They say its a bitch, and it really is. Problem is, half the time I never knew I was receiving payback. I was having a bad day without knowing I was the cause. And it took me years to see the cause and effect my actions of pissing off others had when this energy boomeranged back on me.
The first most obvious payback was one on one with other operators. That’s when an operator waits the full time at the terminal, and then, after waiting past my leaving time, goes out of service. By the time they call Operations it is too late. The damage has been done. I have double headway and am leaving late. The clincher is when I have no follower so I can’t rely on help from behind. And the worse place for payback is at Bay and Fillmore. No way can the three major stops of Chestnut, Lombard, and Union be passed up, and no way can I enjoy an empty or light segment of load before the mid way point on the trip. Oh well. There goes the Marina Green Middle School’s Out bell! Better luck next time.
Or the famous Daly City 702. Where two twilight operators, usually junior to the pull-in coach behind them, take a twenty minute break so that the pull-in operator has a long headway to pick up passengers from Evergreen, Lowell and Geneva all the way in to the inner Mission. Instead of shadowing behind two in-service coaches, the operator has to pick up an extra load for the three miles in to the pull in wires. And not just for one day, but over and over, day after day.
And when passengers retaliate, it is usually up front and obvious. They pull your poles to disable your forward power traction motor.
Or they release the air from the rear door, so that your interlock engages, and you can’t move the bus forward at all. May be they stand in front of your bus. Perhaps they park their wheelchair in the street. Or throw their bag in to the side of your bus. In any event, you are not going anywhere. And I can mark my progress as an operator when this stops happening to me, even at classic corners like 16th and Mission. I am happy to say by being in the Zen zone, I have not been blockaded by passengers for years.
If you want to make a difference about service, don’t expect immediate results. If more than one person calls in a complaint, odds are better. Getting the time and place correct counts: are you inbound or outbound? And the coach number is usually adequate. But the operator’s descriptions can be humorous. I was once called a Latino male. I was thrilled. I didn’t even care about the complaint. I was glad to be thought of as from Spanish or Mediterranean dissent. Hair styles and glasses also seem to add to the humor. Sometimes this is the best part when reading the complaint.
But heaven help the operator under the microscope of management, lying in wait for a minor mistake, as if there aren’t enough things to worry about, already. In using the full set of rules to the exact letter of the law, it is only a matter of time before the suspension comes. Opening a door early, or squeezing a lemon out of a stale green, odds are you are going to get written up for not following the rules. But, by swallowing my pride, not taking things personally, and looking at all my actions to change my behavior, once the penalty is received and not disputed, I have been given a new chance to avoid the penalty box. I am born again with a clean slate, and can make sure I don’t keep repeating the same mistake over again. I look for feedback from my passengers. If I keep hearing thank you’s when people step off, I know I am on the Zen track.
by Douglas Meriwether
The Dao of Doug: A Bus Driver's Perspective 