Bus Fuss

(I work in a train station ticket office which has two main entrances: one directly from the platform and one from the street. There is no pavement outside the street entrance and the door opens straight onto the bus stop. The pavement is a good 20 feet away in any given direction.)

Customer: *walks in through street entrance* “Hiya. Where’s the bus stop?”

Me: “You actually walked over it. It’s just outside the doors there.”

Customer: *heads for platform doors*

Me: “Sir, stop! I meant the street doors. You know, the ones you entered through?”

(The customer stops, pauses, looks at me, looks at street doors, looks at platform doors, starts again towards platform doors.)

Me: “Sir, NOT THOSE DOORS! You need to turn around and walk back out the way you came in.”

Customer: “The way I came in?” *turns to face the street entrance*

Me: *encouragingly* “Yes, sir. Those doors right ahead!”

(The customer does another 180° and starts off AGAIN for the platform.)

Me: “Sir, please wait right there. I’ll lock up my booth and come show you.”

Customer: “Sorry, thanks. It’s not very obvious.”

(I quickly lock up my booth and come around to help the customer. I lead him physically by the arm outside. I only stop him when his feet are on the ‘B’ of ‘BUS STOP’ which is painted in four-foot-high letters on the floor).

Me: “There you go, sir. Now, can you read the floor by your feet?”

Customer: *looks* “Bus stop?”

Me: Yep. So all you gotta do is wait here until one shows up!”

Customer: *incredulously* “Do the buses come to here?”

Me: “They do at that, sir.”

Customer: *looks painfully unsure* “So this is the bus stop?”

Me: “Yes indeed, sir. It is.” *checks timetable* “The next bus is to [Town] at 13:54, about two minutes from now.”

(I ended up waiting at the bus stop with him until the bus came. He was a repeat visitor for about a month, during which time I learned that his car was broken and he was using trains and buses in the interim, and that in all his 32 years he’d never once used a public bus! He worked as a teaching assistant in a nearby primary school – I fear for our nation’s children!)