It might take a few days of writing down 2012 to not write 2011. Holidays are done. Now comes the long part of winter. I know! I know!......wrong attitude. I always find it difficult this time of year to want to get out of bed and go to work, 5:00am comes far too early. But each day another minute or two gets added to sunset. Before you know it we will be into Spring and longer days. That's when I come out of hibernation and want to run through the woods naked looking for my mate!
Driving a bus through the holidays is nice on one hand because the traffic is so much less and passengers almost non existent but on the other hand it's not so nice for the very same reason because their are no passengers. I enjoy my interactions with people when the bus is crowded. It's fun and I learn a little bit from each one I talk to.
Today I was quite bored during the longer than usual breaks I get at UBC so I started reading another book by John Grisham. I love his writing and have read many of his books my very favourite being "A Painted House." He always grabs my attention in the first few paragraphs. I love the way he paints pictures with words to take me there.
I had a regular I hadn't seen over the holidays get on my bus today. As he stepped aboard he flashed his pass and looked up at me. "A good driver!" he said as if he hadn't seen one lately. "Thanks," I replied. "Happy New Year," he said. "You too," I replied. Not much said back and forth yet it felt like volumes to me. I love compliments and I like the feeling of being part of others lives even for brief periods of time. I truly recognize that this job (bus driving) that I hated so much when I first started, that I wanted to quit almost every single day I worked, the job that I had to force myself to tolerate for so many years because the money and benefits were so good, the same job that finally took me to a place in my career where I realize that it has taught me things I would never have learned in most other jobs I could have performed.
The most important lesson I have learned is that I recognize now that fear kept me from allowing people into my life. It started with the fear of maneuvering a very large vehicle through heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic something I had not been tested in my life. I was always a management type not a blue collar in the trenches type of worker. It was very intimidating.
Of course when a person is junior in seniority, he/she gets all the crappy routes; the routes no one else wants; the late night stuff with all the drunks, dope addicts, hookers, criminals, and the rougher crowds. You learn to insulate yourself from them to protect yourself. Let's face it, you can't really identify with 99% of them anyway. Maybe that's all well and good at first but a problem results later when you finally do get some decent work years later, you have become so good at insulating yourself you don't remember how get out of it. Everyone has become your enemy even the unfortunate people in wheelchairs whom you think you don't have the time to pick up. So many of us have learned to just do the job of steering the bus and forget all about the needs of the public riders.
For me this fear which became a well entrenched unconscious habit has taken a long time for me to let go of. It wasn't until I was able to sign early morning work that I began to understand what I had been doing for so many years. Now I'm just a little bit sorry I wasted so many years holding on to old habits and denying myself the opportunity to meet new people and subsequently enjoy that part of my job. Oh well, It's always better late than never so it's all good.
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