Ode to the People Running For the Bus

[H.Protagonist]

(alternately titled: Observations From My Daily 3-hour Commute, People Are Funny, I Hate the LA MTA )

Cool gray morning, punctuated by
The breathy air of the commuter's sigh.
They weave through the parking lot, hair streaming,
Jackets flapping, shoes slapping,
Ladies in heels make a sound like hands clapping.
They leap the barriers in well-dressed droves,
Unlikely athletes in their workday clothes.
Ties askew, cheeks flushed, chests heaving,
Desperation mounts: The bus is leaving!

The suited group charges, swinging their bags,
Scarves are ripped off and waved about like flags.
Ladies curse, students scream, one man throws a shoe,
But their efforts are wasted; the bus has no clue.
As it rolls away, they voice a collective wail,
All that running was to no avail.

BACONBACONBACONBACON! Late again.

[brightsuzaku]

VERY apt. And expresses my frustrations with buses perfectly!

[Chaosblade]

Three hour commute?! It takes me 15 minutes tops to drive to work, I can't even imagine that. Would increase my love for the DS and PSP by a few orders of magnitude though.

And it's an accurate description for sure, reminds me of when a lady at work missed her bus. She's not very fit, to put it kindly, but she moved surprisingly fast...

[Taxonomic]

Three hour commute? Ouch. I've never worked anywhere that I couldn't drive to myself in under half an hour. Longest is my current job which takes me 20-25 minutes to drive to on the highway. I feel sorry for you and don't blame you.

[yuki-chan]

That's one of the reasons that I prefer to use the subway, but it has bad things too.

[H.Protagonist]

Well, it's a 3-hour roundtrip commute. I live closer to downtown LA and the offices are... further south. >_< So, on a good day 1.5 hours each way. If the Lakers are playing... 3.5-4hr commute.

6 buses/day + 3hr RT commute = m(-_-)m but XSEED has good points that even out the pain. Like a free-reign to do, well, most anything! It's a very casual company with great coworkers (and I get to work on some pretty cool stuff), so it's all how you look at it. Plus, my colleagues often get home at the same time I do because they work super hard/late. I just like to bring it up because written out like that it looks uber absurd. ^_-

[brightsuzaku]

Where I live, usually several of the escalators are broken. There are 588 escalators in total in the Washington D.C. Metro System. They're old and out of date; one seriously broke while people were on it last year (it sped up, then stopped, causing a few injuries.)

WMATA considers it important to have the escalator status available to us. Note that some of these escalators are really BACONing loooong. And if one of those is out (Dupont Circle, Bethesda...) it's kind of a problem.

Our Metro system is kind of a mixed bag for us. And don't even talk about the buses (Metro and non-Metro buses). Ugh. One route in particular continually angers me.

But, it's okay. Nowhere Bus will wait for you forever!

[Cloud]

I absolutely despise public transportation, and generally hated when I had to use it to get to my last job. It doesn't help the buses up here where I live can be pretty unreliable and sometimes won't even show up. Though, I guess working at XSEED would alleviate the pain of it all. :P

...I just need to get over my fear of driving so I can get a license and a car. ;_;

[Chaosblade]

6 buses/day + 3hr RT commute = m(-_-)m but XSEED has good points that even out the pain. Like a free-reign to do, well, most anything! It's a very casual company with great coworkers (and I get to work on some pretty cool stuff), so it's all how you look at it.

Jealousy. I look forward to someday having a job where I don't feel like I'm a slave for some company. Retail isn't fun. Doubly unfun overnight.

At least I have the benefit of a short trip to and from work. I live too far out in the middle of nowhere for the lame public transportation to even know I exist, otherwise I would probably take advantage of it. One of many reasons the south sucks.

[brightsuzaku]

Where in the South are you? Then again, when I lived in GA, I was in the suburbs just outside of Atlanta. I honestly can't imagine living anywhere smaller than even the 'burbs. D: