Not my day for customer service

So yesterday just really was not my day for customer service. In addition to my fun at the bike shop, I got to have fun on the bus.

I had to wait 20 minutes for a bus, but it was a good 20 minutes. I had beautiful weather, a radio on my cell phone, and a pleasant enough stranger waiting at the stop with me. My easy contentment was squashed by the bus driver.

Before I could even greet him, he demanded that I remove my headphones. He claimed that the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) has a new rule that forbids headphones. I asked him for literature on the rule. He did not have any. I asked the reason for the rule. He said (repeatedly) that five people on a bus listening to loud music can distract a driver. I asked how my listening to my radio quietly would be a problem. He insisted that it disturbed him. He further stated that the problem came from people not keeping their volume to a reasonable level. When I asked why those people weren't the ones affected then, he dodged the question and told me that he didn't make the rules.

Not having my radio to keep me entertained, I got to soak up the full sounds of the bus. Like the really loud ringtones of some passengers. There were the three LOUD cell phone conversation that lasted nearly the whole time I was on the bus. My favorite sound was the sing-along that involved a line something like "I'm an 80s baby and my parents say I'm crazy." During all this, I and the woman who got on with me kept looking at each other "And our headphones would disturb him? For real?"

Then, of course, the kicker: that driver, who claimed headphones would distract him, got on his cell phone and talked for 15 minutes. Riiiight. Not only was he annoying me, he was endangering my life (the effect of cell phone use on a driver is similar to the effect of alcohol).

Me being me, I called in (FYI DDOT is at 313-933-1300). The customer service agent I spoke with knew of no new rule. She read me the only rule she had regarding headphones. It stated that headphones must be used to listen to electronic devices on the bus. Mmmhmm.

Unfortunately, the supervisor was not available so I will be calling back in the morning.

Really, I'm wondering if I should have forced the issue. If I had refused to take the headphones off and then refused to be put off the bus, what would have happened? Hmm...I ask because I'm not so sure I would be willing to take the bus if I couldn't listen to my radio. While I was sitting on that bus, the more I thought about it, the more I was sure that I should not have to make that choice. And once again that brought me to that fact that the bus service we get in metro-Detroit is ridiculous and we really need to do something about that.