Mass Irritation

As many of you know, I do not drive. My primary transportation methods are my feet, and the public transit system. In Kitchener, that means the bus.
The bus system is run by the Grand River Transit group. They service most of the local cities, from Guelph to Kitchener and Waterloo to St. Jacobs. They employ what I assume to be quite a large number of people, and own and maintain probably upwards of a couple of hundred buses.
With fares at $2.25, with transfers that last an hour and a half, this means that most people taking public transit will probably spend anywhere from $4.50 to $9.00 per day, if they're careless. The smart ones will buy bus tickets which might save them about 15 to 20% of those costs.
That's a lot of money made by the GRT. Sure, they have their expenditures, but I find it very difficult to believe that they're running at a deficit, which means they should have plenty of money to spend on improving the existing bus system AND expanding it. You need to spend money to make money, after all.
And yet the buses are consistently late. Not seldom or sometimes or every once in a while late, but consistently, all the time, every single damned day late. Usually they're late by no more than a couple of minutes, but I have in some instances -more often than I would like to recall- waited so long for a bus that when it's finally come, it may as well be the next bus coming a few minutes early, and probably is.
Those instances are most likely statistical anomalies, but more and more I wonder if this is the case. I've had several experiences on the bus over the last few years that point to laziness and ineptitude being the culprits behind buses being late for their scheduled arrival and departure times.
Once a few years back I was on my way to work at the mall, already almost late, when the bus driver decided to hop off the bus and talk to a friend of his who was working as a crossing guard. He took his little break at the inconvenience of everyone on the bus, and took about five minutes doing so. Now, five minutes may not seem like a lot, especially since this particular instance happened in summertime, but in cold weather it can mean the difference between getting frostbite and dying from hypothermia.
On another occasion a bus driver stopped the bus in front of Tim Hortons, exited, and ran inside for a coffee. I like my coffee. I also purchase it on my scheduled breaks. I don't just drop my customer whenever I feel a hankering for some caffeine. That's what this bus driver did. He left his paying customers, to most of whom time is undoubtedly a factor in their transportation arrangements, to get himself a coffee.
Just today I was taking the bus to work and another incident occurred. Understand that I usually try to be at work an hour before my scheduled shift, because I like to take the time to relax and catch up on emails and work on offline work before I start my shift, so I wasn't exactly going to be late if the bus happened to run into a delay, which is another reason I go to work so early. That doesn't mean what happened didn't irritate me.
We all know teenagers when grouped together seem to reach a critical mass of idiocy and start acting out to prove that they actually matter, which they don't, but it's a common misconception. The bus was full of them, having just gotten off school. I don't mind teenagers on the bus, because I simply ignore them, and in turn, they ignore me. This is an agreeable situation.
Apparently the bus driver did not have such tolerance.
One of these teenagers, as they tend to do, rang the bell with no intention of getting off. Fine. Jordan has a similar story to tell about a similar situation, but what happened was basically the same thing. The bus driver stopped the bus, and would not start it again until someone got off the bus. We waited for five minutes before these particular teenagers decided to get off.
While I don't applaud the behavior of the teenagers, I felt the bus driver should understand my feelings about the situation, so I put away my book and walked up to him. I said "I just wanted to mention to you that the tactic you just used was extremely disrespectful to those of us who are actually trying to get to work. Thank you." The way I write it seems calm but I was on the verge of lividity. Many passengers heard me and gave me grins of solidarity.
The bus driver's reply: "Well, if they'd just said "sorry, wrong stop" or something we would have gotten going."
At this point I was back in my seat but I wanted to reply. Pardon me? Since when did this have anything to do with a misunderstanding about whether they wanted to get off, or if they chose the wrong stop? They were obviously toying with you, you knew it, and you decided to teach them a lesson.
I may be crazy off the wall here but as a bus driver, is it this man's responsibility to be the parent to these children? Is he their teacher? Is he even a distant relative to whom they owe some explanation of their behavior or whose opinion should matter to them? No. They are not going to pay attention to any lesson that a bus driver attempts to teach them because to them, he is just that: The man who drives the freaking bus. So do your job, and drive the freaking bus. Inconveniencing all of your other paying customers for the sake of teaching a lesson to a few reprehensible youths is both idiotic and a waste of everyone's time.
So next time the bus is insanely late I am going to question the bus driver as to why. These are but a few examples of the irresponsibility of the employees of the GRT. I have others, but these ones truly come to mind. It's no longer just chance, or accident. I have a feeling now that every time the bus is late, it's either because some bus driver is trying to have some sort of pathetic power trip, or because he's abandoning his job in favour of some personal agenda.
He or she should be reprimanded for either.