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Wednesday 30 October 2013

I'll give you a hint, the answer is JERK!

A friend and I are walking to the bus stop. We see that the bus is closing its doors, so we start to run. Someone else arrives at the bus doors and the bus driver opens the doors to let him on. This gives my friend and I time to get to the bus before he finishes closing his doors for the second time. The bus driver sees us running to the bus, so we get to the bus and stand outside the door waiting for him to open it.

Naturally, since his bus is half empty and he hasn't started moving yet ... he drives off and leaves us standing at the bus stop. What. The. Heck?!

**insert angry blue streak I yelled at the bus driver as he drove away here**

I'm sorry, is there some type of limit on the number of times you can open your doors at a single stop or are you just a first class jerk?

For those of you experiencing deja-vu right now, I checked, and yes, I did write another post about this exact same thing 3 months ago. Seriously bus drivers? What have I done to you to make you hate the very sight of me?

Missed Connection

To the woman on skytrain this morning,

You were sitting in a seat. I was standing in front of you. The train was full. We were both getting off at production. You stood up and thought it was acceptable to try and shove past me to get off the train first. I used my inner rage to cut you off, retaining my rightful place in the train exiting order.

So whenever you are lady, I want you to know, you missed a connection this morning. It was the connection in your brain that joins common courtesy to skytrain etiquette.

Sincerely,
If you have a seat you can freaking well wait your turn to get off the train.

Friday 25 October 2013

I feel like a broken record...

...but I'm not the broken one! It's all the other people, the ones who don't understand the concept of "move to the back of the bus" (or away from the doors or to the end of the train...pick the applicable description).

Today, I get on the skytrain and there's a cluster of people holding the pole that's right in between the doors. They clearly all know they should move to let people get on more easily, but apparently they just don't want to. So instead of moving away from the doors, they all just shuffle around the pole clockwise. Yup, totally helpful guys.
Then some guy standing near the door gets asked to move (which would be totally acceptable except it was by some woman who wanted the fold down seat right next to the door and she was neither elderly nor disabled). Now sitting woman is in the way and standing dude has moved away from the door and is standing directly in between the first pair of seats. Not only is there more standing room past him, there are empty seats! He's so determined to stand in the way that even after I basically push him out of the way so I can move to the back of the train, he still just stands 2 steps further back, refusing to take the 2 extra steps and sit in a seat.

Tuesday 22 October 2013

Delays, inappropriate contact and a broken megaphone ...all in a day's commute

When I woke up this morning the first words my mother said to me were "Just so you know, the skytrain is having problems this morning." Thanks, mom. Good morning to you too. Now normally this would actually be good, because if they have problems early, then they can get them fixed before I get to the skytrain. Not this morning.
There's at least 2 announcements before I even board the train. "Attention passengers...we are experiencing major service delays..." There's probably 10 more before I get to transfer at Columbia.
As if spending close to half an hour to go 4 stops on a packed train wasn't enough fun, then we arrive at Columbia. The platform is full. There's a lady with a megaphone giving directions. She clearly did not receive megaphone training. She's either not speaking directly into the megaphone or its broken, because we still can't understand half of what she says. She also thinks that when a train is pulling out of the other side of the tracks is a great time to make an announcement. No really, we can totally hear your mumbled megaphone squawking over the sound of a skytrain gearing up.
After waiting for nearly 10 minutes as 3 or 4 expo line trains pass, we finally get a millennium train! We go one stop and are informed the train is being taken out of service.
Are. You. Kidding?!
Most of us pile off the train. I will never know if the people who stayed on are geniuses or lunatics. When another train arrives we all try to pile back on. I'm literally shoe-horning myself on, cramming myself between some woman and the doors that are trying to close. Seriously, some folks would pay money for the... attention... that woman got from me today. Sorry lady, I was not missing that train.
After all that I was actually only half an hour late for work ...which in my case doesn't actually mean anything anyway, since I can work when I want from where I want. But you know where I can't work from? From pressed up against the backside of some lady on the skytrain!
All in all, a frustrating hour and a half of my life that I will never get back.





Tuesday 8 October 2013

Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?

I was getting on the skytrain at production station during rush hour today. A whole bus load and then some of people were also getting on an already crowded train. On the train, there was a girl standing right inside the doorway, not moving to the back, making it harder for everyone to get on and move farther inside the train.

Then as the last few people were trying to load, the true magic happened. Doorway girl turned to some guy who had just gotten on and said, "It would be a lot easier for everyone to fit if you took your backpack off."

...

Seriously?! I had no words. I'm pretty sure I just stared at her with my mouth hanging open. I thought that kind of irony was reserved for TV and movies.

Saturday 5 October 2013

It's 6:30 somewhere

A couple days ago a girl gets on a bus at 5:45pm on a weekday. She puts her ticket into the fare box. The fare box swallows her invalid ticket.

Bus driver: Did you come from Vancouver?
Girl: Yes.
Bus driver: Well you only paid for one zone.
Girl: But it's not 6.
Bus driver: Do you mean 6:30?
Girl: Isn't it only one zone until 6 o'clock?
Bus driver: That's AFTER 6:30pm. Right now it's regular fare.
Girl: Oh ...
Bus driver: I'll let you on for now, but remember that for next time or you'll get fined.

Yeah, genius ... Translink puts tickets on sale basically all day including rush hour, because in the evening is where they make the real money from fares.