrium of Union Station, there it was, a massive, inflatable colon, a large intestine with people walking in one end and out the other, part of a colon cancer awareness campaign.

I stood there staring at it. When you're tired, anything can seem symbolic, especially something that's in your way, requiring a decision. Will you go around the giant colon and ignore what it has to say about the state of your health? Not how well you appear to the world, but the real truth of the matter. Or, will you step inside, and take a good look at all the foulness you've accumulated in your gut? I decided to go around it.

Ira Glass

Nancy Updike is one of the producers of our show.

Ira Glass

Well our program was produced today by Lisa Pollak and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Jane Feltes, Sarah Koenig, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp, and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer is Julie Snyder. Production help from Seth Lind and P.J. Vogt. Music help from Jessica Hopper.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

Our web site, www.thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International.

[FUNDING CREDITS]

WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia. You know I told him. I told him just the other day, why did you buy all of that Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers? That was just a bad idea.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American life.

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