The Tower

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The second-most happiest moment of the day can usually be the time we see the tower in our front windscreen because it means we made it back to the barn!  We completed another day of revenue service without creating more “incident” paperwork or having trouble meet us before our day is done.  Oh, just a minor piece of paperwork to be turned in to the tower, the defect card.  How long could this take?  How bad could it be?  Do you guys remember the recent movie title, “There Will Be Blood?”

The Blood, The Sweat, and The Tears, are very rarely are shed at the tower. These are found during the special event when the bus is packed at 36th Avenue by Golden Gate Park, and there are another 3 miles of bus stops with people waiting to get on to go to BART at 5th Street!  No, the tower is usually a sweet spot without drama.  

The Tears will come in the next week, or the next month, when you get the bus again on a cold and windy morning, and it still has no heat.   Or the chair still loses air.  You hop-in and see perfectly through the eight mirrors, but halfway to Daly City, you become a low-rider in the seat and wish you had the hydraulics to lift your ass up out of the seat to see what lay ahead:  Or the horn goes off any time you try to turn the wheel:  That poor little Chihuahua may never be the same again:  Glares and stares from cyclists and pedestrians who think you are a regular horn honker.  No, the art of the pull-in is to know what I can and cannot put on the defect card, and what will or will not get fixed.   This is much like reading tea-leaves.  But in this case the leaves are the three parts of the defect card:  yellow, pink, and white. 

If I see lots of hanging chads by the door to the tower, I would do well to smile and let things go. After all, the logic within the hallowed walls of the tower may go something like; if it was okay for you to drive like that all day it couldn’t be all that bad.  If it was broken, you would have called for the road crew, and if it was unfixable, they would have sent you in. Unspoken, to be sure, unwritten to be sure, but can I get my defect card on the windshield wiper, with the order of “track 22?”  

Track 22 is code for that sinking feeling some time in the next day when the next operator realizes they have been had.  That the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule does not coincide with the parts budget allocation!

Good one?  Is the late night request that comes forth from the tower when pulling-in during the wee hours.  A thumbs up means on to advancing to the happiest moment of the day, the fare box collector. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars.   But on to free parking! (Actually no, parking is now paid, and it just went up.)  Being able to get something fixed without breaking down on the road is truly a God Given Gift.   And to get the defect card on the wiper, and to be assigned the same coach on the next day with no problems, is perhaps an Eighth Wonder of the World in keeping Zen as a transit operator in San Francisco!