You know what yanks my Cord…

… angry bus drivers.

Look, I understand that you may not think your job is the most scintillating experience or that you may not enjoy driving around the same mundane streets of Kitchener and Waterloo all day.

But, dammit, I pay good money —well as good as one can get in tuition fees — for my lovely bus pass/student card combination and I would appreciate at least a modicum of customer service.

When you need your passengers to move to the back in the bus, you need not scream to them as if it were a pivotal moment in Speed where the bus might blow up if you don’t “move behind the yellow line!” A simple request of your passengers would suffice in getting your message across.

I also would enjoy not being subjected to the ripping of my student card out of my hand every time I board I bus.

Yes, I am still sporting my not-so-impressive 1980s haircut and the OneCard office has granted me a student card with a miniscule date of expiry, but again, a simple request (and maybe a smile if it didn’t kill you) would be a preferable alternative.

Perhaps one day it became acceptable for you to be rude to your passengers. Or maybe it’s a right of passage when you first start working for Grand River Transit.

But, regardless, would it really kill you to not automatically judge every one of your passengers as being the indecent image of a student passenger that you have conjured up in your head and choose to project on each one of us?
Take a lesson from those bus drivers who keep their chins up and say “good morning.”

Maybe you might actually then enjoy your job and I wouldn’t be ranting about you in a newspaper column.

–Joseph McNinch-Pazzano