Greyhound Bus Lines: Making capitalism look bad

I’ve put off writing this for too long.

On Sept. 3rd, I rode Greyhound for the first time.  I only pray it will be the last as well.  Things got off to a terrific start when the bus showed up two hours late.  Originally I had expected to be in Kansas City by 10pm.  “Well whatever”, I thought, and took the opportunity to play Pokemon Silver.  We finally boarded the bus; two buses, actually.  A lot of people were headed east.  Keep this in mind as it becomes important later.

After a few hours we got to our lunch stop, a McDonalds.  “Greyhound Steakhouse”, the driver called it.  Good enough for me.  I had three dollars in change at the time and dollar menu fair sounded appropriate.  The same was probably the case for everyone else, since if they had money they would have taken a plane.  So after enjoying a McGang Bang I reboarded the bus.  As I was doing so I passed by the driver and a number of other passengers having a discussion.  Later (roughly 10 minutes later) I would learn that they were discussing a theft.

Apparently a young woman had left her bag aboard the bus during the break.  When she returned she found that her iPod and Laptop were missing.  The manner in which this was handled was nothing short of brilliant.  The driver boarded the bus and made an announcement: “We’re not leaving until whoever took it gives it back”.  This was the plan.  Needless to say, it did not work out well.  For roughly an hour the entire bus sat there.  Nobody came forward.  People started talking, pointing out previously ignored possibilities.  The thief could have stashed it somewhere in the McDonald’s.  Or someone from the other bus could have hopped aboard and taken it while no one was looking.

That’s right.  The second bus, containing half the potential suspects, was long gone.  Here we were being delayed.

After the first hour had passed, the driver realized that she couldn’t chastise the thief into returning the stolen property.  Rather than giving up or supposing that the thief was not present, she elected to call the cops.  At this point the passenger behind me said “This isn’t the policy for handling theft”.  Doubtlessly he was correct.  Some of the other passengers made statements saying that previous thefts which had occurred on Greyhound lines had not been handled this way.  (I did a brief search of Greyhound’s baggage policy and found this sentence: “Greyhound will only be responsible to the extent of the actual loss or damage sustained based on the actual baggage at the time and place of checking, and will NOT accept any liability for unchecked baggage”.  Based on that alone, it seems that the driver could have elected to give up the gambit at any time.)

The cops arrived.  We sat on the bus for another 20 minutes.  Apparently there was no plan outside of having them here.  After what seemed like an eternity in which the driver and theft-affected passanger conversed with the cops, people started volunteering to be searched.  I didn’t want to be searched.  I had thought of a rather dangerous possibility: the thief could have stashed the iPod in someone elses bag, perhaps my own.  At around this time one of the passengers elected to search the bus bathroom and found the laptop, sitting on the floor.

Finally, we were told that all of us would have to be searched.  This process took another hour.  It is one of three things I filmed during the trip (apparently filming is against policy, but I can deal with the consequences of that on my own).  After we all turned out clean, we boarded the bus and took off.  The iPod had not been recovered and we were now 5 hours late.  At the time I was trying to take all of this in stride, using a sense of humor to help me get through it.  What I didn’t realize was that this series of delays had dramatic implications for many of the passengers.

At around 8pm, the man behind me started to become agitated.  Like half the people on the bus he was traveling to another city for a job.  If this bus didn’t get to its destination soon, he wouldn’t be able to make his connection.  As the hours ticked onward he realized that this wasn’t going to happen.  He called his prospective employer and told them about his circumstance.  The job he was going to get was as a foreman, a position that would pay very well for a man of his qualifications.  The employer could not wait, however.  They hired another man who had expressed interest in the position.

It gets worse.

This man had been thrilled about the location of the job, because it would enable him to live near his children.

And worse.

He had been living off disability for a long period of time.  For him, this job was a way to regain independence.

And worse.

This man lost hope as a result of this.  A belief in God is quaint, but at its heart it is also optimistic.  This man was pious.  With his job, independence, and children all taken from him he began to falter.

So here is my opinion on the issue, and tell me if you disagree.  A refund is not good enough for this man.  He lost something which was far more valuable than the price of the ticket he payed for.  To rub salt in the wound, the aim of the delay wasn’t achieved: even now the iPod is still missing.  The Chief Operating Officer ought to track this man down and beg him for forgiveness.  It was because of a procedural failure that this man suffered what he did.  There were either none in place to handle it, or those that were in place were woefully inadequate.  If it had been otherwise then the driver wouldn’t have sat around trying to think up what they wanted to do.  They wouldn’t have tried three different ineffectual solutions to one problem.

Call me quaint, but I think of a ticket as a contract.  Frankly I don’t care whether the law agrees with me about this or not.  On Sept. 3rd, a contract was broken with disastrous consequences.  The responsibility for the theft of the iPod lies entirely with the thief.  The responsibility for failing to provide the service which people payed for, however, lies with Greyhound.  If anyone responsible for Greyhound procedures is reading this please listen.  These are dangerous times for businesses.  Learn to keep your word, or you’ll doubtlessly find yourself submitted to procedures every bit as senseless as those which we dealt with as passengers of your lines.

There is a limit to even my cynicism, but I must end this article with an insight which is too clever by half.  The Facts and Figures section of the official Greyhound website contains the following, verbatim.

Customers

• One-third of Greyhound passengers make more than $35,000 per year.
• More than half of Greyhound riders have received higher education beyond high school.
• Forty-two percent of Greyhound passengers are between the ages of 18 and 34.
• Nearly 60 percent of Greyhound passengers travel less than 450 miles.
• In many cases, Greyhound passengers report they own automobiles considered sufficiently reliable for a trip of a similar distance, but travel by bus because it is safe and more economical.
• The majority of Greyhound passengers travel to visit family and friends, but more than 21 percent travel for business reasons.
• The average ticket price is $45.

By your own admittion, 2/3rds of your clients are what might be described as “not affluent”.  Up to 49.9% are uneducated, and of the other percent fuck only knows how many actually have degrees.  Many car owners ride Greyhound because they cannot afford the gas to drive to their destination.  Oh, and 4/10ths of your riders are young, making them the perfect face for a sympathetic victim.

Sounds like a human interest story to me.

~ by Kilroy del Dancefighter Estallion the First on September 23, 2009.