This is a follow-up to a recent story on sleepers, newbies and working together. Click here for an addendum on sleepers; this follow-up is about newbie drivers and getting along!

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I'd like to address some gripes regarding new operators and operations procedures. Usually you hear about these things in two contexts: 

• From those who don't actually ever drive buses, or 
• Those who do but are simply complaining. 

The world can't exist without either of these, but I'd like to offer a third approach. 

Regarding skip-stopping, which I mention in the previous story: “It's called the 'Shake'n'Bake.' To make his life easier, [Sean] and I skip-stop our way up Rainier, alternating the stops we serve and splitting the passenger load between ourselves, thus speeding up the travel time for both coaches.”

First of all, don’t worry if you’ve never heard anyone say “Shake’n’Bake” before. You’re not out of the loop. Nobody calls it that but Sean and I. Skip-stopping itself, however, is standard operating procedure.

What is skip-stopping?

There are two varieties:

• Two coaches, one route

This is when you have two buses of the same route. If and only if the following bus goes everywhere the leading bus goes, skip-stopping can happen. It's great. New to driving? Here's how to do it:

If your follower is in view, skip about every other stop. (S)he will pick up the passengers at those zones, and you'll get the others. This speeds up both buses and halves the load for both drivers. You do not need to pass each other for this to work. 

Need to dropoff at a zone that also has intending passengers? Honk and signal at them so they use the following bus, and pull past them such that your follower has room to pull into the zone. It's imperfect, but it leaves room for your follower to get into the zone, which is nice, and gets both buses into the same zone.

The skipping sequence will doubtless get messy if you have dropoffs as well; things may be busy enough that you'll skip most every zone except ones in which you're dropping off. This will put your follower out of sight. Once he's out of sight, start picking people up until he's visible again. You can even motion to intending passengers at zones you're passing with your hand or a slight horn tap, letting them know to use the bus behind you.

Again, this is possible only when the second coach goes everywhere the first coach goes. In the example above, Sean's 7 goes  downtown; I don't make it that far, terminating in Chinatown. If I'm behind him, he can't skip stops, or else I'll get passengers who want downtown, which only his bus serves. If I'm in front, we can skip, because if I get downtown-oriented passengers, they can simply deboard and get on Sean's bus behind me. 

I'm guessing Scheduling isn't aware of this, as they schedule most route 7 to Chinatown Only trips right behind 7 to Downtown trips; if they flipped that, it'd be faster for both coaches. 

• The Weave

The other variety of skip stopping is on Third Avenue. That's called The Weave. With The Weave, you have to share the road with buses that use different stops than you. Third Avenue has the highest volume of bus traffic of any street in the country. The Weave is necessary, and I think it's fun. On Third every route uses approximately every other stop, and passes routes which use the other stops. New to bus driving? Follow these three easy steps to make it work:

1. Use the left lane except to service a zone (This way, you don't block other bus's zones).
2. The bus in the right lane has the right of way (this lets that bus get out of their zone and back in the left lane safely).
3. Don't pass buses that use the same stops as you (that includes trolleys slowing down for special work. Don't know what special work is? Read The Book!). Memorize which routes use which stops; this is easier than it sounds, and you'll find yourself doing it automatically. Do they have their four-ways on? You're okay to pass.

The New World

Complicating all of this is an abbreviated training program to accelerate hiring, resulting in famously unprepared new operators who don't know about such subtleties. You won't believe it, but there are new hires who come in with no knowledge of the above two strategies, though they're both outlined in The Book.

A new divide is growing between older operators and many of the new hires, who don't know what side wire is or when to use it (whenever you're the lead coach, among other things), aren't familiar with pulling forward for buses behind you, putting the poles up of the dewired bus in front of you or at least blocking traffic for them, who drive too fast through special work and don't know how to skip-stop on Third or elsewhere. 

My suggestion? 

Senior folks: recognize the steep learning curve and help your fellow colleagues. Lead by example. Be gentle, and do something besides complain. Until Training has the resources, let's do their job the best we can out here. For starters, we can teach them everything in the above paragraph.

New hires: swallow your pride. Bite it. Learn from the brother or sister next to you. Ask me questions about the above. Keep alive the culture of looking out for each other. With how high the turnover is these days, you get to decide what gets lost and what remains of the old guard's approach. 

Let's keep the good stuff.

This was going to be a footnote to my previous story, but it was getting too long– and too important! Sleepers are a major element of the bus world, and they deserve their own post.

If you do long routes at night, you'll get 'em. As I write above: "Waking them up can be a hassle (so can letting them sleep- you become a roving hotel and don't have room for your Destinational Passengers), but if your biggest problem of the night is waking people up, you're doing great." 

Your non-bus driver friends will have trouble understanding how any of this could be annoying. They have a point. Sleeping? Not the most disturbing or violent behavior I've ever heard of. They could do worse things on your bus. But losing privacy during your breaks can irk, not to mention the hygiene issue, plus the nagging thought that these often aren't your regular homeless folks in between jobs and struggling as they look for work. If you think about it, nobody actually minds those homeless people. These guys are different.

I've been driving these peeps around in circles since 2010. 

Brian gets drunker and drunker with each passing year. He could walk when I first met him. Ibrahim gets thinner and thinner, zonked out on the latest drugs. When no visible effort is being made to improve one's standards of living, the mind of the observer– you– can start going to a very dark place. I've wrestled with this because I think too much. I would think, "Guys, come on. You're so much better than this."

This is not a line of thought that has improved my interactions with these people.

It's counterintuitive, but I'm actually more helpful if I'm completely okay with the roles they've chosen for now. It's the Taoist principle: accept what is in front of you without wanting it to be any other way. Could they be happier? More useful to society? Obviously. But who am I to make that call? 

Who looks at me, thinking what a waste, a university-educated boy doing service work just because he likes it, avoiding the responsibilities of parenthood, family, marriage, instead a thirty-something still playacting as a college student, living in a studio and making art, blowing his savings on film and photo paper?

This is what works for me.

A social worker friend once cautioned me to remember that people have different standards for what constitutes acceptable living. This is what works for them, right now. Maybe it's easier, simpler, and safer than a shelter. And what more deeply valuable act could I offer than to share my positivity to them: to make them feel human through respect and acknowledgement? I can do that more effectively if I'm not bemoaning their current state. 

Whether I'm asking them to leave my bus or (less often) telling them they can stay, I try to give them that. The zest of acknowledgment. You do what you can in this crazy world; the rest, you have to laugh about. Sometimes I'm better at being positive if I don't ask too many questions. 'Cause you just don't know. At the end of the day, nobody really fits into a category. I wrote this in 2012, about sleepers on the 358 and the things I didn't know from looking at them. You just never know.

Footnote to the footnote: Night operators vis a vis sleepers: I recommend carrying Febreze, Lysol, cigarettes, Vic's Vapor Rub, and $5– not for what you think. Ask me why in person!

That was Footnote 1. Next post: skip-stopping and new operators!

​She stepped aboard, wrinkling her nose. "What is that smell? Something's gone absolutely rancid in here!"
"Ooh, rancid," I said. "I love your word choice!"
"Well, that's what it is, ain't it?"
"You got that right, I s'pose."

I knew something was up, but I hadn't given it much thought. We were the 7. It's part of the contract. When you board a 7, you have to sign up for the fact that it might be loud, it might get unpleasant, or it might smell, erm, potent. But we make it through. Sometimes we even learn something. I thought the scent was Ibrahim in the back, rolling some Spice- not smoking it, you understand, just handling it. The stuff reeks. But it wasn't Ibrahim. Nor was it one of my two friends who happened to be riding that night, who thought he himself was the culprit; he was still sweating from the hot sun earlier.

It was Fish Guy.

"Who?"
"Fish Guy," my other friend said. "Over there."

The man in question, along with everyone else except my two friends (one an operator, the other a barista), had just left. We were at the Rainier Beach terminal.

"What?" I said. "That guy? I like that dude."
"Well yeah, me too," said my operator friend. "He's nice. But he smells terrible!"
"Ha!"

My dear barista companion expounded. Turns out everyone knows Fish Guy. She, by somewhat remarkable happenstance, had ejected him from her café earlier the very same day. He'd been abusing their restroom. 
"Wow," I said. "That dude?"

This happens to me semi-regularly. A lot of my acquaintances are characters– men– of the so-ruff-so-tuff urban street variety, and around me they're often on their best behavior. I respect them and they feel it, potently. I think they're great, because when I see them, they are. 

Then I hear about them being horrible when I'm not around. But it's my job to put that aside. I know they're not always angels. I need to be naïve, in order to do what I'm doing correctly. In order to give them the positivity they're not getting elsewhere. I'm lucky that way, able to offer a space that can be loitered in, soiled, that I don't have to clean up.

Fish Guy is one of what I call the Non-Destination Passengers. Most people ride buses in order to go somewhere. What a novel idea. Non-Destination Passengers are different. They're more like me; they see the bus as a destination in its own right, a living room of sorts. It's safer than a shelter, easier to get into, you're less likely to get robbed, and there are no bedbugs. Terrific.

As an operator, there's no great urgency to pick these guys up, since they're not actually going anywhere, but neither do you want to pass them all by, effectively dumping them on your follower. That's bad manners. Plus, I like having a few faces on the bus who know me. It's proved helpful. Waking them up can be a hassle (but so can letting them sleep– you become a roving hotel and don't have room for your Destinational Passengers), but if your biggest problem of the night is waking up sleepers, you're doing great.*

Tonight I only have half a trip left, from the bottom of Rainier Valley back up to Vietnamtown/Chinatown. I'm two minutes in front of my follower, Sean, who still has several hours left in the night to drive. He and I have a routine. 

It's called the "Shake'n'Bake." To make his life easier, he and I skip-stop our way up Rainier, alternating the stops we serve and splitting the passenger load between ourselves, thus speeding up the travel time for both coaches.** It's beautiful.

"Shake'n'bake?" Sean asked, at the terminal.
"Let's do this!" I responded excitedly. I love helping other operators.

I turned the corner, arriving at what is basically the first stop inbound. Naturally, Fish Guy was there, waiting to go back up the street. So were a bunch of other people. Sean would be here in a minute or so.

"There he is! Just like you said!" I exclaimed to my operator friend, still onboard. I began slowing down.
"Skip this, I don't wanna smell that all over again!"
"Do we give him to Sean?" I asked.
"Give him to Sean!"
"I can't give him to Sean. Sean has to work five more hours. I'm off in thirty minutes!"
"Actually, Sean'll skip him too. That means he goes to Amy." Amy's a newbie, and Sean's follower in tonight's sequence. She's delightful.

"Oh my gosh," I said, "I'm not giving this guy to Amy! That's... no. Sorry guys. I'm gonna get him. Is that cool?" I started laughing. "We can't give him to Amy, are you kidding me? Plus Sean's a nice guy, he has other stuff to worry about."

I opened the doors. Did he reek? I won't say he didn't. I think I've developed a tolerance. But he wasn't a bed of roses, let me tell you.

"Hey, my friend," I yelled, holding my breath by reflex. "Come on back in!"

He grinned, gathering his coat in handfuls, slinging a bag and backpack over a tattered shoulder and slithering in through the doors. I can hardly remember the colors of his clothing; he was beyond color. With enough debris and forgotten time, green, black and brown begin to take on the same meaning.

I love the sensation of helping my fellow brothers and sisters behind the wheel. I'd like to say it's selfless, but who can deny the altruistic high of magnanimous acts? Who will tell me it doesn't feel fabulous? There are worse impulses to act on. My friends were both dears, and understood completely.

But that wasn't the main reason I welcomed Fish Guy. The primary reason stemmed from brotherhood of a different sort. I knew him from before these folks did. I knew him before he was Fish Guy. I flashed to the first night I took note of him:

He was a chubby dark-skinned man, Haitian maybe with the accent, balding, in tatters, being detained by two police officers. 
"Just one second if you would," the one said to me, as I waited with open doors at Fifth and Jackson. "This guy matches a description... we gotta sort something out here."
"Sure thing, officer," I said. 

I listened to the detainee. He was monologuing, and I gradually put together what was going on:

"I am not that type of man. You ask him when he get here, tell him to look at me. Let him look at my face. I didn't do it. I do not rob people. I am a responsible man! I look after myself! I no get in other's people's affairs. I am not that guy. I look like this, yes. You think because I am homeless... tell him to look at my face. You looked at my bags. I do not steal from others. I am not that guy."

Finally, a young white man appeared, unkempt, baseball cap and curly hair. The cop looked at him, nodding. Baseball Cap looked at the speaker.

"No, huh-uh," Baseball Cap said.
"All right," said the cop to the detainee. "You're free to go."
"Thank you," our man rumbled. "You have a good night!"
"You as well!"

That moment will be what always first comes to mind when I see him. He was a man trying to prove he was who he was. 

And he was right.

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*The footnotes were getting too long– and too interesting! They've been expanded into an upcoming post. Stay tuned!

Photo by Sam Smith.

An update to the site today– a new page that links to all the various interviews with me from over the years, divided up by format– television, radio, print and more. Check it out here!

​Sorry for the infrequent posting this month: I'm preparing for my art show! More here!

​It's a waxing gibbous tonight, yellow, a sense of possibilities from high overhead. I'm done for the night– or almost done, seconds away from putting it in park and shutting off the lights, ready for the sound of the motor cutting into silence, the way the bus seems surprised you'd ever want to shut it down.

I turn the double-length articulated coach onto its lane assignment, the last turn of the night, and why not do it with a little pizzazz, keeping alive the freshness that got me through the day? I even have an audience. There's a colleague, walking the walk of having completed the day. She's coming from one of the buses parked up ahead, further up the line.

Even if you're the last coach to park on a lane, there's still enough room to square it off perfectly, so you're not bleeding over the striping with your back tires. Go a little too deep, as deep as you can before you start the turn, hard right, then you overcorrect left after you're a little too far right, the bus changing its mind, and you're thinking about your middle wheel and turntable now, taking your time. You've got the real estate on your left side to reposition the front, and here's the back wheel sliding in perfectly, straight as an arrow on the last second. Not half bad, you say to yourself, allowing yourself a little hop off the front step, the skip that wants to tap your heels together.

She's caught up to where I am now, and we finish out our walk back to the Base together.
"Nathan!"
"Hey!"
"Were you just drivin' that 7?"
"You know it! Such a great night." I change my voice halfway through, realizing I probably sound like I'm bragging. I'm just happy; the exhilaration of a completed shift.
She says, "when did you start driving that thing?"
Pause. Putting it together. "I first did the 7 in, '09."
"And you just stick to it, huh?"
"Well you know you just find something you like and you kind of get in a rut, you know? In a good way."
"I know tha's right," she grins, with a smile that stops you from calling her middle-aged. "That's how I am with the E. People look at me–"
"Me too! I love the E!"
"And I have a great time out there!"

I look at her. I don't know her, but I do now. Different race, age, gender... never mind all that. I call it kindred spirits. I say, "well probably 'cause you got a great spirit, and people can feel that!"
"Yeah!"
"'Cause respect has such huge currency out here on the street, and if you put that good energy out there,"
"'Hi,' 'good evening,'"
"People notice that. They appreciate that in a big way."
"Sometimes they'll start doing their little thing," she admits.
"Yeah."
"And I'll say something."
"Yeah."
"And they'll stop."
"'Cause they know you from before, that goodwill! Sure, it's a couple days out of the year that are pretty tough–"
"It happens."
"It happens."
"But man, all the other days? It's beautiful!"
"And I'm just gonna keep doing it!"
"You and me both, friend!"

I felt the expansion of the moon and stars, a heady exhilaration beating in my chest, the confirmation of common secrets, known and shared. There are a lot of like-minded, positive drivers. I've had variations of this exchange before. What about this conversation made my heart rise with such particular joy?  

It was the ready acknowledgement even if our approach doesn't work all the time, that doesn't make it worthless. Because it works ninety-nine times out of a hundred, and usually still helps in the remaining percentile. Your working method isn't dashed if you have one bad trip. It happens. It's okay if things fall apart spectacularly after you've done your best, as they sometimes do. No single approach solves every moment. You work on it, think about what you'll do next time, and breathe. The main thing is, you're getting the overall. You didn't escalate things. Don't beat yourself up, don't question your good-natured outlook just because it fails once or twice. 

It's just the world. 

In this crazy place, going home happy most every night is something worth celebrating.