Thoughts inspired by riding the 73 bus yesterday.
We had a quite bolshie conductor. She loudly instructed passengers not to put bags in the aisles “That’s an emergency escape route!”. She told them to sit down when there were seats (not asked, told). She instructed people to watch out if they were getting on the bus in slow moving traffic instead of at a stop. (Note for non-Brits – some London buses have an open platform at the back). She loudly yelled to a friend that she was longing to get away on holiday.
The more she bossed us about the more I got to enjoy the journey. Why? Because par for the course for bus conductors is for them to do their jobs in a trance. I didn’t need to feel sorry for her, and at least she showed up.
Did she live up to the ideal of customer-service training? No, of course not. But then neither do most bus conductors. And in our spoilt world of Bland Brands, a bit of attitude comes as rather refreshing…
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