There is an unwritten rule - if you cannot fight with something, just lead it. The rule works in many cases - from politics and big business to the smallest life situations, such as travel in public transport.
Indeed, if a person is faced with an unpleasant set of circumstances and there is no way to achieve their goal in accordance with the rules, all that remains is to turn the situation to their own advantage - in strict accordance with the same rules. Someone will call it a deflection under the outside world, someone - reasonable resourcefulness.
For example, like the author of the original post in the Reddit PettyRevenge community, which has already collected 51.5K upvotes and almost 1.4K different comments in just a few days. This story took place on the British railroad and the Original Poster really managed to turn a poor situation in their favor.
More info: Reddit
The Original Poster traveled from Edinburgh to London, so they booked a place in advance
Image soure: William Murphy (not the actual photo)
Image source: Magnus_40
It turned out that the booked place was already taken by another guy who refused to change seats
So the OP was riding from Edinburgh to London by train. It's a few hours' ride, so they booked in advance a comfortable seat with a table by the window. However, when the passenger entered the carriage, they were totally surprised to find that their seat was already taken by some guy.
Image source: Magnus_40
Moreover, three of his friends were sitting around the seat hijacker, and he refused to change seats - after all, the carriage was overcrowded and the impudent hijacker also did not want to move away from his friends. The OP thought of asking for assistance from the ticket controller, but this also turned out to be a problem.
Image source: Magnus_40
The ticket controller told the OP they had no right to force a seat hijacker to change places
The fact is that the hijacker also had a ticket - however, without being tied to a specific place. At the request of the controller to leave the seat, he flatly refused. As it turned out, according to the rules, the controller has no right to force him to change seats - only the police can do this, but they are unlikely to deal with such a minor problem.
Image source: Magnus_40
The OP finally decided to hijack a first class seat instead
A disappointing prospect loomed of standing all the way to London, because the carriage, as we have already noted, was overcrowded. But then the OP was visited by a really great insight. They told the controller that they would go to the first class car!
Image source: Kecko (not the actual photo)
The controller tried to object that the OP had not booked a seat in first class, but they in turn objected with the same words that they had previously denied. Moreover, the OP now knew that the police would not interfere and the controller had absolutely no right to drop them off.
In general, as the OP summarizes, they made the whole trip to London in a comfortable and cozy first class seat, with a table and a free laptop charger!
People in the comments really admired the OP's brilliant solution
The people in the comments were absolutely delighted with the OP's elegant and ingenious solution of this problem. Some persons, however, noted that the seat hijacker was lucky that it was in the UK - after all, in some countries, the controller could simply throw the insolent person out of the carriage.
In fact, as many commenters admit on the basis of personal experience, in far from all countries do passengers always actually pay - as one of the people in the comments said, in an overcrowded carriage on an Italian train, the controller was once so surprised that they really paid for the ticket that they even went and found them a place near the window.
By the way, do you know what the main difference between this post and a train car is? There is always space for an interesting comment or even your own story - and let it be an equally exciting tale about human resourcefulness even in the most difficult situation!