Bus driving is not just a job, it’s a cycle of frustration, fleeting victories, and ironic lessons. You master the route, yet you’re always behind. And just when you think you’re in control, the red light reminds you who’s really in charge.
The Endless Route: Learning to Embrace Life’s Recurring Struggles
The most ironic part of being a bus driver is that, when you start to get the hang of it, you often feel absolutely shattered. You begin to realise just how many people you've missed along the way, how many delays you've suffered due to roadworks that seem to never end, and how much your younger self deserved a simple life behind the wheel of a car, not grappling with unruly passengers and unpredictable traffic. Being a bus driver isn’t just about driving, it’s a series of small, frustrating revelations. Healing? Oh no, that's for people who don’t work with diesel engines and erratic schedules.
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It’s all about waiting. There's no way around it. You have to wait for passengers to shuffle in at a pace that makes you question your life choices, only to then be held up by traffic lights that seem to take a sick pleasure in watching you attempt to complete your route on time. Sometimes you have to sit in a jam, not because you've done anything wrong, but because the universe, personified by a roundabout, is conspiring against you. You can almost hear it whispering, “Patience, dear driver. You’re not in control here.”
And then there's the very real need to stop being the knight in shining armour. Sometimes, you have to stop being the person who tries to make everyone’s day a little better. You have to stop apologising for every delay, stop explaining why you're late as though it's your personal fault. After all, it's not you who built the roadworks or decided to add another lane to an already crowded roundabout. But still, you offer a smile, even though on the inside you're contemplating how best to express your frustrations without endangering anyone's afternoon commute.
It’s in these moments of restraint that the true beauty of the bus driver’s life comes into focus. There’s something uniquely satisfying about pulling away from a stop just before the final passenger manages to squeeze through the doors. A small victory, yes, but one that you’ll hold onto, as it's likely to be the only win you’ll have all day. There’s an almost poetic symmetry to the way the bus lurches forward, making you feel briefly like the master of your own destiny, before, of course, the next red light pops up to remind you that you’re very much at the mercy of the traffic gods.
You start to understand that road rage is not your enemy, but your reluctant guide. It shows you where to set boundaries: when to throw that disappointed glance at the driver who cuts you off, when to give up on trying to please the passenger who insists they don’t have change and will ‘sort it out next time’. But the harshest lesson of all is understanding when it’s time to say, “Enough.” Enough of the people who refuse to move out of the doorway, enough of the endless ‘how much further?’ questions from passengers who haven’t been paying attention to the signs.
And then there are the passengers, the ones who think the bus is their personal lounge. You can feel your patience wearing thin, but you must hold it together. The honking becomes a ritual, a way of releasing that pent-up stress, signalling to the world that this is your moment to exhale. And yet, it’s more than just a sound. It’s a deep, guttural expression of the toll this job takes on your spirit. But it’s necessary. Without those fleeting moments of exasperation, there would be no room for something stronger, something wiser to emerge.
In those long, drawn-out shifts, you come to realise that not all delays are punishments. Some are, in fact, lessons in disguise, delivered by the unforgiving road and the unpredictable elements of daily life. A delayed bus is not a mark of failure; it’s a reminder that the world does not revolve around you, and sometimes the only thing you can control is your ability to keep a steady hand on the wheel and a calm voice for those asking, “Is this the bus to... some where”
One of the most ironic parts of being a bus driver is realising that, no matter how well you know your route, no matter how many years you’ve spent on the job, you’re still going in circles. You go from one stop to the next, day after day, and sometimes you wonder if your life has become one long loop, interrupted only by the occasional passenger with a complaint about the heating, or the driver ahead of you who’s taken too many liberties with the speed limit.
But that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Bus driving isn’t about reaching a destination. It’s about surviving the journey, grinning and bearing it through endless queues of traffic, fighting the urge to scream at the person who can’t find their travel card, and realising, eventually, that you might just be in a permanent state of arrival and departure, all at once.
In the end, the most ironic thing of all is that, despite everything, despite the traffic, the passengers, the broken-down buses, and the endless loop of stops, you wouldn't trade it for anything. Because, after all, what would life be without a little chaos and the occasional, fleeting sense of control over the wheel?
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