One more reason I hate the bus - 37 Days until move

Here is another reason that the German bus drivers are jerks. Look at this picture. The bus stop is on the left. The parked bus is on the right, about 5 metres from the stop. It is -7 degrees and very snowy. The Bus driver does NOT let anyone on the bus to wait until it is the scheduled time. This is the standard operating procedure of the bus, it was probably written down in the "official bus driver manual" by the "German Bus Driver's Guild" and must be unflinchingly followed.

There can be rain, hail, wind storms or plagues of locust, but the bus drivers here will not let you get on the bus at the station before it is time to go. They will sit there reading the paper, having a coffee, looking out the window at you freezing just a few steps away. I hate these guys so much I can taste it. I declare them my enemies.

I take every opportunity to disagree with bus drivers and make them do their damn job as a result. Often, I get on the bus in my village and just say the name of the stop that is my destination. What should then happen is that the driver tells me the fare, and I drop my money in the wee box. But as often as not, the driver will ask me "how many zones is that?" because they don't recognize the stop. I NEVER tell them, despite the fact I know the fare and number of zones, having ridden this way daily for years. I always make them look it up in their little book. I do this because I hate them.

Another time, a bus driver tried to make me take off my headphones. I refused, and his response was to point to a sign that had a picture of a red X over a CD walkman. He actually just pointed!!! First I said, "no problem, this is not a CD player, it is an iPod." which made him mad. I think he was most angry that his pointing was not effective and now he had to actually speak, explaining that it was for all headphones, and that the music annoyed other passengers. Now... I am on a bus at 7am in a village of 1200 people. The bus has me, the crazy monster lady, and a couple of high school kids... AND I am listening to a spoken work podcast with in-canal earphones. There is NO WAY anyone can hear what I am listening to. This rule was very obviously made to address the idiot teenies listening to base thumping garbage at 10,000 decibels, shaking the whole bus. But since it was written down somewhere, it was an official rule and one that must be followed by all good German Bus Drivers without exception. Anyway, I just said "no" and sat down with my 'phones. The bus driver glared at me from his little booth for a moment and then drove on. I won that round, only because his characteristic bus-driver laziness was too great pursue this confrontation further.

The 'no headphones' signs have all been removed since then, so I guess enough people like me complained. The transit system is often changing rules when they get challenged on how stupid they are. You used to have to pay extra to bring your bike on the subway, now that has changed. I think you still have to buy a ticket (reduced fare) for your dog though. I will check this tonight.