Commuter morning mindfulness training

Who hasn't been an unwitting listener to a fellow passenger's phone conversation? I am quite a prude when overhearing private phone conversations or seeing someone behave inappropriately (e.g. talking on the phone in a quiet zone department). I really don't feel comfortable, and often I am annoyed.

There is a quote from Phyllis Bottome that goes...

"There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties, or you alter yourself meeting them."

Since it is impossible to make passengers talking loudly on phones disappear, I devised a mindfulness exercise to use in those situations. Here it goes:

1. Acknowledge how the person is annoying me. 
2. Figure out more clearly what it is I am feeling. Is it anger because this is a quiet zone, embarrassment because the information being conveyed is too personal, or righteousness because I judge the person as being stupid?
3. Tap into my sense of humour and imagine three Goldilocks scenarios (wrong, okay, and good) that would allow me to alter how I meet this problem.

Here is a recent example of how it works.

Situation: mid-morning commute to Hamburg from Lübeck. A 30-ish male passenger makes 20 calls (I kid you not). It seems he is a salesperson for office materials and trying (unsuccessfully) to finish his daily quota while travelling on the train.

My three Goldilocks scenarios:

• I hope the guy's boss is in the train compartment and realizes what a lousy salesman this idiot is (wrong)
• I hope the guy's boss sends him on a sales training workshop where he learns what polite conduct is (okay)
• I pretend his mother is a friend of mine, and I know how proud she is of his industriousness (good)

By this point in the exercise, I usually stop being annoyed and can see the situation's absurdity.