The feeling of walking into a lecture hall filled with students who have been annoyed by your late arrival, not to mention interrupting the lecturer, or worse, guest lecturer and then not being able to explain that your lateness was due to something out of your control is one of those things that leaves you feeling nothing short of embarrassed and infuriated.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am getting sick and tired of constantly waiting on busses that are (slowly) rolling in late, picking up passengers and acting oblivious to the fact that they are costing some people their dignity and even in some extreme cases their job.
Take today for example and the plan that I had gone to special lengths to make me arrive at university on time for class. The plan went a little something like this:
At 15:10 o’clock the 444 bus from Indooroopilly Shopping Town was expected to journey down the supposedly improved “fast-track” Coronation Drive and arrive at the Cultural Centre Busway at 15:33. Then I would wait until 15:40 where I would the board the 333 bus getting me to the QUT Kelvin Grove Busway at 15:53 just in time to make my class at 16:00. However, none of this went to plan. I was at Indooroopilly Shopping Town at 15:05 ready and waiting…waiting until 15:28 where I got on a 430 (notice I caught a different route and not the 444) which left me at the Cultural Centre Busway at 15:58 with a generous 2 minutes to spare to get on the 333 bus and walk to my class. Having knowing I had missed the 333 bus by a measly 3 minutes I reluctantly got on the 345 bus at 16:08 (are you keeping up?) which would drop be about 200 meters from the university. So at 16:20 I arrived on Kelvin Grove and began my decent down the hill to the university and decent into embarrassment as I walked into my classroom at 16:30 – half an hour late and half way through my class.
Having close connections with the Brisbane City Council and the complaints department for Brisbane City Council busses I am now one of those annoying people who will be calling up to complain about bus services running late and the slack efforts of the Council.
We can only hope that with the new busways opening on May 19 (next Monday) that Brisbane City Council will get their act together.
3 comments:
AGREEEEE! I was on the same bus! And 3 buses got cancelled in a row! I have lost 2 places on facebook in punctuality thanks to the Bribane transport system.
Annoying isn't it!
A friend of mine had to catch a particular bus to get to Roma st in time to catch a train to the airport.
Was so nice of the busses to run late.
With luck next time my friend might get to her plane on time!
buses, flights, trains, people who you are meeting...something about the best laid plans...at least you can sleep at night knowing you have respected your time and others time. Keep up the good work soldier and fight, fight to the death.
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