Friday 18 December 2015

I Think She Meant "Inconvenient," Not, "Illogical" - December 18, 2015

On a snowy evening two days ago I was on a bus heading home that stopped at one of the small main transit centres along the way.  There was not many of us on the bus and most of them were heading home from a work day. 

A woman passenger who looked appalled and annoyed, suddenly got up out of her seat and went up to the bus driver and proceeded to wonder if he went closer to one of the train stations.  When he revealed that it did not she began to inquire to him, almost admonishing him like a child that she didn’t understand why the one of the main hubs we stopped at was not where one of the trains also stopped at. 

He explained to her of a few potential stops she could get off at and where she could either walk to the train station she spoke of, or grab a train closer to one of the bus stops he goes by that she could catch a train that would take her straight to the stop if she took it.  But no matter what, she was totally unsatisfied, and what she really wanted was somehow for the world to change completely to her benefit; and that was for the train station to have been at the placed right where we arrived at the very moment, or, that a bus took her and dropped her off there.  To her the whole thing was, “illogical,” which was a word she would say the rest of the bus trip. 

To be perfectly honest, based on her now extremely snotty tone I thought this was odd that she assumed the universe should’ve have changed to her will in that moment and no matter what the driver said, and what us her fellow passengers tried to explain to her, she just got further frustrated, very dissatisfied.  The worse she got, the more she kept saying, “illogical.”

Someone asked her if this was a matter of urgency.  No!  So this was not a matter of the situation being illogical but to be revealed as an, "inconvenience," which I had thought about going to the front of the bus and voicing to her because now my calm bus ride was erupting with her presence of disdain.

The issue was is that she lived right by the station she desired, and therefore the setup of the stops and stations did not accommodate her at all, especially on cold snowy days such as the one the city experienced.  As nice as it would seem for any transit rider to have that luxury, it is not, and if this is a huge deal and a person can afford a vehicle perhaps that is in their best interest.

I have heard people ask drivers to reroute the bus for their own benefits with little disregard to what the driver’s job expectations were and how that affected other passengers, and for a moment it seemed to me that this was exactly where she was headed with the conversation… Sorry! Not conversation! Accusations she made at him for the layout of the transit system in the city in a tone that indicated a sense of entitlement and wished to have her demands met.

One more factor was she was not prepared for the weather. We live in a country of cold winters and plenty of snow to come with them and she was barely layered in proper clothing for the wind chilled snowfall.  She was dressed in very thin slacks, dress shoes, a coat that seemed more for cool spring or fall days. 

This is stuff like this that makes me realize how selfish sometimes certain people can be. If I decided to be equally rude my recommendations would be the following:

She gets a car, or
Car pools with someone who can drop her off, or
Dress properly for winter conditions, or
Move. 

And if she did move I would recommend to another city, so I do not feel like someone with this much attitude, a sense of entitlement, and an actual belief in her unrealistic expectations was far away from the city I love, away from the transit system I enjoy and rely on, and because we could have worse problems in this place I love than on where the stops are.  Just a thought...

~Ange


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