Wednesday 31 March 2010

Jobsworths

I hate Jobsworths. I expect most of the population of this country hates them too. It's even conceivable that Jobsworths hate other Jobsworths.

You might well be wondering what has brought this on, so I will tell you what happened when I was on the bus travelling to the hospital to see the consultant about my indelicate problem. My appointment was at 9.30 so I left home at 8 o'clock to walk to the bus stop. the bus that I wanted arrived a few minutes after I got to the stop and having boarded it and swiped my Oyster card I sat down in the front seat alongside an elderly lady. The bus set off, went round the roundabout that is just a few yards from the bus stop and within about 400 yards we had joined a very long queue of traffic.

We moved very slowly, taking about 15 minutes to travel half a mile. At this point we were stationary and a man who was on a seat near the back of the bus walked along the bus to speak to the driver. He asked if it was possible for the driver to open the doors to get off as he was feeling sick. The driver replied that it was not possible because we weren't at the bus stop. We had another half mile to travel to get to the next bus stop and at the rate that we were moving it would probably take at least another 10 minutes to get there.

The man stood near the driver obviously in some discomfort and could be seen to hold back from vomiting several times. He implored the driver to let him off, but the driver decided to ignore the poor man who then promptly vomited all over the doorway of the bus, and still the doors were not opened. A lady offered the poor man some wet wipes which he took gratefully and then she turned to the driver and told him that if he had opened the doors when the man had asked then he wouldn't have been sick on the bus. And we still hadn't moved!

At this point the driver did open the door to allow the man to get off, and then we started to creep forward. The next thing was an announcement from the driver that he was taking the bus out of service at the next stop as he needed to go back to the garage to get the bus cleaned up. Most of the passengers got off at this point and decided to walk to the next stop, however, the lady who was sitting next to me and myself stayed on the bus until we finally reached the bus stop. We were lucky because at this particular stop we would have a choice of buses to get us to our destination (we were both going to the hospital for appointments) and a bus arrived about 5 minutes later. I managed to get to my outpatient clinic just before my appointment time, but my consultant was running late and hadn't yet arrived for the clinic so I had a bit of a wait.

Yes, the bus driver definitely qualifies as a Jobsworth.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes we have busdrivers like that up North... they annoy me so much! they bend the rules to suit themselves! Pity the poor sick man didn't turn and throw up over the bus driver, that could have been highly amusing for you all to watch! :)

I do hope the hospital appointment went okay!

Anonymous said...

Argh, Twat. He really should have thrown up on the bus driver.

Couldn't the poor guy have pulled the doors open? They usually can be opened manually for emergencies. I think this would be an emergency.

I thought it was bad enough when it was 9.27am and the sodding bus driver wouldn't let me on with my pass because it was before 9.30am. When I realised I didn't have enough money for the ticket he still wouldn't let me on. I asked if I could just pay to the next stop, which I could afford and by which time it would be after 9.30am, but still no. Tosser.