BART operators and their many faceted personalities

If you take BART daily, you soon learn your BART operators' personalities and their quirks and the things that annoy you about them will eventually eat you alive (a 6-month stint of a morning BART operator that would YELL and threaten and even sometimes cause bodily harm to passengers almost pushed me to the end). I won't go into each and every particular BART operator now, but as they impress me, I'll share.

Okay, I lied. A quick note: There was an operator who liked to say the weirdest things to the riders -- like we were his friends. One Friday as he pulled into Embarcadero, he announced, "Happy Friday! The weekend's almost here!" Then when his route was changing, he made a point to tell us all that his route was changing, and that he enjoyed us all as riders, and that maybe we'll be passengers on another train of his. He was just nice.

Today, it was gigantic Islander BART operator man.

I think, although I can't say for sure because I thought this guy was African American, this is the operator that likes to give synopses of the main attractions at each stop. Maybe he was trained by the other guy, I don't know, but he was doing this at every, single stop from Fremont to Montgomery. Now, if you've taken this BART line, you'll soon realize there aren't many fantastic attractions to point out. But this guy (and the other guy, but for now, I'll assume they are the same), this guy knows bus lines, he knows where the nearest hospital is, he knows so much more than you would expect from a human that operates a BART train. I mean, did he seriously get off at each stop and write notes? How does he know all this?

What's the funniest thing about this guy is that he is HUGE. Big man who could crush my skull in two seconds. Wham-o! He was walking from one end of the train to the other, and instead of walking the platform like most, he walked through the train. He surprised me because he actually stopped even though I was pretty far behind, waited for me to get to the doors, and held them open for me. Now, that's nice. I mean, come on, I was pretty far back. So here's this huge man waiting for me...his momma must love him.

So when he starts talking about Union City and then South Hayward and then Hayward, and giving all this information that I guaranty you the average 6am BART rider doesn't care about, I just thought it was funny, if not a bit annoying. The average 6am BART rider doesn't want to listen to someone ramble on at 6am in the morning.

Thank goodness for iPods. And sleepiness.

However, this gets really old on those trips you aren't tired or that you can't block out voices and concentrate on a book. Because it just keeps going on and on and on...


But hey! You sure can learn a lot.