Fun times...

Yesterday I had an incident with a passenger at work that took every ounce of my energy to get through. The situation, while irritating and day-ruining, could have been MUCH worse had I not had a particularly special passenger on board. But the ridiculousness of the situation just zapped the life right out of me. And it only took about 3 minutes from start to finish for the ordeal to play out.

I was running a route for a regular driver who had taken vacation for the week. Of course, being that it was Monday I was the first "fill-in" driver to cart around the regular riders on the route. Things were going pretty well I thought even though I was running fairly late because of a few snags along the way.

I had a lady get on the bus headed downriver to one of the high schools on the route. She was a little loud with her conversations with other passengers, enough so that I wished she'd utilize an "inside voice". I never said anything, I rarely do unless someone is being loud while using profanity, which is the only time I ever ask someone to please lower their voice (and watch the language).

I was driving along, chatting with the special passenger about nothing in particular, enjoying the morning drive. I was approaching the place where I knew the loud mouth lady was planning to get off the bus when a hush fell over the bus after another passenger pulled the string to request a stop.

"No no NO bus driver you are gonna take me down into that school. I am not gonna walk from way up here. Oh hell no, you gonna take me down there."

I sighed heavily and prepared myself. I knew this wasn't gonna go over well.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry but the school isn't listed as a stop on this route and so I'm not going to be going down there today."

"Oh yes you are! I can't walk that far! The regular bus driver always take us down there, all of us. We all get off down there at the school. Everyday for 3 years he has! You WILL drive me down there."

"No, ma'am I'm not going to be going down there today. If the other driver takes you down there, he's doing something he's not supposed to do. This schedule (and I held up the paper I g0t from the dispatch file cabinet for that particular run which is what I must go by for time points and knowing where to go) doesn't say to go to the high school, and it would have it listed if this route was supposed to go there. But it doesn't. So I'm not. I'm sorry ma'am but you will have to walk from here."

She proceeded to scream and started to curse getting more irate by the second. The other passengers all backed her up saying that the other driver takes them to the school every day and before I knew it I had a small riot of yelling passengers telling me that I am supposed to go down there, it's on the schedule, etc. etc. etc.

"I believe you, and I'm sure he does take you down there, but it's not listed on here." I held up my route sheet again.

"I will call the dispatcher, ask him if there is an error on the route sheet."

I radioed to my dispatcher to explain the situation after I'd set the brakes and opened the door. Two passengers happily got off the bus and started walking down to the school. The others, the more irate of the bunch stayed on board and kept yelling. That was where my special passenger stepped in and asked them to please calm down. They never really did calm down, but I'm sure that his presence kept the situation from escalating any further.

I explained the problem at hand, clearly and loudly to my dispatcher over the radio. I then hung up the receiver so that everyone in the bus could hear his response to the situation over the loudspeaker. When he said that the high school is NOT on the route and I am not authorized to go off route to take any passenger down to the school the riot broke out again... screaming and cursing the women were now beyond irate. They stood and slowly made their way to the exit but they were NOT happy. I had to listen to them bitch the whole way out the door, where they all stood and gathered in a huddle while yelling and pointing at me and saying things that weren't very nice.

The ringleader, miss loud mouth herself, was still yelling at me as I closed the door and released the brakes and pulled away.

In all the time she spent causing the ruckus, inciting the others into a frenzy and making herself look like an idiot she could have already walked her happy little ass down to the school. But instead, she showed herself and probably ruined her own day over it, and made me more late than I already was in the process.

What really sucks is that the other bus driver who regularly runs that route has been taking them to the front door of the school for the past three years without fail. But he's not supposed to have been doing that. It's technically out of route and could cost him if he ended up getting in an accident while doing so. And if I'd caved and took them down there myself and gotten caught or into an accident then it would have been MY ass on the fire.

I handled the situation the best I could. I was polite in my responses and never raised my voice back at the yelling brood of banshees. But man it was tough not to. I would loved to have said many a not-so-nice things in response to the statements being slung in my direction.

Oh yeah, I'd love to have heaved out an accent thick reply of "Yesa Miss Daisy, Ma'am I'll get ya right on down to dat school house in a jiffy."

But I'd probably have gotten a day off for that...