Special Events

Finding the Zen zone during special events can be a challenge. Such as doing the 21 Line by Golden Gate Park on the weekend of a major concert or running event that ends or lets out near the Polo Fields in the park.

I had made a wise choice to work the 21 line on weekends in the summer because I vowed never again to do the number 5 on summer weekends, ever. And so while I was waiting to leave my terminal by the park, I saw a number 5 packed with people pull up beside me. The operator was hollering she was not going to Market, and to get on my bus. Truth was, she was going to Market, just not to Powell Station. All the concertgoers could just as easily walked to Civic Center station or to Powell from her short terminal at Jones and Mc Allister, but she wasn’t having it. No one was listening and no one was getting off her bus. She was experiencing that part of Packed Stacked and Racked where no one moves or listens because, they were lucky enough to get on a bus and be damned if they got off their lucky ticket to ride.

Feeling her pain, and not upset about taking on her passengers, I got out of my bus to coax some of those on her bus to get on mine which was traveling in the same direction to Market Street. But no one was biting. I had a completely empty bus but no one would get off. Here is where past experience about being passed up by full buses, puts lead in the feet of all passengers, and no amount of verbal instruction helps. These folks were able to “cheat death” and fit on to her bus, beating out who knows how many unlucky souls. And they would be damned if they were going to be suckered off of a coach they had so victoriously boarded. No, in this case, no one was falling for it. They knew they were going downtown, and that was the end of it!

I tried to get the operator to change her statement about going to Market, or to relax about her announcement, but the only thing that would have had let people off her coach would be to go out of service. In hindsight, this is what I should have proposed to her by her drivers’ side window. “Oh, look your air is low and you can’t legally proceed. Ask everyone to board my coach.” That would have given her breathing room to start picking up with an empty bus, and I could have continued with my shorter distance, full, but not in an agitated state of mind. I have always sought to give a break to an operator who is overwhelmed because I know there are times when I am in that predicament, and nothing good comes from it. Learning how to give and gain the respect of my coworkers is perhaps the most and last challenging aspect of staying in the Zen of driving transit in San Francisco.