You probably already know that I work as a bus driver that is a job that has its pro and cons . It reminds me every day that I could have studied more and have better, but it also reminds me that as lazy as I am it was golden luck if I found something like this, I don't know if I could stand to work in an office, or in a place with hierarchies.
The worst problem for me is not that I'm driving a big bus in the crazy traffic of an Italian city, I'm long time used to see the most incredible crashes and to avoid pedestrians that cross randomly the street, the problem are the passengers: You can even have that banner that say "(please) do not disturb the driver" but of course there is the magic word to avoid it: "sorry".
So I wanted to share with you some of my daily experiences and the comma 22 situations (situations where you don't have a way out).

Q: "Sorry, I..."
A: "Don't worry, you're excused..."

Q: "Sorry, where is the next stop ?"
(Now... I get really confused when someone asks me something like that: I mean: you're in the bus, I can't open the door till the next stop, so why you want to know where is the next stop ?)
A: "You can only wait and see, you've no other chanches"

(when you're at the teminus, comfy, reading the newspaper)
Q: "Sorry, when will the bus leave?"
A1: "When I'll close the door and start the engine"
A2: "At the time written on the big panel there"
A3: "10 minutes" , then the passenger usually go out, light a cygarette and I instantly close the door, start the engine and leave

(when you're at the teminus, and leave the bus to go to the toilet or to the coffe machine in the drivers room)
Q: "Sorry, when will the bus leave?"
A1: "just the time to piss, If I do it on the bus then a lot of flies would come"
A2: "When I come back, BTW the keys are in (just in case you are in a hurry and want to drive it yourself)"
A3: "BURP!"

"I'll take the bus number and will report it!!"
"You can even play the numbers at the lotto"

"I'll take the bus number and will report it!!"
"Just do it, but remember to write your exact address"

"How rude ! I'll take the bus number and will report it!!"
"but I just said you nothing... I don't remember to have said you to f**k off"

"Do you speak english ?"
"No, not even a little bit, sorry..."

The best one happened to me a sunday night at 22 when I stopped at the central station. Now, in your country probably the rate of people coming on the bus without a ticket is very low, here is different, but it's ok unless you come to the driver...

"Sorry, I wasn't able to find a ticket, do you sell them?"
"No, or the outside banner with "Don't go in without a valid ticket" would have no sense"
"But... I'm sorry, what I should do now?"
(stopping the bus)
"Well lady, you could answer it yourself: you would have go down in the metro and bought the ticket at the automatic machine, but here, you've those heavy bags, don't you? You couldn't. In a more civilized country you would have seached that ticket, no matter what but now you come here and search for a justification, you want me to say you "it's not your fault, don't worry", but actually, I'm not a priest, I can't give you the absolution but as you asked it : Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen"
Then, while the lady started yelling I seated again, put on both the headphones of my MP3 player, pumped the volume to the max moving as a bobble head and moved the bus.

More to come  

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Funny stuff...  

You have more patience than I would...  

Looking forward to reading more.

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

From the moment you told me you drove a Bus in the City
I thought how the Bus would not be the problem, and the Traffic
could be dealt with
but the idiot passengers would be -by far, the worst of it.
 
Now, I suggest that you use the resource at hand.

Why not have a contest and use the imagination of your friends,
to come up with the BEST SIGN
and you could print it  -to discourge  -the problem passenger ?
 

   Good idea!    

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Sometimes I say that my job is a job that gives you no satisfaction, I mean, it's not like making something, I like to drive but the job "itself" gives me nothing if not  (some) money.

But not always...

Last sunday I had to work on the infamous "airport line" that I hate a lot because a lot of people don't know where to go and obviously come asking me, and, you can't easily yell to them a healty "f**k you" because they are all those kind of people coming from a plane, with trolley cases, formal jackets etc. (Actually I can't stop myself anyway , but I'll tell what happened in anoter post...)

That line has two destinations from the town center: one for the airport and another goes first to the airport then prolongs into the countryside for a couple of small places where rich people lives, meanwhile it passes near a place where, usually, there is a fair in the weekend, this time for historyc cars.

So this girl come in the bus at the town center and asks for the fair, I reply that it's far, to keep attention to the "voice that announce the stops" and the stop signs (and transitively, "do not annoy me, ask someone else") , so, as usual, she asked me the same question three more times during the travel, at the fourth time I refused to reply.

When she and her girlfriend left the bus, she run on the front door to yell at me "BESIDES, YOU ARE A *BIG* PIECE OF SH** !!!" and run away.

I said nothing and continued to work, the heart never accelerated a beat, not even a glance. Infact, it was 9 in the morning and you know what ? I was the only bus going there, and obvioulsy coming back, till 14 in the afternoon ...

So, after 12, when one usually leave the fair, my moment come   ... The sweet, little, sadic time of vengeance   , and yes, she was there at the stop waiting for the bus with her girlfriend. You should have this image of a bus driver smiling with 99 teeth while he approaches the bus stop, slow down the bus, smile even widely at the two girls and show them the finger of the well know international gesture, then stomp on the accelerator     

  I had a big sunday...

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  Now Thats the picture  
I want   -as my monitor background...
Tormie looking out   the Bus door a BIG toothy GRIN, giving the finger
to  Stupid Tourists ! ! !
                      

I still say, that maybe not me

but somebody here can think of
clever SIGN to  print   to Shut Up  PESTY questions
to the driver.

I know Where a Bus goes before I ever get on.
I know WHEN a bus goes  before I ever get on.
I have a ticket before I ever get on.

There is no reason   -to ever   ask the driver anything.

This post made my evening! I needed so much to laugh and this one did it for me. I will make sure if I travel by bus to not bother the bus driver and have my ticket in hand when I step onto the bus.

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I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to just try and keep control over this group of bozo's at the Nut house errr...Clubhouse! --Guilty Pleasures Chief of Bozo's