In Front of the Yellow Line

My Many Hats

By Shawn Wells

Woman on my bus: “Do you get some really annoying people sometimes?”

Me: “You get used to it.”

Woman: “Tell me the worst one.”

Me: “Well… I once had someone ask me if I get some really annoying people sometimes.”

 I’ve worked many different jobs in my life. But through all of them they’ve all had at least one thing in common. The job description that I applied for, is the job that I worked. Until, that is, I became a bus driver. I expected to drive a bus and provide customer service. The end. I never expected all the other roles that I would have to take on.

The first is psychologist. You could also say bartender without the serving drinks part. I’ve been told by people that work in call centers that they deal with the same problem. I see some people at their absolute worst...It’s sad sometimes. But it seems that when people are at their lowest, that is when they want to open up the most. I had one woman one day, who I happened to remember from a couple of weeks earlier when she was on her way to a job interview. I asked her how the interview went. This turned into a long discussion about how her testing for the job hadn’t gone well because she wasn’t in the right frame of mind that day because of something that had happened to remind her of a traumatic experience from earlier in the year and did she ever tell me about what had happened to her because she had been kidnapped and taken to Mexico and, and, and….. Boy… that was a can of worms I opened that day.

Like a bartender will sit and listen to people’s problems, so do I. It’s amazing some of the personal things a person will share. I remember one guy who, on a cold winter day, said “Boy its a cold one!” I responded with “Could be worse… at least it stopped snowing.” Innocent weather talk, right? His answer was “Or your girlfriend could’ve sucked off a black guy!”  and then proceeded to tell me all about how he had caught his girlfriend cheating and so on. How does someone respond to this? Completely out of the blue! I wasn’t talking about infidelity or black guys. How does someone find the connection to segue from weather to that?!?

The other thing that makes me like a bartender is the amount of drunks I have to deal with sometimes. I mean, let me start off by saying good for them choosing public transportation instead of driving. But, out of all people in the world, I have the lowest tolerance for drunks. And at least a real bartender can walk away rather than being stuck in a confined space with them. From the girls pole dancing at the back door (and not usually the type of girls you’d WANT to see doing this) to the guy trying to carry on a slurred conversation right in your face so you can smell everything they drank that day… it does give me a new respect for people that work at bars. However, when they get kicked out of the bars, that’s when they end up being my problem. It is awkward moving the bus when there is someone that can barely stand trying to get to their seat. But the worst drunks, are the passed out drunks. I worked a stretch of night shifts for several months at one point, and usually had to have security remove at least 1 drunk a week from my bus.

Now just because we have transit security, that doesn’t stop me from being a cop occasionally myself. This is the second part of my job description I was never informed about. I actually had a really drunk guy call me “officer” once. For my own safety, there is not a lot I will police on my own bus. That is why we have the professionals. Sometimes it feels like I’m more of a professional tattletale. But I have been known to kick people off my bus myself.  Occasionally, we will get a call over our bus radio saying that police are requesting our assistance in finding a missing person or person of interest. I have had the person on my bus before too. Bus drivers see a lot of people and places during their shift. The system works. Honorary police. I’ve also had someone come to me saying that they witnessed someone vandalizing a building downtown and that they had just gotten on my bus. I had that person arrested off my bus. But more importantly, the kind of cop I am is traffic cop. There have been times when, while stopped for pedestrians at a crosswalk, I’ll see someone coming up fast beside me. I will stick my hand out the window to try and stop them. Or sometimes I will use my bus to physically block traffic to allow someone to make a turn along a busy road. Bus drivers will actually do this for each other quite often.

The third unexpected job title I have is human G.P.S.. People will always ask me if I go past something or if I know where something is and how to get there. Usually it will be a question like “Do you go past a Safeway?” or “Where is the nearest TD Bank?” But sometimes the names they give me are so random that it would be a miracle if I did know. But people expect me to know where every union hall or warehouse is located. I find it interesting that I can drive the same route for 3 months. In that time, I can learn where every single stop is, which ones are most popular, which ones have potholes, where every bump is on the route, which corners are tight… etc. But then someone will ask me if I go past a liquor store and I’ll have no clue at all. I’m fascinated that I can be so blind to certain things. Sometimes it will even be a question of if I go to such and such street and I have no idea, but it turns out I do. I know all my turns, but because the street they are asking about isn’t a main road, I’ve never noticed the sign.

But this leads to the next job I have, tour guide. If you get me driving a route in my city where I actually know a lot about the history, I will happily answer questions for a tourist. Before I started this job I was never as informed on city events as I am now. Major sports events, concerts, festivals… some of these are things that I never really considered before but people will ask me about. Never would I have cared that there was a Ke$ha concert in town, but if it affects my route, I know about it. Parades, “Paloozas”, Raves, Rodeos, circuses. And

when I get to a section of my route where there is heavy traffic and I don’t know what’s going on, I will pull out my phone at my next layover and Google it.

Through all my different job titles, I get insight into people’s lives. Like the excuses for why someone doesn’t have fare. “Please can you hook me up with a ride? My direct deposit didn’t come through and now I have to get to work to pick up a cheque.”  It makes me appreciate my teachers growing up who had to listen to every excuse as to why my homework wasn’t done. I’m just waiting for the day that I hear that someone’s dog ate their bus pass.

From in front of the yellow line, that’s how I see it.