Oh, the humanity!

I shall start this post with one of my traditional disclaimers. I write this post to be as much a reminder to myself as it is a critique of the behavior I witnessed today. As much as I would like to, I can't believe that I'm "above" this kind of attitude/action in all situations.

Anyhow, my bus was 5 minutes late this morning, and in response to that statement, all of you are probably thinking "So?" Exactly. While it's not exactly fun standing an extra 5 minutes at the bus stop, it's hardly a big deal. In fact, I just recently changed my hours and am taking a later bus these days. Whereas the early bus I used to take would almost always run early, the later bus, which is more subject to the whims of commuting traffic, generally is on time to a minute or so late. I actually prefer this, because I missed the early bus once or twice because it came even earlier than normal. I like knowing that if I show up as directed on the schedule, I don't miss the bus.

Anyhow, those are my feelings about the bus running 5 minutes late. I imagine that the troubles I had at the very beginning of my time riding the bus has tempered my impatience as well, because I don't necessarily take for granted that the bus is going to show up at all. My feelings were not shared by a lady who is a regular at my stop in the morning, however. Prior to the bus arriving, she was grumbling to the 3rd stop regular. Evidently she had seen the bus on it's way through town as she was coming to the stop (the bus comes out from Harrisburg down to the New Cumberland army base and then loops back through to head back into the city) and knew that the regular bus driver was not driving this morning, and made some remarks about how when the regular bus driver isn't there, they don't seem to know what time they are supposed to show up.

That would have been annoying enough to listen to, but then when the bus finally showed up (again, a whopping 5 minutes late), she made a rather rude remark to the busdriver as we were getting on. Now, maybe the busdriver did get a late start, but here's the thing - the route the busdriver is running has taken her about 10 miles at this point, after 7 am, through Harrisburg and what can a rather busy little town in New Cumberland. I can think of any number of ways to lose 5 minutes on that route, most of which are completely out of control of the busdriver. When I got to work and had the radio on, I learned there was a fesitival closing off Market Street between 2nd and Front, that alone could have caused a 5 minute delay. And to top it off, one of the very first days I road this bus, the regular bus driver was more than 5 minutes late, and she spent the whole time talking about how he was almost always on time, and he must have gotten stuck down at the Depot, like happens some times. Interesting.

Anyhow, I was just thinking how pointless snapping at the busdriver was in this situation, and how unfair, on a number of levels, and then how easy it is to take out our frustrations in manners that are completely non-constructive. I also found it exceedingly interesting the effect that context has on the reactions here. The regular busdriver is late, the assumption is the delay wasn't his fault, but the replacement doesn't get such consideration.

So, I just hope the next time I'm as frustrated as this woman was today, I might take a moment to consider whether the object of my frustration actually deserves to be the object of my frustration.