There has been a lot of discussion on my various social network feeds this week about the Ottawa City Transit bus driver who walked off the job after being confronted by a frustrated patron. According to the various sources I have read, this patron had asked the bus driver “why the No. 5 bus was consistently 40 minutes late.” The bus driver then walked off this bus and left 15 riders on the bus for over 40 minutes.
As a former public servant and a current retail slob, I know what it is like to be confronted by customers who are angry with something that is completely out of my control. More often, at the other job I currently hold, am I told by the customers that they hold priority to the people who serve them. That I, the invisible person on the other end of the phone, should risk my job in order for the customer to get a better seat on an airplane then someone else who requested it four months prior.
Those who have been in my shoes and worked in a public industry know that there is a reason our society leaves these jobs to the young and naive. No one truly wants to get barraged daily in order to make a living just above poverty line. Not if they can help it.
However, this bus driver does it any way. He gets up daily to be confronted by a Transit system which is notably flawed, and customers who are noticeably upset. He can’t help that he is making these people late for work or social obligations. He is just doing what he can to get them there safe.
So, we ask, why did he abandon these 15 riders on a bridge without notice for 40 minutes? I would never suggest that this situation is ideal. However, I would suggest maybe we should question the system he works in and not the man himself.
In a stressful situation it is better to walk away than fight back. In a retail job, if I couldn’t handle a problem a customer gave me, I would hand them off to a supervisor, and (because that is their job) the supervisor would help the person while I “cool off.”
So, instead, maybe what we should ask is why does it take so long for the OC Transpo to send a supervisor to assist these passengers, instead of “why did he walk away.” Maybe we should note that this man likely gets this question a dozen times a week on a variety of equally as poorly funded, and planned, bus routes.
I say, this man should be free of harassment, because I am positive he is just as upset about the system than the person who asked the question. I say, it effects the bus driver more, because unfortunately he doesn’t have the answer.
