The MTA: Kafkaesque Absurdity

There is a certain kind of MTA Bus Driver. The kind who, being nothing more than a minion him or herself, is a stickler--a mean, nasty stickler, about MTA rules. You understand immediately upon observation that this type of driver, being disenfranchised him or herself, has only one source of perceived power. His or her ability to lord the thin wisp of authority that being an MTA Bus Driver gives him or her over the poor, often infirm people who are forced to patronzie the MTA--and these customers are at the mercy of the driver. These people aren't commuting to save the environment or to do their part to eliminate gridlock. Like me, they have no other option. The Stickler preys upon these people and they get the brunt of all the driver's frustration with his or her unfulfilled hopes.

Today, one stop before I was to disembark, a woman got on the bus with a pass that bore yesterday's date. I understand that you are not allowed to do that--that it is reasonable to have to pay the fare for a service rendered. But I also understand that she probably found this pass discarded and thought maybe she'd stumbled on a piece of good fortune. So, standing up to get off, I handed her my day pass that was good for several more hours.

The driver, who had already informed her of the date gaffe with her pass, yelled at me "That's illegal! Do you see this?" (she was pointing to the fine print on the pass that said non transferrable). She continued, "A woman got five years for this very thing!" I said, "okay, I see it. I have to get off." She kept yelling, shoving the pass in my face. "FIVE YEARS!" To which I replied "Well, I don't need it. So you can just throw it away." The woman I tried to help was forced to get off at my stop as well, as she did not have the means to ride Baltimore City's unreliable public transportation.

I am someone who respects rules. I honour processes and protocols. Sometimes I am a stickler. But I also believe in the spirit as well as the letter, and I know it takes wisdom to know which is called for when.

Sure, there are those encroachers who will knowingly abuse a system that lacks quality control or who will take advantage of kindess and mercy. Then there are those who need to be given a break. The MTA Bus Driver from this afternoon (and many like her)gains nothing by preventing me from letting that woman ride the bus on my valid pass. It is ridiculous to me that I could have ridden the bus or rails incessantly, until 3 a.m. tomorrow, on that thin slip of non transferrable paper, that I paid for, but that I, as the purchaser, did not have the right to give to someone else. Someone who needed it. On a bus line that is notoriously populated by mean-spirited, surly drivers who must believe that the MTA exists purely for their own purposes. The MTA owes, by my count, everyone on the No. 21 Line countless free rides for poor service, erratic schedules, and buses that are often ill-equipped to handle the ridership.

Bureaucratic entities like the MTA espouse a Kafkaesque infatuation with process, procedure, and rules for their own sake. And there is nothing more absurd than a minion who is also a victim of such red tape to insist upon the categorical observance of rules that in no way advance his or her own situation. That is the tale of this certain kind of MTA Bus Driver.

It's no accident, to me, that MTA employees, by and large, are black men and women--more and more often, with no sense of professionalism or customer courtesy, and that its ridership is overwhelmingly African American as well. This varies depending upon the line, of course, but more riders than not are black (or immigrants), and usually older. I think the MTA perpetuates piss poor service by hiring a less than exemplary staff (not less than exemplary because of any racial consideration, but anecdotally, overarchingly rude in addition to belonging primarily to one ethnic group) and not caring because its service population are the fringe poor who have no other choice!

If the MTA was a credible institution I would be much more tolerant of the rules that benefit it, but I don't see these same miserable drivers, this same miserable institution being sticklerish about their schedules, the condition of their buses, and their commitment to value customers. So the MTA must forgive me if I would willingly see it go without $3.50 in order to benefit a stranded woman. A woman like me, with no other way to get from point A to point B without a valid day pass.