An Open Letter to OC Transpo

Dear OC Transpo;

I'm writing on behalf of all the riders who sat on the corner of Bank and Queen today for forty five minutes, plus, waiting for their buses to arrive.

In light of the recent strike, the inevitable price hike and the general poor quality of drivers, customer service and well, anything resembling any sense of respect or gratitude that it is our hard earned money paying your wages, I have to admit that you are all useless wads of flesh.

No, really. I have seen strung out mdrug-users do more useful things with their burned out existence that your twisted sense of service in this town. You should be ashamed. Truly, deeply ashamed.

Not only was I one of the VERY few people who defended you during the strike, I was willing and eager to return to riding the bus so I could visit my friends, return to my normal work hours, shop for more then a two days worth of groceries, etc. You know, return to normal transit riding life. I even grinned and bore the rude, defensive behavior your drivers extended as a way to keep themselves from being skived by angry users who felt gipped by what you pulled over the holiday season.

(By the way, that was insanely tactless and you do know you'll all be rotting in the hot place for that.)

Heck I even defended a driver who was faced with a rude man who started to swear off at him, but mostly because I didn't want my peaceful morning disrupted by the so-called security task force you've enlisted to help keep the buses safe. I say 'so called' because more often then naught, I've been witness to their belligerence towards riders before the riders themselves returned belligerence with belligerence. Really, we're suppose to be friendly Canadians, not aggressive hate-monger's here. Get a hold of your inadequacy issues and try dealing with people in a civilized manner. You might get a better response and hey! Maybe even a genuine show of respect from us! I know, shocking, you lot actually earning respect...utterly shocking.

I digress.

This last few weeks I understand that service has been slowed along the Wellington St. routes because of the Tamil protesters (refraining from starting a rant about THAT lot...sheesh) but if you INSIST on rerouting traffic, PLEASE, PLEASE let the riders know! The first time, on April 7th when the protesters streamed on to Wellington, can be understood. It was unforeseeable. But today, when it was announced that the protest was going to reach well into the thousands, you could have at least shown an iota of intelligence and contacted the media about the buses being rerouted down Slater. Or even sending one of your many over paid under worked employee's driving around in their nice Dodge Chargers to place a 'Not In Service' sign on the stop. Foresight, again, clearly eludes you flesh-wads.

Here is why I think this would have been brilliant. 1) the elderly woman who was at the stop on Bank and Queen long before I arrived. 2) the mother with her child, 3) the fact that the Quebec buses were still streaming down Wellington, clearly showing that yes, Wellington was in fact clear and moving quite quickly.

Then, when I was graciously interrupted my reading by a very kind gentleman who asked me how long I was waiting, complained that he was late for work again because of OC Transpo, stormed off up Bank to see he could flag a cab and spied the buses turning off Albert on Bank.

Sonofabitch.

We kindly alerted the crowd of displeased riders to this fact and made our way to the stop where the buses were indeed picking up passengers.

When my bus came, I waited until everyone boarded and I asked the driver, politely, because you know civility gets you much further in life then most (ie. oc transpo employee's) would believe, if he could call his supervisor and have someone sent to the stop on Bank and Queen to alert the next crowd that the buses have been rerouted.
The driver, I kid you not, told me 'that wasn't his job and if I had a problem with the buses, I should contact customer service,'. Not his job! Can you believe that!? I nearly died. I was stunned. I'm doing him one better and calling him on his pig-ignorance and sheer laziness and writing this (which I do plan, on btw forwarding to OC Transpo after I reread and edit out the curses,) then I'm forwarding it onto all the media in Ottawa because frankly, this business needs to stop, its ridiculous.

Seriously.

So fed up with this crap.