CalTrain to San Francisco

I take the train to the city a couple days a week to go to work. I really like taking the train. I can work without anyone bothering me, I don't have to drive, and trains are cool. Plus, sometimes there's the super happy conductor. He's always so positive and happy it's awesome. Here's what he's like:

Bienvinudo namaste
What a wunnaful wunnaful day.

(Pulling into station)
What a beautiful morning, isn't it?
Menlo Park Menlo Park
Have a wunnaful

(New passengers get on)
Okay rolling along
Next is Milbrae...
Have a safe trip
Followed by 4th and King
Are we havin' fun?

This is the mini bullet
Please keep your shoes off the seats...
Sit back relax and enjoy the show
If someone you don't know sits down and starts talking to you
don't worry. make a new friend today.

This guy is awesome. People smile and laugh out loud at what he says.

This is a huge contrast to the MUNI bus drivers. Sometimes they're nice, but, wow, sometimes they are super mean. I've had them close the door on me and drive away as I was trying to get on. I had one that was super mean because I asked her what bus number it was. Rather than answer she just spent her time being mean to me.

A worse but more subtle thing is that the bad bus drivers accelerate and stop quickly. Really quickly. It may not sound so bad to you, but I've seen entire busloads of people, we're talking 100 people, get mad because of the shitty way the bus driver is driving. I don't know if the bus drivers realize the impact they have on their passengers. But 15 minutes of jerky driving can irritate anyone. I used to think maybe some of the buses were harder to drive smoothly, but now I'm pretty sure it's a driver thing. From what I understand the sooner the drivers get to the end of their line the longer they can take a break until their next time around. So they have an incentive to go as fast as possible.

I want to find a MUNI bus driver's blog and read the other side of all this. I know it's got to be hard. The passengers are often griping, out loud, and there are constantly people trying to get on the bus without paying. Or just being asses in the back of the bus. It's wild to hear the stupid things passengers say on the bus. Like a guy who got on and was mad he was going to miss his train. Look, jerk, if you were worried about missing your train then catch an earlier bus. Clearly it wasn't that important to you or you would have caught an earlier bus. What good is blaming the bus driver going to do? And why blame the bus driver OUT LOUD?

I've heard multiple people complain about bus drivers driving too politely and blaming them as the reason they would miss their train. Look, you don't have a seat belt on and if this bus driver loses her mind because you're saying she sucks at her job she's gonna stop so fast you're going out the front window. Pipe down and talk about how nice a day it is or something. Or get off and catch another bus. You're gonna miss your train anyway.