Why Bus Drivers Are The Most Important People In A Happy Community
I was recently on a bus where a customer boarded but forgot their backpack on the sidewalk bench. Another customer noticed the forgotten backpack and told the bus driver. The driver put the bus into park, got out and brought the backpack in. He then turned on his speaker and announced, “Would the owner of the blue backpack that was left on the bench please come to the front to claim your item. Please note, that as the rescuer of this bag I accept rewards in the form of chocolate, candy or both.”
Everyone on the bus laughed. It was a fun and spontaneous moment that everyone enjoyed together. It was a great way to start the day, and I carried that positive momentum with me from that moment forward. With every future interaction I had, I tried to approach it with the same pleasant attitude that the bus driver demonstrated. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one on the bus who did that.
What the bus driver did that morning was to remind everyone onboard about the power of kindness and humour. He had a captive audience of strangers, and he used the moment to make people smile. This is why bus drivers are the most important supporters of happiness in our communities.
Emotions Are Contagious
Emotional contagion is the phenomenon of having one person’s emotions and related behaviours directly trigger similar emotions and behaviours in other people. A broader definition is that it’s a process in which a person or group influence the emotions or behaviour of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotional states and behavioural attitudes. A simpler definition is monkey see, monkey do.
In the case of the bus driver, his actions triggered positive behaviour by the customers who witnessed it. The customers then disembarked the bus and spent their day interacting with other people while emulating that same behaviour, and those other people emulated them, and so on and so on. Therefore, that original positive emotional interaction by the bus driver likely spread exponentially throughout the day.
And this is the moment in the article where you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Yeah, that’s true, some bus drivers are great. But… I’ve also seen some really awful interactions that left me in a pretty bad mood.”
You’re right. Negative interactions work the same way. If a bus full of customers witness a bad interaction (e.g. a dispute over fares), then they’ll likely emulate that same behaviour, therefore spreading negative interactions exponentially throughout the day. Which isn’t as good.
So this brings us back to why bus drivers are so influential to a communities’ happiness. Assuming that a bus carries around 40 customers per hour, that means they have a direct emotional influence on over 300–500 people per day. There are very few other jobs where someone regularly interacts on a face-to-face level with such a large and diverse volume of people. Further, a lot of these interactions take place during peoples’ commutes, which is usually one of most stressful and sensitive times of the day.
This is why a single bus driver has an incredible amount of influence on the emotional well being of the community they work in.
So How Do We Support Bus Drivers?
Being a bus driver is already one of the toughest jobs out there. Now we’ve added the additional responsibility of them shouldering the emotional well-being of their entire community. No pressure.
So how do we support bus drivers to ensure that they maintain a positive (or at least neutral) attitude as they deal with thousands of different people on regular basis?
That’s where you, the bus rider, come in. Emotional contagion is a two-way street, you get what you give. So help the bus drivers out whenever you can, because an investment in them is an investment into your community. Say nice things, smile, be patient, be polite, laugh with them, thank them for being the librarians of mobility, let them merge in, don’t scream, accept that most things are beyond their control and if all else fails, give them some candy and chocolate.
Happy bus drivers equals happy people, and happy people equals happy bus drivers.
