so this morning i'm waiting for the bus at the beginning of its route, it's rainy and chilly. the bus pulls up, immediately lets everyone in, and starts the route a few minutes early. from commuting on this route all the time, i know the driver didn't need to do this – he could have waited to the last minute, and didn't need to let anyone in.
a few minutes into the route, at a quiet stop, he stops the bus and starts hurriedly eating his lunch (around lunch time). an old white guy at the front of the bus makes some sort of comment about how 'the best bus drivers always keep to the schedule' and the driver flips on him. the driver starts going off on him for the next ten minutes about how he's actually several minutes ahead of schedule, how he needs to the time to eat his lunch, etc. the old guy backs down and apologizes, but the driver keeps going on about what he has to do to keep time in traffic, how he's actually still early and could sit for more minutes, etc. eventually the old guy gets off, and after he leaves a number of other people on the bus reach out to the driver to wish him well and tell him to not be weighed down by guys like that.
though i don't know much about driving a bus, i think that this kind of experiential knowledge exists in all jobs. workers know what they have to do for their boss, what the customer wants, and what they need to do for themselves. they know how to balance these things from experience.
so i think the lesson is clear: respect the service workers of society, whether they're driving your bus or stocking your shelves or serving your food. they know what they're doing better than you ever could.