me gusta!

even though you're kind of ugly, you always drive me wherever I want to go. I mean, sometimes I have to run to you because you're usually super early or super late (one time I had to wait like 45 minutes for you to pull up, and you made me really late to class). Quelle dommage. And usually you have blackened, dried-up gum stuck to your seat. That's a little gross. And who knows what kind of unsavory people have been sitting on you? Not to mention the strange smell that hangs around you sometimes--like mild urine mixed with a heavy dose of B.O.

But other than that...

I LOVE YOU VTA!!!!

And recently you got an upgrade:

to

Muy macho.

But the bus drivers are the ones that really give VTA personality.... luckily most of them are really friendly and nice.

In my experience, it's been mainly the male bus drivers that are nice--the female bus drivers kinda just do their job and get it over with. The bus driver I saw all the time on the bus that went to Foothill College at 10am and back at 4pm weekdays was nice and always took the time to wave at me. I haven't seen him since summer 2007, at the end of the term. Then there's the one that Thanh and I always saw on the way to SJCC during summer 2008. I see him on Mondays and Wednesdays at 8:30am and we always recognize each other. I always wonder what routes he drives, but I always get too shy to talk to him. Then there was that Filipino bus driver on 64 from SJSU who I found out plays badminton!

There used to be a rude/blunt black woman who drove one of the morning routes to SJCC. With a condescending tone, she cuts into the passengers' phone conversations, saying "We don't want to hear what restaurant you're going to tonight, ma'am!" and "Please don't paint your nails on the bus, ma'am, we can all smell the fumes." She drives like there's a bee flying around her head, and she slams on the brakes, sending people grabbing for handholds and stuff flying forward.

Then there was one time I was coming home from SJCC and I was the last one on the 9pm bus. The bus driver dude screeched into the Penitencia transit center and took the U-turn at like 40 mph--I thought we were going to flip over, but the bus righted itself and sped off again. At around Berryessa, he yelled over his shoulder at me where I was getting off. When I said "Sierra and Piedmont," he gave a kind of exasperated grunt and stepped on the gas. Then at the stoplight, he whipped out his phone and called his friend. They had a convo while he was speeding down the dark streets. When he finally slammed on the brakes at Sierra and Piedmont, he was like "BYE!!" in the kind of tone that indicated he wanted me to leave. And quickly.

GRRR!!!!

But luckily you don't see drivers like him often.

I read somewhere that working on public transit is a very social job. That might explain how most of VTA bus drivers like to chat. They take the time to greet and bid farewell to their passengers. In that sense, passengers should return the same courtesy, no? I always try to say "hi" when I'm boarding and "Thank you!" when I depart, but ONLY! if the bus driver seems nice. If they're in a bad mood because they have to work, then why grouch to the passengers? Why take the job?

One time when I was taking the lightrail home, I encountered one of those law enforcers who check your tickets to make sure you're not sneaking on the lightrail. He spoke kindly to everybody, and was fair to the people who hadn't bought a lightrail ticket. Later, he sat down to chat with one of the passengers (I overheard their conversation...heehee). He enthused about his job. He said that he used to work for Microsoft, but when he got near to retiring age, he decided to take a job on VTA. People asked him why he wanted to leave such a good, high-paying job, but he replied that he wanted to give back to the community. His attitude is like the ideal VTA employee's, or any kind of employee for that matter: Work because you love the job.

On the day that I got lost and accidentally went to Stanford Shopping Center instead of San Antonio Shopping Center to transfer to a Foothill College bus, my bus driver was kind and directed me back to where I needed to go. He had a 15-minute break before starting his route, so we sat down on his bus and just chatted. He told me that he had always wanted to be a police officer, but he had married too early and lost the opportunity to go to school. Coming back to the United States, he had to take a job to support his divorced family. He'd been working for VTA for about five years, but he didn't have the time nor the resources to go to a police training school. It looked like he was stuck with VTA for a while until he could save up enough money.

I have to say... that was a nice dose of life lesson for me.

on another note.... I REALLY LOVE THIS PARTICULAR BUS LINE!