
Why Japan’s rail workers point at things (2017) - retSava
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-japan-trains
======
ufmace
Hadn't read this in a while - this made me think of similar applications of
the same idea. I remember when I was shooting IDPA competitions, I made myself
physically touch the chamber every time I cleared a firearm to ensure there
was no ammunition there. If you're tired or distracted, it's too easy to just
do a quick visual glance and maybe miss something. Physically touching it
forces you to slow down and pay attention.

Techniques along this pattern seem like a good idea for anything that people
do that has serious consequences for any screwups. Fortunately, current dayjob
has plenty of procedure for production deployments. I've tried to come up with
similar things when working for smaller teams with less procedure. When you're
distracted, panicked, or in a rush is the highest risk for screw-ups, and so
the most important time to slow down, double-check everything and make sure
you get it right.

~~~
seph-reed
Walk out a door, slap all my pockets: keys, phone, wallet.

~~~
Tobani
Me: CRAP WHERE IS MY PHONE?

Also me: Honey, hold this. < hands phone to wife > Continues to rummage
through all pockets looking for my phone.

~~~
jedimastert
I've absolutely done the following:

Walk out of office door. Lock office door. Immediately panic that I've just
locked my keys in the office. Unlock door. Search a surprisingly long time for
said keys. Sigh disappointely when I realize what just happened.

~~~
raducu
Yeah, but have you ever taken a final test, finish it early, go to the front
desk, return to proof read it, place the paper in your back pack and just walk
out, without submitting your test?

------
upofadown
Since reading about this on here I have added a version of this to my pre-
flight checks (glider). I point and say everything in the cockpit and then do
the checks using the traditional mnemonic with the hope that everything will
be in the correct state. It turns out to be easier as I am only doing one
thing at a time rather than having to remember the mnemonic at the same time
as setting stuff. I am not sure I actually need the mnemonic any more.

~~~
leetrout
I have a pair of cheap mechanics gloves with my flight gear and I put them on
when start my preflight. I touch everything I am supposed to check. The gloves
make it so I'm not worried about touching something oily / greasy / etc.

When doing my run up or cruise checklists (where I'm not hands on controls for
critical flight phases) I point / touch each gauge / instrument I am checking
(in steam gauges this makes more sense).

My CFIs have made fun of me but I don't care. I had one that asked if I wanted
a borescope too but it doesn't stop me from being as safe as I want to be.

~~~
kayfox
I'm both surprised and really not that your CFIs make fun of pointing and
calling, then again I've encountered CFIs who don't know things AOPA Air
Safety has been hammering on for years.

------
ignoramous
Previous discussions:

959 points:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14011793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14011793)

272 points:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18952193](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18952193)

~~~
mattmanser
The tomato sauce/umbrella rant is worth visiting the first one just on its
own.

~~~
downerending
Ha. Somewhat relevant, I've discovered that an umbrella is a nice,
nonconfrontational way to keep jackass bicyclists at a safe distance. It
doesn't need to be open, just moving around with some energy, kind of like a
walking stick.

------
flohofwoe
I've stumbled over the same thing in this video of a "veteran pilot" flying a
WW2 aircraft. Notice how he's pointing at the various dials and gears from
time to time. I think the first time this might be because he's explaining to
the viewer what's going on, but even after that when the motor is running or
in the air he's doing a left-to-right sweep through the cockpit from time to
time, pointing at things:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1F_UJaaP1A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1F_UJaaP1A)

I don't know how common this is in aviation, but I had to think immediately of
the Japanese railway workers.

PS: the same thing can be seen in this (admittedly silly and slightly
outdated) aircraft carrier operation video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFqlwAWuMTg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFqlwAWuMTg)

~~~
throw0101a
Doing this is generally called a "flow":

* [https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12707/](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12707/)

One popular one is "GUMPS":

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUMPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUMPS)

~~~
upofadown
I think GUMPS is more of a mnemonic device used as a sort of mental checklist
in an attempt to be able to remember more things reliably without the use of a
written checklist. Different than pointing and calling which associates an
action with the thing to be checked.

~~~
lonelappde
For computer folks, a mnemonic is like a hard disk b-tree.

It's a way to manage a large database by extracting a small collection of
pointers into small fast memory, which is then expanded as needed by accessing
slower remote memory

------
retSava
Love this way to "hack" how the human mind tends to optimize itself, much like
how you can draw things upside down (the object, not yourself) to bypass the
way the mind "knows" how things are supposed to look, instead how they
actually look.

Try that - take a picture of a face from a magazine, draw it on a paper. It
may come out distorted, since your mind exaggerates things that are more
important to you (eyes, mouth more so than the forehead). Then turn the
magazine upside down and draw it again. It often comes out much more similar
to the original this time.

------
Tade0
I do this to fight my OCD of checking repeatedly that I locked the doors.

To an extent it helps.

As a side note I noticed that after I stopped drinking coffee entirely my
memory improved, but at the same time my OCD returned to heights I haven't
seen since the first time I tried this beverage.

I wonder how this works?

~~~
ed312
One of the most common treatments for ADHD is essentially just amphetamines.
Not a doctor, but it seems like CNS stimulants generally have this affect on
some people with attention disorders.

~~~
greenshackle2
I self-medicate ADD with nicotine and it does help. It's fairly addictive
though, so, I wouldn't exactly recommend it.

~~~
olyjohn
Yeah, stopping is the problem for me. I can deal with the cravings for more...
but damn if I don't get pissed off, cranky and depressed without it. It was
way easier to quit Adderall.

------
topbanana
I took my kids to Disneyworld in Florida a few years back, and was impressed
to notice the lifeguards pointing into the all corners of the swimming pools
as they walked around and did their checks.

~~~
hoorayimhelping
I was a lifeguard there in the late 90s. They taught it to us back then as
well. But for politeness, you have to do the Disney two-finger point. I was
taught that pointing with an index finger might be misconstrued as pointing at
a person and come off as rude or offensive.

~~~
huffmsa
Two fingers or the knife hand.

It wasn't policy, but when I lifeguarded, I'd point out all of my checks as
well.

------
sneak
NYC also does this, for the same reason:

[https://youtu.be/i9jIsxQNz0M](https://youtu.be/i9jIsxQNz0M)

~~~
pas
> New York City’s MTA subway system, whose conductors have used a modified
> point-only system since 1996 after then Chief Transportation Officer
> Nathaniel Ford was fascinated by the point-and-call system during a business
> trip to Japan. In the MTA’s case, conductors point to a fixed black-and-
> white “zebra board” to confirm a stopped train is correctly located along
> the platform.

~~~
tialaramex
It does seem crazy that New York still has two man operation. A machine is
also capable of confirming correct alignment to some marker, and won't get
distracted or confused. I assume it's a union thing?

If you are going to spend millions of dollars (yes really) paying for an extra
person on every train, clearly having them fixed in a place where they can
point at a board so as to not automate an easy problem is a poor use compared
to them roaming the train. Of course New York's trains still also don't have
open gangways, so it wouldn't be easy to do that either. But a guard who
actually strolls up and down the train helping passengers might actually make
a useful difference compared to replacing a trivial mechanical sensor with a
well-paid human.

~~~
downerending
You really need an attentive person to keep people from being dragged--there
is no substitute. (And in some curved stations, the driver can't even see to
the rear end of the train.)

In principle, everything could be enclosed, like an elevator, but in practice
most stations would be all but impossible to retrofit.

~~~
majewsky
Then why does it work just fine with one conductor in most other metro
systems?

> And in some curved stations, the driver can't even see to the rear end of
> the train.

Mirrors and CCTV are a thing. At the Berlin metro, the platform has a big
mirror or a CCTV screen array next to where the train cockpit stops. Other
metros' stations have wireless CCTV systems that show up inside the cockpit
while the train is stopped.

~~~
downerending
Note that NYC trains have just one conductor, AFAIK. The second person is the
driver.

For dragging, it's not just where the train stops. You have to be able to see
the entire side of the train as it leaves the station (e.g., for 100 meters,
at least).

Video might be possible, but it'd need to be attached to the train, because
that's where the dragging happens. Realistically, though, NY doesn't have the
money for this conversion. And more importantly, the driver needs to attend
forward, not be carefully watching the dragging video.

~~~
majewsky
> Note that NYC trains have just one conductor, AFAIK. The second person is
> the driver.

Sorry, that was lost in translation. By "conductor", I meant "driver". All the
metro trains that I know have only one personnel on board, the driver.

Also, what do you mean by "dragging"? People or clothes getting stuck in a
door? It seems to be very important, but I've never heard of this being a
large problem in practice.

~~~
downerending
Dragging as in clothes, backpack, or an arm caught in a door, or someone
falling in the crevice between the train and platform, or trying to "surf" the
train, etc.

Not sure, but I think incidents happen with some regularity in NY. If you
haven't seen it, it might be hard to visualize just how out-of-date and
decrepit some of this infrastructure is. I never saw anyone injured, but I did
see a couple of close calls that still make me shudder.

------
tangoalpha
I have adopted this a couple of years ago after stumbling upon a video about
this.

I work as a web architect. Whenever I am involved in a large production
deployment, I don't just go through the checklists. I verbally call out each
configuration/setting pointing my finger at the specific line on the screen.

Although, I don't call out as loud as the Japanese train staff are seen doing.
It helped me with being more conscious and not oversee things or skip items in
the checklist.

------
lukevp
I started doing this anytime I have to do maintenance on systems. I point and
call the name of the system and say “test” or “production” and other
descriptive words like “web server” or “dmz” or whatever. We’re working on not
requiring manual processes for routine deployments (We’ve automated some), but
until then, every extra bit of safety we can add is well worth feeling weird
for talking to your computer.

~~~
majewsky
From one of my actual bash functions:
[https://github.com/majewsky/devenv/blob/5ceaf51d0e9ba4c66d8c...](https://github.com/majewsky/devenv/blob/5ceaf51d0e9ba4c66d8c591004c6978d8a0e77cf/toplevel/profile#L315)

Slightly shortened:

    
    
      if [ "${IS_PROD}" = 1 -a "${COMMAND}" = upgrade -a "${I_KNOW_THIS_IS_PROD:-}" != yes ]; then
        echo "Not upgrading a productive region without I_KNOW_THIS_IS_PROD=yes." >&2
        return 1
      fi

------
tomaskafka
Same thing goes for rally drivers (or regular driving or bike riding): you
drive to where you look at. If you want to stay on the road, look at the road.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
That's the exact opposite. Professional drivers just look where they are
trying to go (visualize their line or however you want to describe it) and the
muscle memory follows.

The whole purpose of checklists, point and call, etc, etc, is to explicitly
not use muscle memory and break that shortcut in the brain so that when
something is wrong that one time in a thousand you actually notice.

~~~
olyjohn
I've found that when you are cornering on a motorcycle, you look to where you
want to go, and the bike follows. If you try to think too much about where to
place the motorcycle in the lane as you go, you end up looking at the edges of
the lane. Inevitably the bike follows to the edge of the lane, which is not
where you wanted to go, and can put you in a bad situation.

I can't explain why it works, but if I look down the road and around the
corner as far as I can, the bike will follow the proper path. I don't even
feel like I'm giving the steering any inputs. It's very strange.

They kept teaching this over and over in our safety class, but in the safety
class, you aren't riding fast enough to notice. (mostly in a parking lot).
When you are riding very slowly, the motorcycle tends to act more like a
bicycle. But above like 20mph, the steering behavior changes. This I also
don't really understand.

It's kind of the exact opposite of pointing, speaking and being deliberate.

------
sitkack
Along with the scientific method, I am convinced that much of the modern world
is made available because of checklists.

------
malkia
Some time ago we've visited the San Diego's USS Midway aircraft carrier (now
museum).

There was an old air-force gentleman, explaining various bits, I don't
remember everything, but this one:

So basically, he was asked why air pilots were asked to raise their hands
(visibly) before taking off. And the explanation was, that this is to make
sure that they are not fiddling with the plane, such that whoever works on the
ropes (up front the plane), is safe, and can prepare the plane for taking off.
Apparently, there were lots of hotshots, and you can't trust them :)

(Probably my memory is not serving me alright in all details, but it was
something along the lines, if anyone can provide more detailed material -
it'll be great! I would like to share it with my father too - an ex air
military officer)

~~~
imadethis
In a similar vein, when an F18 is launched from a carrier deck the pilot holds
a handle rather than the joystick. This is because the flight computer manages
the flight controls immediately after the catapult launch, and if the pilot
was hands-on they would consciously or unconsciously provide conflicting
inputs.

Stack overflow link with more info:
[https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44714/what-
happ...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/44714/what-happens-
during-a-carrier-take-off)

------
baddash
This obviously works really well, but it sounds dehumanizing. I was wondering,
is it right to dehumanize for the sake of running things smoothly? Or should
it be the case that workers' humanity should be respected, and therefore
sacrifice this world-class efficiency? You may think the latter is obviously
right, but consider that the transportation system plays a part in powering
the activity of civilization, so it's pretty important to have running well,
to say the least.

The above is based off of it actually being dehumanizing. Maybe it isn't, and
if you think so I want to hear why, but when I imagine seeing it and doing it,
it feels very robotic. Imagine doing it for hours every day of every week, and
having those around you expect to keep it up..

~~~
miscPerson
Why would safely and efficiently performing your job be dehumanizing?

I legitimately don’t see how it’s more dehumanizing than say, speech
guidelines at retail or standards for how to use a tool in construction.

I pointed and called in a data center as we went through the checklist —
because I wanted to do my job correctly, and used the best available technique
to do so. That’s what being a professional others can depend on is: doing the
silly technique so your work is correct.

I find embracing that much more liberating than being inefficient just so
others might not judge my conduct from a position of ignorance. _That_ strikes
me as demeaning.

~~~
baddash
> Why would safely and efficiently performing your job be dehumanizing?

Robots can safely and efficiently perform their job. And do it way better than
humans in some areas. Being a cog in a well-oiled machine that works
efficiently sounds almost like a perfect example of dehumanization.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I interpret your general stance as: "Doing your
job well has merit and value, so it shouldn't be viewed as dehumanizing." As a
counterpoint, I bring up robots again: they do their job well, and that has
merit and value. However, they have no humanity whatsoever. So what justifies
your stance?

~~~
miscPerson
Just because a robot can do the same job doesn’t make an activity dehumanizing
- you seem to merely be justifying a negative view.

You’re also ignoring that the point of pointing and calling is precisely to
keep you from responding robotically if something deviates and to maintain
your attention on active control/correction. It’s when you don’t point and
call that you respond robotically. Your comment about “cog” gets to what I was
calling demeaning: most of the jobs people refer to that way require
intelligence and active response that machines can’t really master — they’re
being done poorly if you’re just being a “cog in a machine”.

Robots are okay, but they’re not really useful for certain jobs (yet) because
they’re either not smart enough, not flexible enough, or too costly to respond
intelligently to deviations from the norm. Pointing and calling amplifies that
human capacity.

Using motion and language to amplify our natural faculties for best effect at
a social purpose sounds pretty human to me.

I’m curious, what activity do you view as not dehumanizing?

~~~
baddash
>Just because a robot can do the same job doesn’t make an activity
dehumanizing - you seem to merely be justifying a negative view.

Well, you asked "why would safely and efficiently performing your job be
dehumanizing?" as if it somehow the fact that those two qualities are
meritorious precludes that characterization. That's why I brought up robots,
because they are a clear counter example to your implicit claim. Also, to be
fair, I did ask if I was wrong to assume that was indeed your claim...

>You’re also ignoring that the point of pointing and calling is precisely to
keep you from responding robotically...

Actually, here you're conflating robotically with habitually or instinctively
or carelessly. Consider that robots can respond to deviations as edge cases,
in a manner analogous to conditional statements; such a response would have to
be robotic, wouldn't it? Robots can very obviously handle deviations if
they're programmed to, so that was a bad example.

> Using motion and language to amplify our natural faculties for best effect
> at a social purpose sounds pretty human to me.

I agree the creative use of this is human, but what I'm asserting is that this
can be done to a dehumanizing end. Humanity created robots.

> I’m curious, what activity do you view as not dehumanizing?

Inherently human activities such as creating knowledge of other people.

------
huffmsa
Most of us probably do it without realizing.

Wallet _Tap_ Keys _Tap_ Phone _Tap_

------
seanc
This shows up in a few other places as well;

Casino card dealers do all sorts of meaningful gestures

Lifeguards do formal sign language things to each other

Amusement park ride operators

Astronauts and pilots do almost everything out loud in call-and-response

~~~
dpcx
Casino card dealers also do some of those movements (hands spreading palms up
or calling out to a pit boss that they're changing cash for chips) for the
security team - to show that they're not trying to steal money.

------
sevencolors
I (and other climbers) do this as well when setting up. Calling out rope is
correctly set in harness, has 5 points of loop, belayer has locked carabiner
and set in their harness and called out ready to climb. It seems silly on the
500th time, but if someone rushes up and someone is not set could be a very
dangerous situation

------
blue_devil
They also use this technique in Japan in stores - confirming the amount of
money received, pointing to the money, to the cash register etc. I think it
serves the same purpose, though it probably feels less awkward as it's
directed towards another person (though people don't usually respond to the
assistant talking).

------
NPMaxwell
A triumph of well-administered A/B testing combined with creative innovation
in seeking out procedures to test

------
MakeUsersWant
Does pointing-and-calling focus the mind onto the task by the same mechanism
as pair programming should focus it onto the bigger picture?

So far, I've always regarded pair programming as a fad for people who can only
think in conversation. But maybe there is a plausible mechanism behind it.

~~~
pas
Simply keeping a log also helps. (See also lab notes.) The habit of writing
down what you want to do, and summarizing what you have actually done is an
enormously powerful one.

------
ferros
Coincidently, I just heard about this exact thing when listening to the
audiobook Atomic Habits today.

Thanks

------
ChrisMarshallNY
This is cool.

I went to Japan regularly for twenty years, and always saw this, but never
thought about it.

Thanks for that!

------
paypalcust83
Seems like a good system for commercial aviation when combined with
checklists.

