Needless to say the first indiscretion of the year took place on my first day back after the New Year extended weekend.
I was working a shift where I was to receive a very generous break of 20 minutes every time I got to a particular terminus. I need this time as break as I do a 7-hour stint and the law says that if I do more than 5.5 hours, I need to have a minimum of 45 minutes in the short breaks in between journeys before the stint ends. Even then I cannot work more than 8.5 hours, when a minimum of 30 mins break is additionally needed.
I don't expect the passengers to be aware of this.
I arrived at the terminus and the passengers got off. I could see some people milling around for my return journey which was to leave in 20 minutes time. But I was going to leave the bus and use the local rest room in the form of a portakabin. It has a kettle and a sink. I wouldn't drink anything from the kettle or use the sink, but that is by the by; it is somewhere I can go to get away from the cab.
On the journey in, two passengers said that they'd rung a bell in the lower saloon and nothing happened. Consequently they'd had to call out that they wanted the next stop. I left the engine running now the bus was empty, left the cab and walked the full length of the bus to check the bells. All seemed to work OK. I then went upstairs and checked those there - all OK.
All very mysterious. I can downstairs and turned the engine off. I collected my cash tray and put my coat on. All indicative actions of someone about to leave a bus. I turned to the door and saw a queue of 6 or 7 people waiting to get on.
As I opened the door, I told them that I'd be 15 minutes. I could have said fuck-all like some of my colleagues, but chose to let them know.
"Oh, that's a bit much!" the woman at the front of the queue said.
"I beg your pardon?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"Well it's cold out here and we've got to wait all that time!"
What had happened was that she couldn't bare not to be first in the queue and so had left her seat in the relative warmth of the mini bus station. Someone was now sat there. It was a gamble that had not paid off. And before you ask, no, we're not allowed to board passengers only to then leave them alone on board while we use the loo or get a drink. In any case, when passengers see others on board, they have this uncontrollable urge to open the doors themselves to join their fellow campers on board. They do not know how to close the doors behind them and you lose track of who has paid and who hasn't - and there's always the opportunity for someone to claim they've paid when they haven't.
"I'm not being rude, love, but I don't leave until on-the-hour, so I will see you shortly before then." and then I walked off.
Common Sense Solution: I think I did it. Passengers often claim that other drivers do what they're asking you to do. I'm surprised she didn't say this to me today. It is almost always bullshit. Consistency, as I've said on many times previous, is the name of the game. If this woman learns that all drivers take 15 of their 20 mins turnaround she will know to keep her fat on the bench until the driver returns.
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