Well, so far this year I have had several buses that are equipped with the new automatic stop caller. This thing is great, cause I hate calling stops. As you may know, it is now law in Toronto that we call every stop just in case we have a blind person on the bus. It's a ladies voice. I would say she was in her mid thirties and smokes a pack a day of players plain by the sounds of her. We have other buttons we can push to ask people to move back, move behind the white line, warn of a short turn, proof of payment route etc. These are a man's voice. Why? I have no idea. I guess they think the man's voice is more like a disciplinarian or something. There may be some truth to this. When Kim, our daughter was younger, if Ruth wasn't getting anywhere with her discipline she would always ask me to interject with my "male voice". She did seem to move a little quicker. We must sound scary or something. In the dog world, it's usually the "B----", I better not use the "B" word (girl dog) that does the barking at the kids (pups). Not so I guess, with people. Although some of you single moms may beg to differ, cause you had to play both roles.
So, before each stop this nice lady calls out the stop for me and then it is shown in writing on a screen as well. Would you believe that people still come up and ask me what the next stop is? I mean really, how dumb can people be? I wouldn't believe it when I first started this job, but after 10 years of dealing with the public, you tend to get a little sceptical. People really don't listen. No wonder psycho therapists are so much in demand. They get paid to listen to us. I think I'm going to need one pretty soon. My stress level has come down a few notches with this device. If you can imagine a bus route that is 45 minutes long one way, it may have over 100 stops and then 125 going the other way, all different names( that's 225 stops on one route) and we were having to memorize over 50 routes. This was next to impossible,cause you had to call the stop well before you got to it, so just reading the street sign wouldn't cut it. It was taking me 3 to 4 weeks to memorize a short route that was 15 minutes one way. This had only about 60 stops both ways. It got to the point that we were so frustrated, nobody was calling stops anymore and if they fired one of us, we were all going to walk off the job. We have to multi-task as it is. Drive a large vehicle in demanding city traffic, deal with difficult people, schedules we have no control over, collect money, answer questions etc. etc. One more task was getting a little too much. But thank God that is almost over. OK enough beefing. I'm thankful I have a job and an automated work spouse to help me out. Here's your laugh for the day.
" After he finished his route, a bus driver had to explain to the supervisor why he was 10 minutes late: " I was stuck behind a big truck."
" But yesterday you were 10 minutes early," reminded the boss.
"Yeah", the bus driver replied. " But yesterday I was stuck behind a porsche!"
Have a blessed week!
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7 comments:
I have heard it said, "don't sweat the small stuff." What is so hard about calling out a bus stop? I don't know about you but I find that the big stuff, once accomplished, is done. It is the small stuff that gets done hundreds of times a day that is difficult. If I were to be done in by something I would rather be shot once and be over it rather than to suffer the death of a thousand cuts.
When I rode the bus in Hamilton 40 years ago they never called out the street stops. They would however take requests for a specific stop and call out when they were approaching the stop.
I guess we were smarter back in the good old days.
Away back when we called a spade a spade and described people as they were: like " deaf and dumb ". Deaf meaning you couldn't hear and dumb meaning you couldn't speak. Now, we are " hearing challenged "or " mentally challenged ". Anyway, you called the person " dumb " who came up and asked what stop was next. I think you're a little mixed up. They're not dumb.... they're likely deaf. Maybe they can't hear the female with the gravelly voice or your " frustrated utterances ", if you're not driving an automated bus. I don't want to sound self-righteous, because, frankly I think I would react exactly as you do. But, let's each ask the question, WWJD ?
Dad.... This has happened way too many times. These people can hear, trust me, they just don't listen. I've been doing this a long time now and I know what I am talking about.
Joe.. I call out the stops, I just don't like doing it, I have too many other things to think about. In 10 years I have never had a complaint from a blind person not reaching their destination. I always ask them where they want off and make sure they get there. Driving a bus, you can intereact with the customer, whereas on the train and street car, not so much. People can get on the back door on many street car routes and train drivers are locked away in their little cage. Calling out major interesections is not a problem or those that request a stop, I always did that. But every single stop? There are litterally thousands of them with names like, " first stop east of Kipling ave." Try saying that hundreds of times on one trip and see what happens. It's all good . I've got my automated lady with me now!
Yeah ... I'm of the notion that if you're not sure where you are going or need a specific stop then ask the Driver. I used to way back when. I always found they were more than willing to help that way.
As a commuter I think I would find the constant drone of stops being called to be a little annoying.
Long time ago, I rode the bus for a short time to a work-term job at Dofasco, from the west mountain.
Talk about drone.
It would drive me nuts too, Dougie. I happy to help those who need it, but repeating myself to those who don't listen - ugh. That would be annoying.
I would mentally turn it into a book - that's always my stress reliever!
Kelly and Patti......
I've actually had people yell at me to "shut-up", because they were annoyed at the noise of me calling out the stops. I'm just waiting for some drunk to get violent over it. The automated system can be paused for 15 minutes at a time, usually when running the bus in at the end of the night. I didn't realize how annoying the extra noise was until you get to turn it off and listen to the quiet. There is enough noise in the city without this. I guess I should be thankfull I can hear.
I would mentally turn it into a book - that's always my stress reliever!
While driving?
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