#I’m just tired of this culture/societal norm of being cruel bitter and angry all the time

[saturnatdawn]

In the past two days the public transit bus driver sped past my stop. This has costed me more money that I’d care to spend on Ubers, and has meant I’ve gotten home so late that I cannot even get a full 8 hours of sleep before my next shift. This has been extremely frustrating and scary given that I live an hour away from my job and it’s 10:00 at night, so the bus that I have to catch home is the last one scheduled. The bus didn’t come again tonight, and I was stuck on the curb outside my job, it’s sweltering outside and I didn’t have the funds to take an Uber so i’m waiting for my partner to drive all the way out to pick me up—not to mention she also needs to be up at 8am the next day and I am now taking 2 hours away from her time to rest over this— well the bus showed up nearly an hour and a half past the scheduled time. A guy steps out of the bus with a cigarette in hand, and I take it as an opportunity to ask about my stop being skipped. He gets wide eyed and becomes so apologetic. My bus stop is in the parking lot of a university, so I found this to be a little frustrating because he didn’t enter the parking lot, and I saw him drive past the school.

HOWEVER. I understand we are all human. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never half assed one of my jobs before. Casual cruelty is so normalized in American culture and I truly try to not partake in it. I didn’t yell at him. I didn’t get snippy or angry, and I talked it out with him. Although it was too late, he offered to take me to where I needed to be despite the fact he was off the clock. I just want to remind everyone that most people are not intentionally trying to fuck you over, nor are they trying to make life difficult, or be inconvenient. It would have taken more effort for me to yell at him than it did to just have a civil conversation. Please don’t subscribe to the American norm of being cruel simply because you were inconvenienced.

When I told my mom about this she got mad at me for not being more angry, but here is the thing: I was exhausted and pissed off. Yelling at this guy would not have made my night better and to be quite frank, it would have made me feel even worse. I probably would have been crying in the Arts & Science building after a long day if I had been mean to him. But there I was being chastised by my mom for not being meaner. What a miserable mindset to have.