New Bus Driver - Day 2

Usually I get up around 5:30 or 5:45 am during the work week. I take my dog for a quick walk, come back home, make breakfast, eat, shower and am out the Door sometime around 7:00 or 7:15 in the morning. Lately I've been struggling to get out of bed, hitting the snooze button on my blackberry alarm to as late as 6:20 in the morning. But It's alright because I don't have to be at work until 8:30, which means I can catch the 7:45 commuter express bus to downtown and still be at work 15 minutes early.

However, this week we have had a new bus driver. He doesn't quite know where all the stops are, doesn't show up on time, etc. When I say "doesn't quite know" I mean doesn't know at all. The 438 bus only makes a few stops in the morning, hence the "Express" portion of its' name. It makes one at USC on the 110, Washington and Figueroa, 7th and Figueroa where I get off and then on to places unknown to me. So yesterday morning the new guy completely missed the USC stop which didn't really bother me because I don't get off there. It did, as you can imagine peeve the people that missed their stop as a result, but fuck them, they go to SC. After he missed that stop, the first since picking me up at the park and ride, he then proceeded to stop at almost every stop on the way in to downtown, causing me to just make it in by 8:30. No big deal, I made it to work on time, and he's new. He's still learning, we've all been there and should understand.

Today though was a little bit different. Instead of missing the stop on the 110 for USC, he made a left off the freeway to USC's campus. This got everyone up in arms, as they were on the same bus yesterday and he had now screwed them two days in a row. But at least this time they could just walk across the street to get to campus and would only be thrown off a little bit. As soon as he took the wrong exit people started to talk on their cell phones to whoever would listen to them about this travesty. How dare this man mess with their morning commute?? It was his 2ND day on the job, and he just can't get it. What a jerk! OK, so I won't go that far. I'm giving the man the benefit of the doubt here. The thing these people didn't realize, or maybe just didn't care about is that the guy could clearly hear them calling him names and saying how much of a "disaster" this had all turned out to be. I felt for him, at least for a little.

So we're taking the long way in to downtown now, up Figueroa through downtown and through some rather undesirable areas of LA, but not the worst I had experienced. (I used to take the train through Watts. Now that's scary) He continues to stop at all the same incorrect places he had the previous day, angering my bus mates even further, hitting all the dips in the road making it difficult for those of us that had to stand and just generally having a rough morning. I finally make it to my stop, about 15 - 20 minutes late, get off the bus and arrive at work late.

I hate being late to anything, especially work. Hopefully tomorrow I can get myself out of bed so I can ride the 7:30 bus and not have to have this experience again this week. But knowing me I'll still hit the snooze button on my 'berry 3 or more times causing me to go through it all over again tomorrow, and then I'll be back on here saying how horrible it was and how wrong I was to be patient with him. I'll only have my self to blame, which makes it even worse because then I don't have anyone to be mad at.