I’ve never been much of a complainer. Well, that’s not true. I complain all – the – time. But not to supervisors or managers or what have you. If I have a bad customer service experience, for example, I don’t call to complain about it. I mean I’d have to be REALLY mad to go to the trouble. And I’ve never been that mad (or if I have, that anger has been outweighed by my laziness and pure hatred for the telephone).

OC Transpo, the transit system in O-town, manages to provide me with plenty of opportunities to call in a complaint. I haven’t done it yet, but I’ve been crazy tempted. Like the time a bus driver told an elderly lady that she had to exit at the rear with the rest of the passengers because it was morning rush hour. Or the many times the bus drivers drive like maniacs and cause elderly people, women with strollers, etc. to go flying into one another. Or the many times that buses have simply not shown up for the scheduled stop time. So many times I could have called to complain.

Today I was once again given a reason to call OC Transpo about a bus driver. But instead of wanting to complain about said driver, I wanted to call somewhere to tell someone, anyone, about how awesome he was. First, he didn’t worry himself over my transfer, which I had managed to get stuck between the diaper bag and the rain cover and which was therefore impossible to read. Second, he was nice and waited until I had the stroller breaks on before tearing down the road. Third, he didn’t tear down the road. Fourth, he pulled over because he saw a kid who was walking alone in the rain – the kid was maybe nine and really shouldn’t have been out by himself on a bridge in the rain. This bus driver asked the kid where he was going and offered to drop him off closer to his destination. Sixth, he said a cheery “Have a nice night, buddy!” to Budsie as we left the bus. All in all, an excellent bus driver. The kind of bus driver I thought all bus drivers were like back when I was little and oh so desperate to ride the bus to school (the novelty wore off of that pretty damn quick, let me tell you).

It’s so rare that we get a chance to call in good things. Plus I don’t think people call about good things often enough – we’re usually only driven to call when someone has pissed us off. So that’s today’s resolution: call OC Transpo’s customer service line and let them know they have one awesome bus driver working for them. And try to remember to call or let a manager know whenever someone is nice to me.