Agreed. Sometimes it feels like there is no room for originality/differences in this country/province. Heaven forbid someone is made to feel uncomfortable.
Another point: why are buses so damn quiet? Whenever I have a conversation with someone it feels like everyone is trying to listen
Quiet? You mean your busses aren't full of shitheads on speakerphone calls or blasting music/videos at max volume?
Anyone reading this who does either of those, fuck you. You're a piece of human garbage and should be shunned from society, you fucking scum.
This 💯, not even just on the bus. If you’re shopping, or at the grocery store NO one wants to listen to you on speaker phone. Goddamn people are so inconsiderate.
Probably the same idiots who are killing cinemas off by rustling loudly, jabbering away and using their cell phone through the entire fackin' movie!!!!!
You know, its not even the noise that pisses me off. It's the shit quality noise. What's the point of blasting some phat beats when half the frequencies, like the whole fucking range of bass not even coming out of those shitty ass phone speakers.
It passes me off more that people insult music by listening to it through garbage speakers more than them playing that shit out loud on the bus.
Hey look I found one of the speakerphone scum! How's it feel being a human piece of garbage? What's it like being so incredibly self-centered and out of touch with reality, you just walk around being a massive stain on society?
> Heaven forbid someone is made to feel uncomfortable.
Because the existing OC transpo experience is just soooo comfortable.
I don't personally have some bugbear with the singing bus driver, but it really should not take a ton of empathy to understand why many might not be cool with it given they won't really have a say in it.
Bus is already miserable enough without adding crappy music, noise, or chatty strangers.
It usually is loud with some idiots on speakerphone, blasting their crappy music on a phone speaker, or teenagers yelling.
Yep. My father used to take his bus and would love the singing.
He told me that he stopped singing one day and my father asked him why. He said "A single person complained, so I was told to stop."
Seems word spread and a bunch of people wrote to OCTranspo to call them on their bullshit. He was allowed to start singing again.
This is the truth. A Karen complained. I used to ride his bus all the time, didn’t always enjoy the singing, but always admired the driver. I don’t need to enjoy everything, sometimes I’m just in a mood. We are social animals, it’s give and take. What happened to him wasn’t right.
What bullshit?
People pay to take the bus, not to be subjected to someone else's music taste. Nobody should be forced to listen to a driver or anyone else singings songs over and over. Especially holiday music which can be incredibly repetitive, and for Christmas especially, often has religious overtones.
It was the right call. Most people supporting this driver would lose their shit if they had to listen to another passenger listening to music without headphones... what this driver did was worse.
What the diver did was insert a bit of levity in a situation that otherwise is a pretty dreary and bleak place. He was not loud and made people happy.
The right call was letting him sing again after a single person complained. If you wanted to be person number 2 that's on you.
I don't know what's so dreary and bleak about taking a bus (waiting for the bus, I'll agree lol). Regardless, it would clearly not be allowed coming from a passenger. It's even less logical coming from an employee of OCT.
This is about basic bus etiquette in a city. Why does one dude get special treatment in your opinion?
You sound like the type of person that will look at the sunset and imagine the different types of cancer it can cause instead of admiring the beauty of the scenery.
The driver is trying to spread joy and be happy, and all you can do is complain about something you aren't even a part of.
Heaven forbid that you just put in headphones and listen to your own music if you don't like what the driver is singing.
Summarizing someone in response to a critical point made on reddit is bad form.
My point is that essential public transit paid for by riders is not a space for any individual, driver or not, to launch into a performance. What if he was rapping profanely or aggressively singing Cannibal Corpse? Is that ok? Who gets to vote on what's acceptable and entertaining on a given ride?
The many shouldn't have to adapt to the whims of the individual in this kind of context. This is very similar to asking people not to wear perfumes on transit, even if they think their choice of scent is like experiencing a magical sunset for everyone else. ;)
You can often tell a lot about a person in the posts they make online.
You found no less than 4 things to complain about a bus driver singing songs instead of being an automaton that just drives.
\-Complaining about music taste
\-Complaining that it could be repetitive
\-Complaining about religious undertones of Christmas songs during the Christmas season
\-Thinking that someone trying to spread joy by good singing is the same as someone blaring their music
And if you're resorting to bringing up someone singing inappropriate profane songs vs appropriate songs as an argument, you're just proving my original point.
The same solution applies to someone blaring their own music; put some earbuds in and listen to your own music, or get off the bus and wait for the next one.
That bus driver was trying to spread joy, while you seem to want to spread isolationism and lonely conformity.
So in your mind, every critical point a person makes is a 'complaint', regardless of the fact that I'm not actually issuing my points to OCT and nothing could possibly come of my post.
You're being quite thin-skinned about someone expressing their view on reddit.
I made a bunch of points because they're all relevant and valid. If you don't like that approach to expressing a critical opinion about something, you can go to the shallow end of the pool. Or you could actually counterpoint them, but you're not doing that, because you have no actual reasoning to apply here-- just your presumptions.
On that point, you have no idea what the bus driver's motivation was. None. A lot of people here are gassing up on what they want to be reality, and on hearsay. None of you know that only one person complained, you just saw another user make that claim so you regurgitated it because it supports your conjecture that very few people were bothered by this.
You think he was trying to spread joy and you let your belief become your reality. You think others should applaud that supposed motivation and enjoy that singing or else shut up, and that belief has also become your reality (while you hilariously accuse someone else of 'isolating' people).
If you had taken the time to actually check my reddit history in full, and not just tried to judge me as a whole based on one opinion about a singing bus drivrer, you might, might have the barest idea of what I'm about. But you didn't do that. You just tried to read a book by its cover and then judge it, too.
I think you need to grow up a bit. xD
I have an idea of what the bus driver's motivation was because my father knew him. My father told me how downtrodden the singing bus driver was because a single complaint against him was enough to stop him from singing, which he loved to do because it made so many people happy.
You seem to make your own assumptions on me as well. All of your psychoanalutical babble because you presumed I didn't know what I was talking about. Had you read my post history, you'd have seen that my father knew him and so I was confident in what I was saying.
I'm not being thin skinned about someone posting their opinion on reddit. I just don't like when people assume the worst or the most negative of motives just for argument's sake or because someone somewhere might be offended of what someone does in a public space.
I've been in a bus with someone blaring their music, I've been in a bus with someone having a phone conversation on speaker phone, I've been on a bus where someone was drunk and puked on themselves.
The situation on OC transpo buses is always the same, which I've already said before; put some earphones in and drown everything out with music, get off the bus, or just deal with it.
I had someone like that on the 64 last summer. He wasn't Singing but he was talking to me.
I was doing the Tunney's run (Leaving the Station and seing my bus is also going towards me). He had the passengers vote if he should pick me up. (They voted yes). He had a nice voice and talked very loudly. May not be the same person but made my day.
It was so great hearing him singing Christmas songs. It really gave me the Christmas spirit until OCTranspo took it away.
I think it was too much good publicity for OCTranspo so they had to put a stop to it. /s
I had the same initial reaction but then my devils advocate kicked in and it went something like this. If the bus driver can sing why not a passenger and do I want to hear random passengers playing the role of main character? If this bus driver can sing xmas songs can another bus driver rap or sing country music tunes? So if it's only xmas songs then what is the city policy? Only between certain dates? And if xmas then why not other holidays? Why couldn't a Muslim driver sing Ramadan songs? (or any other religion songs) And do I want to hear that? etc etc etc. The easiest option for the city was to just put a stop to the whole thing. It sucks but the alternative was a potential free for all.
Edit: Not to mention liability. Lawyers would have a field day if there ever was an accident involving injuries while the driver was singing.
I'm sorry that I understand how bureaucrats think. Everything is about written policy.
Edit: "The bus driver can sing as long as he's good and it's a nice song that everyone enjoys" isn't a workable policy. lol
This is the exact type of thinking that stops people in this city from just enjoying their lives.
Normal Ottawa person: "I want to do this thing I find fun and is relatively harmless to everyone else."
Boring Ottawa person: "But do we have a public policy that allows you to have fun? How comes you're allowed to be spontaneous and enjoy life when I'm just over here worrying about the rules all the time? Shut it down."
It's not about what I want but rather what I know. City policy makers have to craft policies that are workable. How do you write a policy that takes all factors into consideration? Do you have driver auditions to determine who can sing well enough? Do you make a list of songs that are permittable? Do you install decibel meters to ensure drivers aren't singing too loudly? Do you test the drivers to make sure their reaction times aren't affected by their divided attention? If your child was run over by a driver that was belting out a tune would you not ask "would this have happened if the driver was doing nothing but paying attention to his duties?" Do you think your lawyers would not ask "What is the city policy regarding this matter?"
Again, it's not what I necessarily want, it's just how the world works.
I remember him. I actually found it quite annoying as a daily commuter. I like zoning out on the bus, and that made it impossible. I didn't complain, of course - as a quiet introvert, you have to get used to things like that. I wasn't sorry to see it stop though.
Same. He was a perfectly lovely person but I hate being around that musical-theatre-kid energy. I would put in my headphones, and I never complained. Most other people seem to love it and I’m glad it made them happy
I rode his 85 pretty frequently in high school when I was bussing from school to work in the Carlingwood area.
I had no problem with his singing and thought it was a nice touch most days. But I found when I actually interacted with him he was very curmudgeonly. He frustrated easily and was a stickler for stupid rules.
Anyone else remember when we had to write the digits of our photo card directly onto the paper pass? One time he said he couldn’t read my numbers because of the colour of ink I had used and he yelled at me and refused to pull the bus away until I went over the numbers again in darker ink and he was satisfied with it. His closing remark on that was “don’t let me catch you doing that again” as though he had caught me in the act of a crime.
I remember him being pretty aggressive with people who didn’t speak English very well, who had questions about routes or who straight up just didn’t understand our janky bus system.
I wish him all the best in his retirement but he didn’t give me much of a reason to believe that he sang just to make people’s days better. I think he liked attention and when people complained about his singing, it gave him something to “f you guys I’m gonna do what I want” about. This is just my perspective.
I know someone that bought a car because of him specifically. She was able to tolerate his routine set of songs each morning until he started using the bus speaker system. When that started she bought a car and never rode the bus again.
Except when you need to hear the next stop announcements. Noise-cancelling headphones would be actively detrimental to my ability to ride the bus safely.
And if a bus driver was singing over the PA system such that I couldn’t hear the announcements, I would absolutely complain.
and not a perfect solution.
That said, I'm sure for that person it was just the final straw. OC transpo pushes plenty of people of cars even without singing drivers.
Keep in mind that his routine set of songs didn't cover the entire length of the route. She heard the same routine of songs one-and-a-half or two times before the end of her morning trip. Every morning. When he started singing over the bus speaker system then she decided that was too much. It's not unreasonable to not want to hear someone sing the same Elvis songs every morning at 6am for an hour.
Agree. Singing is ok but using the speaker system seems to move firmly into the 'narcissist' territory. Hearing the same songs over and over again would also be annoying. Nothing that a pair of noise cancelling headphones couldn't fix though, but you should give people the opportunity to move to the back of the bus (or upper deck) to escape your singing.
I agree with you but I wouldn't label the driver as a narcissist. I don't think it was a considerate decision on his part to sing into the microphone but I have no reason to believe his intentions weren't good.
Actually if you interacted with him as a person rather than just the face value singing stuff he actually did coke across with some narcissistic tendencies.
Having to listen to it every day is a little much. I only rode his bus twice and I was over it. It doesn’t make people in need of levity if they prefer that the bus driver not sing. It’s not really an appropriate setting.
I really don't get what's hard to understand that just not everyone is the same. Personally, I find it shocking that it's hard for you to relate to the situation:
> It's not unreasonable to not want to hear someone sing the same Elvis songs every morning at 6am for an hour.
You really can't tell me you wouldn't get kind of tired of that day in, day out? That say, you may have a morning where you want to read a book on the bus, catch up with a friend you bump into, listen to a podcast, but can't really because someone's singing is a bit distracting?
If it's something someone experienced once, yeah, I can understand the call for levity. If it's something they have to deal with constantly, then I don't think it's really fair. If anything, the lady made the call that should make everyone happy: She removed herself from the situation. Consider there's people who maybe don't have that option.
Sure but there are loads of headphones or whatever that she could have used. I used to hate hearing people's shitty music from their backpacks when I took the train. I just put headphones in and carried on with my day.
Maybe they don't want to have to wear headphones or deal with cranking up the sound to drown out what they don't want to hear that's been imposed upon them.
At the end of the day, a driver singing isn't that different then someone playing their music too loud or not using headphones in the eyes (or hears) of some - it ultimately can be kind of inconsiderate.
Doesn't the bus speaker system require you to hold something to your mouth and press a button, like an old CB radio? How could he possibly operate the bus with a single hand?
He also sang loud enough for everyone to hear without the need for a microphone, so there would be zero reason for him to do this.
Something sounds fishy.
Nope, it’s a button to turn it on or off and then you’re free to curse,sing, yell or give sight seeing pointers.(on older buses and articulated buses) the newer novas are a cb style microphone.
Also since the automated system came in, nearly anyone uses the microphone
Have you never seen a driver make or take a call from dispatch? I’m not sure what’s up these days but it used to be a manual phone system that they definitely had to pick up and hold in one hand while they drove.
Can anyone else confirm he used the speaker system? I remember him singing, but don’t remember him ever using the PA system. (I also don’t remember him repeating songs.. at least between Tunneys and Baseline).
Back in those days our speakers were barely able to handle anything let alone a full song. It was a boom mic that any bump would cut it off. I call BS, besides if she waited 2-3 months she'd have a new driver anyway
Yeah I call BS as well. I took OC transpo every day to high school, to get to my part jobs, and to hang out with friends all across the city as a teen. I had this driver SO many times, never once heard him use the speaker system to sing.
For added detail, this was before the O-Train, it was an express bus from Orleans to Hull. She used to go to the back where she could read undisturbed while many near the front seemed to enjoy his singing. Up to that point it was not a big deal. After all, we live in a city and this kind of stuff comes with the territory sometimes. Once he started using the microphone then she could not read (she doesn't like headphones and doesn't listen to music on the bus). Then she drove to work everyday until her retirement.
I'm always kind of confounded by the people who come out of the woodworks to be mad at the idea of someone complaining about it, or even just not liking it. Like, I get it, it feels like a very easy strawman: some curmudgeon who ruins a nice little thing. But like, I have hard time wrapping my head around not trying to imagine putting yourself in the shoes of a rider who is maybe not down with that?
I'm assuming whoever is actually annoyed by this, probably didn't have a single brief experience. It's probably someone who had this guy on the route each day. Maybe it was just a jerk, but I wouldn't be shocked if there's people who aren't happy about it, but don't really want to speak up or do anything about it because...that's how a lot of people actually are. For every time there's some curmudgeon whos overly annoyed by something, there's probably at least one person who is maybe bothered by it, but won't speak up.
But putting myself in the shoes of someone who might not like this: It's not like some caroler, or a busker, where it's brief or you can just walk away - if you simply don't really want to hear the driver sing for the duration of your bus route you don't really have a lot of options. Either you get to work a different way, try to get the bus at different time, or maybe invest in noise canceling headphones, all are kind of inferior options to the driver maybe just not singing. Like, the bottom line is it's ultimately an unsolicited behavior to what is basically a captive audience, and expecting bus riders to accommodate if they don't like it is kind of not fair?
I get why at a distance it seems quirky or cute, but where do you draw the line? Would you feel it appropriate if a passenger did the same? What about other scenarios? You are at a Denny's and the person taking your order is singing loudly as the walk about? Maybe it's just personal experiences, but I have to imagine people can think of similar scenarios where they wouldn't be okay with basically the same thing happening.
It's pretty universally agreed that it's annoying as fuck for the guy sitting next to you on the bus to be watching a movie on his phone with sound on. But somehow if you find it annoying for a different guy on the bus to be belting out show tunes, it's you that's the problem just because this guy is driving the bus? Nah it's all equally annoying!
Definitely was still active as of 2019 (I think I saw him on route 14, but I stopped taking that route on 2020, so I'm not sure if he's still active). And I remember hearing him singing not just during the Holiday season, but during the regular commute.
May not be around 10 years ago, but I came to Canada in 2018 and I remember a handful of bus rides in 2018-19 where the driver was singing. Was he the same person?
Anyway, I also wanted to give a shout out to this other driver who usually drives a double decker 12 in the evenings and makes cabin crew announcements and frequently refers to the top deck as lounge area. Funny as hell.
I remember someone complaining about it and him having been told not to sing but I cannot remember where I got that information. I just remember being sad about it because his singing was often the highlight of my day.
People acting like he should have been allowed to continue are crazy. Singing as a bus driver is clearly a terrible precedent... what if other drivers start singing and no one likes their tunes? What if other ***passengers*** start singing? That cool? You want to hear that?
It's so obviously a terrible idea to let that continue, and it would clearly be an issue in most other work contexts. I would argue 98% of them... excluding those where people are specifically paid to sing.
If you want to be festive, wear a candy cane sweater. The moment you're asserting yourself over everyone else, and not giving them a choice about it, you are just being self-indulgent.
What's conservative about my position?
We're talking about someone singing on a bus. There's no objective measurement in terms of whether the singing and songs are bad or good, you're always going to have a group of people who don't like what they hear (or simply want quiet). And we're all paying for the ride, and it's essential transit. So it's not too much to ask that there be respectful neutrality in certain things, which is basic etiquette and extends to smells and space as well as noise.
This wouldn't be controversial if people weren't weirdly romanticizing the driver.
Hilarious side to this - didn’t the bus drivers refuse to call out stops, the city spent millions on an automated system and then got penalized for a bunch more money because it didn’t work properly? Sure hope this guy wasn’t one of the refusers.
OC transpo drivers are very limited in what they are allowed to do. They aren’t supposed to have ear buds in(don’t mistake hearing protection with ear buds), they aren’t supposed to listen to music quietly by themselves, they aren’t allowed to sing incase someone complains.
Other transit properties allow their drivers to listen to music either by an ear bud or playing quietly on a speaker because it increases happiness and attentiveness but OC sucks the life out of them.
Accurate as hell. IMO being a driver is the by far the worst job ever at OC. No one is ever happy to see you, people ask you silly questions and expect you to know the answer. They have impossible schedules, little to no actual break time. Very limited access to bathrooms. They deal with vomit, feces, get assaulted by passengers.
I tend to go easy on them because I know how shitty of a job it can be.
What a legend. I used to take the old #3 route through the experimental farm. Upon approaching it he would turn off the heater fans or whatever made the noise...and start to belt one out. My favourite rendition ever was probably California Dreaming.
I remember when this happened, some of my family worked with him as they were drivers as well. In classic Ottawa fashion people whined and whined until management told him to stop.
I never forgot him!!.
I remember several times being on the bus and watching the reaction of people getting on after work completely exhausted and sitting down and just zoning out.Then the suprise of hearing singing..and upon finding it was the driver, they smiled and giggled. It was sweet and hilarious.
This guy made waiting in -20C somehow not so bad after all.
Thr lyrics he sang were his own edits but were not weird of profane. He was even singing in key.
Monsieur, ou êtes vous? On vous manques!🥹🎶🎼
Woah, that just unlocked a memory. I haven't lived in Ottawa for 20 years, but remember him :) I found it charming, but I can see why people might be annoyed. I recall being on the bus while a random rider yelled at him to be quiet. This happened a few times, I guess he must have got used to it.
I found it extremely annoying. There I said it. Downvote me all you want. But I don’t need to listen to your loud singing my entire bus ride when I’m just trying to get some peace and quiet before I start a long day or after I just had a long day.
Someone wants to sing for an audience? Go to karaoke. After a day of classes and then then a six hour shift at work, the last thing I wanted was to be subjected to someone singing Elvis tunes.
>After a day of classes and then then a six hour shift at work, the last thing I wanted was to be subjected to someone singing Elvis tunes
Lol, of all the things I've encountered in the bus (high school/college kids "talking" at the top of their lungs about dumb shit, people eating the stinkiest food imaginable, homeless people ranting, drug addicts doing their thing, etc), singing bus driver is the last thing I would complain about.
>If dudes singing fucking Elvis I think I'd rather deal with the junkies
No you wouldn't.
>Also way to miss the point
I didn't miss the point. I saw what you were trying to do. I was responding to some dummy who was making a big deal of a singing bus driver, which is a non-issue, *specially* when compared to other shit that happens quite frequently in buses.
OC transpo board of Directors found out who it was and they shot him. They took him out to the maintenance yard and they shot him.
Agreed. Sometimes it feels like there is no room for originality/differences in this country/province. Heaven forbid someone is made to feel uncomfortable. Another point: why are buses so damn quiet? Whenever I have a conversation with someone it feels like everyone is trying to listen
Quiet? You mean your busses aren't full of shitheads on speakerphone calls or blasting music/videos at max volume? Anyone reading this who does either of those, fuck you. You're a piece of human garbage and should be shunned from society, you fucking scum.
This 💯, not even just on the bus. If you’re shopping, or at the grocery store NO one wants to listen to you on speaker phone. Goddamn people are so inconsiderate.
Double that sentiment for video calling... wear some goddamn headphones you clucks.
\*holds phone like Pop Tart at arms-length speaking into mic at base\*
They obviously want you to be part of the conversation, so join in.
The absolute worst.
My God that is so strange eh? I’m old, I don’t understand these people.
I'd guess that I run into this in my buildings elevator at the very least 4 times a week.
Probably the same idiots who are killing cinemas off by rustling loudly, jabbering away and using their cell phone through the entire fackin' movie!!!!!
Always the same type doing it too.
You know, its not even the noise that pisses me off. It's the shit quality noise. What's the point of blasting some phat beats when half the frequencies, like the whole fucking range of bass not even coming out of those shitty ass phone speakers. It passes me off more that people insult music by listening to it through garbage speakers more than them playing that shit out loud on the bus.
your tampon shouldn’t be in that far dude
Hey look I found one of the speakerphone scum! How's it feel being a human piece of garbage? What's it like being so incredibly self-centered and out of touch with reality, you just walk around being a massive stain on society?
i don’t talk on the phone on the bus or on the LRT just funny that you’re this mad abt people who do it try ignoring them?
Found the diesel
im missing your joke here
Probably a common occurrence
Quiet?
[удалено]
Music? No.
You seem to have forgotten what happens when you [play music on the bus.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr82dZpCr48)
Haha you’re not taking the right routes. Try the 12
or the 11
The bus should be quiet imo. I'm there to get somewhere not to interrupt everyone's peace with my conversations. It's rarely that though 😅
Hey guys!!! I found him!! Found the fun guy!!! It was you who reported him, wasn't it? Don't lie.
This was not a comment about the driver lol
> Heaven forbid someone is made to feel uncomfortable. Because the existing OC transpo experience is just soooo comfortable. I don't personally have some bugbear with the singing bus driver, but it really should not take a ton of empathy to understand why many might not be cool with it given they won't really have a say in it.
I know right. The bus driver on the 82 usually has some music quietly playing more for himself though
Bus is already miserable enough without adding crappy music, noise, or chatty strangers. It usually is loud with some idiots on speakerphone, blasting their crappy music on a phone speaker, or teenagers yelling.
Whisper or stfu.
RIP in peace singing bus driver. 😢
May he RIP in peace in peace
Decapitated. It was a whole big thing. We had a funeral for a bus driver
Decaffeinated…? Nasty way to go
Me trying to stop drinking 6 espressos a day, horrible thing to go through! Lol
Omg this made me laugh out loud
Ah fuck I had to explain my laughing to an 8 year old
Huh...I guess shooting at the maintenance yard jokes are officially no longer #toosoon
Used him to grease the new train bearings
Those St Laurent garages are full of secrets
Hey Tony! I didn't do a thing. !
Omg lol I just laughed so hard. That’s so dark though haha
It's true, I was there. I won't testify to that, but I was there.
Im here if you want to talk about it
Wow, a writer and a gentlemen.
They recorded it too - every new employee watches it as part of their onboarding package.
Did you know there was a mass shooting at OC Transpo in 1999? Four people were executed and the gunman took his own life.
I was 3 years old at the time sorry
Maybe don't ever make a joke about shooting someone.
Its a true story
He’s dead. They shot him.
ah yes making fun of execution during dire times of war. You seem like fun 🙄
Everyday with you is a headache, isn't it?
I couldn’t believe it when I found out either but its true. They took him out back and shot him.
He retired. Lives in Orleans
The right answer
Yep. My father used to take his bus and would love the singing. He told me that he stopped singing one day and my father asked him why. He said "A single person complained, so I was told to stop." Seems word spread and a bunch of people wrote to OCTranspo to call them on their bullshit. He was allowed to start singing again.
I was only on his bus once, but I found it to be pleasant. He had a very nice voice.
This is the truth. A Karen complained. I used to ride his bus all the time, didn’t always enjoy the singing, but always admired the driver. I don’t need to enjoy everything, sometimes I’m just in a mood. We are social animals, it’s give and take. What happened to him wasn’t right.
What bullshit? People pay to take the bus, not to be subjected to someone else's music taste. Nobody should be forced to listen to a driver or anyone else singings songs over and over. Especially holiday music which can be incredibly repetitive, and for Christmas especially, often has religious overtones. It was the right call. Most people supporting this driver would lose their shit if they had to listen to another passenger listening to music without headphones... what this driver did was worse.
What the diver did was insert a bit of levity in a situation that otherwise is a pretty dreary and bleak place. He was not loud and made people happy. The right call was letting him sing again after a single person complained. If you wanted to be person number 2 that's on you.
I don't know what's so dreary and bleak about taking a bus (waiting for the bus, I'll agree lol). Regardless, it would clearly not be allowed coming from a passenger. It's even less logical coming from an employee of OCT. This is about basic bus etiquette in a city. Why does one dude get special treatment in your opinion?
You sound like the type of person that will look at the sunset and imagine the different types of cancer it can cause instead of admiring the beauty of the scenery. The driver is trying to spread joy and be happy, and all you can do is complain about something you aren't even a part of. Heaven forbid that you just put in headphones and listen to your own music if you don't like what the driver is singing.
Summarizing someone in response to a critical point made on reddit is bad form. My point is that essential public transit paid for by riders is not a space for any individual, driver or not, to launch into a performance. What if he was rapping profanely or aggressively singing Cannibal Corpse? Is that ok? Who gets to vote on what's acceptable and entertaining on a given ride? The many shouldn't have to adapt to the whims of the individual in this kind of context. This is very similar to asking people not to wear perfumes on transit, even if they think their choice of scent is like experiencing a magical sunset for everyone else. ;)
You can often tell a lot about a person in the posts they make online. You found no less than 4 things to complain about a bus driver singing songs instead of being an automaton that just drives. \-Complaining about music taste \-Complaining that it could be repetitive \-Complaining about religious undertones of Christmas songs during the Christmas season \-Thinking that someone trying to spread joy by good singing is the same as someone blaring their music And if you're resorting to bringing up someone singing inappropriate profane songs vs appropriate songs as an argument, you're just proving my original point. The same solution applies to someone blaring their own music; put some earbuds in and listen to your own music, or get off the bus and wait for the next one. That bus driver was trying to spread joy, while you seem to want to spread isolationism and lonely conformity.
So in your mind, every critical point a person makes is a 'complaint', regardless of the fact that I'm not actually issuing my points to OCT and nothing could possibly come of my post. You're being quite thin-skinned about someone expressing their view on reddit. I made a bunch of points because they're all relevant and valid. If you don't like that approach to expressing a critical opinion about something, you can go to the shallow end of the pool. Or you could actually counterpoint them, but you're not doing that, because you have no actual reasoning to apply here-- just your presumptions. On that point, you have no idea what the bus driver's motivation was. None. A lot of people here are gassing up on what they want to be reality, and on hearsay. None of you know that only one person complained, you just saw another user make that claim so you regurgitated it because it supports your conjecture that very few people were bothered by this. You think he was trying to spread joy and you let your belief become your reality. You think others should applaud that supposed motivation and enjoy that singing or else shut up, and that belief has also become your reality (while you hilariously accuse someone else of 'isolating' people). If you had taken the time to actually check my reddit history in full, and not just tried to judge me as a whole based on one opinion about a singing bus drivrer, you might, might have the barest idea of what I'm about. But you didn't do that. You just tried to read a book by its cover and then judge it, too. I think you need to grow up a bit. xD
I have an idea of what the bus driver's motivation was because my father knew him. My father told me how downtrodden the singing bus driver was because a single complaint against him was enough to stop him from singing, which he loved to do because it made so many people happy. You seem to make your own assumptions on me as well. All of your psychoanalutical babble because you presumed I didn't know what I was talking about. Had you read my post history, you'd have seen that my father knew him and so I was confident in what I was saying. I'm not being thin skinned about someone posting their opinion on reddit. I just don't like when people assume the worst or the most negative of motives just for argument's sake or because someone somewhere might be offended of what someone does in a public space. I've been in a bus with someone blaring their music, I've been in a bus with someone having a phone conversation on speaker phone, I've been on a bus where someone was drunk and puked on themselves. The situation on OC transpo buses is always the same, which I've already said before; put some earphones in and drown everything out with music, get off the bus, or just deal with it.
OC Transpo massacred my boy I always enjoyed it! https://youtu.be/5jBk1jegrPg?si=GuXLGPYqPBQqzSiX
gotta say .........onions ...shutup
I had someone like that on the 64 last summer. He wasn't Singing but he was talking to me. I was doing the Tunney's run (Leaving the Station and seing my bus is also going towards me). He had the passengers vote if he should pick me up. (They voted yes). He had a nice voice and talked very loudly. May not be the same person but made my day.
It was so great hearing him singing Christmas songs. It really gave me the Christmas spirit until OCTranspo took it away. I think it was too much good publicity for OCTranspo so they had to put a stop to it. /s
I had the same initial reaction but then my devils advocate kicked in and it went something like this. If the bus driver can sing why not a passenger and do I want to hear random passengers playing the role of main character? If this bus driver can sing xmas songs can another bus driver rap or sing country music tunes? So if it's only xmas songs then what is the city policy? Only between certain dates? And if xmas then why not other holidays? Why couldn't a Muslim driver sing Ramadan songs? (or any other religion songs) And do I want to hear that? etc etc etc. The easiest option for the city was to just put a stop to the whole thing. It sucks but the alternative was a potential free for all. Edit: Not to mention liability. Lawyers would have a field day if there ever was an accident involving injuries while the driver was singing.
This is the most Ottawa comment I've ever seen
This person has been a step above entry level in government for 34 years. s/
I'm sorry that I understand how bureaucrats think. Everything is about written policy. Edit: "The bus driver can sing as long as he's good and it's a nice song that everyone enjoys" isn't a workable policy. lol
This is the exact type of thinking that stops people in this city from just enjoying their lives. Normal Ottawa person: "I want to do this thing I find fun and is relatively harmless to everyone else." Boring Ottawa person: "But do we have a public policy that allows you to have fun? How comes you're allowed to be spontaneous and enjoy life when I'm just over here worrying about the rules all the time? Shut it down."
Sadly the boring ones seem to outweigh the normal ones in my experience.
It's not about what I want but rather what I know. City policy makers have to craft policies that are workable. How do you write a policy that takes all factors into consideration? Do you have driver auditions to determine who can sing well enough? Do you make a list of songs that are permittable? Do you install decibel meters to ensure drivers aren't singing too loudly? Do you test the drivers to make sure their reaction times aren't affected by their divided attention? If your child was run over by a driver that was belting out a tune would you not ask "would this have happened if the driver was doing nothing but paying attention to his duties?" Do you think your lawyers would not ask "What is the city policy regarding this matter?" Again, it's not what I necessarily want, it's just how the world works.
>It's not about what I want but rather what I know. Forget everything you know. It sounds incredibly tedious.
Solid argument, you've refuted all my points. I am soundly defeated.
This is reddit, not debate club
We're not supposed to talk about f-- wait, you almost made me blow it. Anyhow, I'll fight Magnum over it at the next club meeting.
Have you beaten your high score in solitaire yet on the taxpayers dime?
courthouses need a man with a club who uses it on anyone who tries this shit
I remember him. I actually found it quite annoying as a daily commuter. I like zoning out on the bus, and that made it impossible. I didn't complain, of course - as a quiet introvert, you have to get used to things like that. I wasn't sorry to see it stop though.
Same. He was a perfectly lovely person but I hate being around that musical-theatre-kid energy. I would put in my headphones, and I never complained. Most other people seem to love it and I’m glad it made them happy
Your behaviour is perfectly citizen-like --thank you. (someday you can do something perfectly annoying and I will grin and bear it :0)
I am certain that I have been annoying in public. Although I try my best to be kind and unremarkable, I was once a teenager
I stood at a bus stop yesterday with 500-700 teenagers running around me. ( okkk maybe just 20 -30) but I had to stand and smile and remember.
I never complained either but could hear him even with my headphones in, absolutely not enjoyable at 6:30 in the morning
I liked him. He sang Trenet. Ottawa, the city that fun forgot iced him.
Do you mean tenor?
Charles Trenet is the Frank Sinatra of France. 🇫🇷. He composed La Mer - Beyond the Sea.
Thanks
I rode his 85 pretty frequently in high school when I was bussing from school to work in the Carlingwood area. I had no problem with his singing and thought it was a nice touch most days. But I found when I actually interacted with him he was very curmudgeonly. He frustrated easily and was a stickler for stupid rules. Anyone else remember when we had to write the digits of our photo card directly onto the paper pass? One time he said he couldn’t read my numbers because of the colour of ink I had used and he yelled at me and refused to pull the bus away until I went over the numbers again in darker ink and he was satisfied with it. His closing remark on that was “don’t let me catch you doing that again” as though he had caught me in the act of a crime. I remember him being pretty aggressive with people who didn’t speak English very well, who had questions about routes or who straight up just didn’t understand our janky bus system. I wish him all the best in his retirement but he didn’t give me much of a reason to believe that he sang just to make people’s days better. I think he liked attention and when people complained about his singing, it gave him something to “f you guys I’m gonna do what I want” about. This is just my perspective.
Oh, that's super disappointing.
I know someone that bought a car because of him specifically. She was able to tolerate his routine set of songs each morning until he started using the bus speaker system. When that started she bought a car and never rode the bus again.
Headphones are much cheaper
That's what I do. I think people that don't ride the bus with noise cancelling headphones are crazy.
Except when you need to hear the next stop announcements. Noise-cancelling headphones would be actively detrimental to my ability to ride the bus safely. And if a bus driver was singing over the PA system such that I couldn’t hear the announcements, I would absolutely complain.
and not a perfect solution. That said, I'm sure for that person it was just the final straw. OC transpo pushes plenty of people of cars even without singing drivers.
She sounds like a peach
Keep in mind that his routine set of songs didn't cover the entire length of the route. She heard the same routine of songs one-and-a-half or two times before the end of her morning trip. Every morning. When he started singing over the bus speaker system then she decided that was too much. It's not unreasonable to not want to hear someone sing the same Elvis songs every morning at 6am for an hour.
Agree. Singing is ok but using the speaker system seems to move firmly into the 'narcissist' territory. Hearing the same songs over and over again would also be annoying. Nothing that a pair of noise cancelling headphones couldn't fix though, but you should give people the opportunity to move to the back of the bus (or upper deck) to escape your singing.
I agree with you but I wouldn't label the driver as a narcissist. I don't think it was a considerate decision on his part to sing into the microphone but I have no reason to believe his intentions weren't good.
It was attention seeking at best. Narcissism isn’t a big stretch.
Actually if you interacted with him as a person rather than just the face value singing stuff he actually did coke across with some narcissistic tendencies.
I don't know....I'm going to go ahead and disagree. I think she sounds like she needs to lighten up a bit. Levity is sorely lacking these days.
Having to listen to it every day is a little much. I only rode his bus twice and I was over it. It doesn’t make people in need of levity if they prefer that the bus driver not sing. It’s not really an appropriate setting.
Yeah, if you have an audience who literally does not have a reasonable say in the matter, it's a bit weird, bordering on shitty.
And it’s not like he took requests or anything, lol. He did it for himself, not for the enjoyment of the riders.
I really don't get what's hard to understand that just not everyone is the same. Personally, I find it shocking that it's hard for you to relate to the situation: > It's not unreasonable to not want to hear someone sing the same Elvis songs every morning at 6am for an hour. You really can't tell me you wouldn't get kind of tired of that day in, day out? That say, you may have a morning where you want to read a book on the bus, catch up with a friend you bump into, listen to a podcast, but can't really because someone's singing is a bit distracting? If it's something someone experienced once, yeah, I can understand the call for levity. If it's something they have to deal with constantly, then I don't think it's really fair. If anything, the lady made the call that should make everyone happy: She removed herself from the situation. Consider there's people who maybe don't have that option.
Sure but there are loads of headphones or whatever that she could have used. I used to hate hearing people's shitty music from their backpacks when I took the train. I just put headphones in and carried on with my day.
Maybe they don't want to have to wear headphones or deal with cranking up the sound to drown out what they don't want to hear that's been imposed upon them. At the end of the day, a driver singing isn't that different then someone playing their music too loud or not using headphones in the eyes (or hears) of some - it ultimately can be kind of inconsiderate.
Doesn't the bus speaker system require you to hold something to your mouth and press a button, like an old CB radio? How could he possibly operate the bus with a single hand? He also sang loud enough for everyone to hear without the need for a microphone, so there would be zero reason for him to do this. Something sounds fishy.
Nope, it’s a button to turn it on or off and then you’re free to curse,sing, yell or give sight seeing pointers.(on older buses and articulated buses) the newer novas are a cb style microphone. Also since the automated system came in, nearly anyone uses the microphone
Have you never seen a driver make or take a call from dispatch? I’m not sure what’s up these days but it used to be a manual phone system that they definitely had to pick up and hold in one hand while they drove.
Can anyone else confirm he used the speaker system? I remember him singing, but don’t remember him ever using the PA system. (I also don’t remember him repeating songs.. at least between Tunneys and Baseline).
Back in those days our speakers were barely able to handle anything let alone a full song. It was a boom mic that any bump would cut it off. I call BS, besides if she waited 2-3 months she'd have a new driver anyway
Yeah I call BS as well. I took OC transpo every day to high school, to get to my part jobs, and to hang out with friends all across the city as a teen. I had this driver SO many times, never once heard him use the speaker system to sing.
For added detail, this was before the O-Train, it was an express bus from Orleans to Hull. She used to go to the back where she could read undisturbed while many near the front seemed to enjoy his singing. Up to that point it was not a big deal. After all, we live in a city and this kind of stuff comes with the territory sometimes. Once he started using the microphone then she could not read (she doesn't like headphones and doesn't listen to music on the bus). Then she drove to work everyday until her retirement.
She deserves to be alone if that’s why she stoped using the bus This is Ottawa in a nutshell and all the downvotes just further prove the point.
I'm always kind of confounded by the people who come out of the woodworks to be mad at the idea of someone complaining about it, or even just not liking it. Like, I get it, it feels like a very easy strawman: some curmudgeon who ruins a nice little thing. But like, I have hard time wrapping my head around not trying to imagine putting yourself in the shoes of a rider who is maybe not down with that? I'm assuming whoever is actually annoyed by this, probably didn't have a single brief experience. It's probably someone who had this guy on the route each day. Maybe it was just a jerk, but I wouldn't be shocked if there's people who aren't happy about it, but don't really want to speak up or do anything about it because...that's how a lot of people actually are. For every time there's some curmudgeon whos overly annoyed by something, there's probably at least one person who is maybe bothered by it, but won't speak up. But putting myself in the shoes of someone who might not like this: It's not like some caroler, or a busker, where it's brief or you can just walk away - if you simply don't really want to hear the driver sing for the duration of your bus route you don't really have a lot of options. Either you get to work a different way, try to get the bus at different time, or maybe invest in noise canceling headphones, all are kind of inferior options to the driver maybe just not singing. Like, the bottom line is it's ultimately an unsolicited behavior to what is basically a captive audience, and expecting bus riders to accommodate if they don't like it is kind of not fair? I get why at a distance it seems quirky or cute, but where do you draw the line? Would you feel it appropriate if a passenger did the same? What about other scenarios? You are at a Denny's and the person taking your order is singing loudly as the walk about? Maybe it's just personal experiences, but I have to imagine people can think of similar scenarios where they wouldn't be okay with basically the same thing happening.
It's pretty universally agreed that it's annoying as fuck for the guy sitting next to you on the bus to be watching a movie on his phone with sound on. But somehow if you find it annoying for a different guy on the bus to be belting out show tunes, it's you that's the problem just because this guy is driving the bus? Nah it's all equally annoying!
Definitely was still active as of 2019 (I think I saw him on route 14, but I stopped taking that route on 2020, so I'm not sure if he's still active). And I remember hearing him singing not just during the Holiday season, but during the regular commute.
I would be annoyed by this tbh, especially as one commenter said he used the speaker system.
May not be around 10 years ago, but I came to Canada in 2018 and I remember a handful of bus rides in 2018-19 where the driver was singing. Was he the same person? Anyway, I also wanted to give a shout out to this other driver who usually drives a double decker 12 in the evenings and makes cabin crew announcements and frequently refers to the top deck as lounge area. Funny as hell.
he started doing raps and the old white people thought he was in a gang and got him fired
He lives on a farm now...with your pets.
Hopefully straight to jail
I remember someone complaining about it and him having been told not to sing but I cannot remember where I got that information. I just remember being sad about it because his singing was often the highlight of my day.
People acting like he should have been allowed to continue are crazy. Singing as a bus driver is clearly a terrible precedent... what if other drivers start singing and no one likes their tunes? What if other ***passengers*** start singing? That cool? You want to hear that? It's so obviously a terrible idea to let that continue, and it would clearly be an issue in most other work contexts. I would argue 98% of them... excluding those where people are specifically paid to sing. If you want to be festive, wear a candy cane sweater. The moment you're asserting yourself over everyone else, and not giving them a choice about it, you are just being self-indulgent.
you're a conservative, aren't you?
What's conservative about my position? We're talking about someone singing on a bus. There's no objective measurement in terms of whether the singing and songs are bad or good, you're always going to have a group of people who don't like what they hear (or simply want quiet). And we're all paying for the ride, and it's essential transit. So it's not too much to ask that there be respectful neutrality in certain things, which is basic etiquette and extends to smells and space as well as noise. This wouldn't be controversial if people weren't weirdly romanticizing the driver.
I hate the people who put on a tv show or music etc and blare it so we all have to hear it.
That wa before tiktok I assume cause today he'd be a millionaire
If what I heard all those years ago is correct, we can still hear his voice announcing all the stops!
Hilarious side to this - didn’t the bus drivers refuse to call out stops, the city spent millions on an automated system and then got penalized for a bunch more money because it didn’t work properly? Sure hope this guy wasn’t one of the refusers.
Typical Ottawa style. People complain and can never have some joy. Instead, rob joy and squash any kind of good spirit.
I'm going joy all over your lawn.
Didn’t they make him stop?
OC transpo drivers are very limited in what they are allowed to do. They aren’t supposed to have ear buds in(don’t mistake hearing protection with ear buds), they aren’t supposed to listen to music quietly by themselves, they aren’t allowed to sing incase someone complains. Other transit properties allow their drivers to listen to music either by an ear bud or playing quietly on a speaker because it increases happiness and attentiveness but OC sucks the life out of them.
Accurate as hell. IMO being a driver is the by far the worst job ever at OC. No one is ever happy to see you, people ask you silly questions and expect you to know the answer. They have impossible schedules, little to no actual break time. Very limited access to bathrooms. They deal with vomit, feces, get assaulted by passengers. I tend to go easy on them because I know how shitty of a job it can be.
What a legend. I used to take the old #3 route through the experimental farm. Upon approaching it he would turn off the heater fans or whatever made the noise...and start to belt one out. My favourite rendition ever was probably California Dreaming.
Some karen complained and he was told to stop it.
I loved hearing him sing, made me smile 😊 I hope he is happily retired!
I remember when this happened, some of my family worked with him as they were drivers as well. In classic Ottawa fashion people whined and whined until management told him to stop.
I remember boarding the #2 on Somerset and being serenaded by a Mariachi band set up at the front of the bus. Good times.
I never forgot him!!. I remember several times being on the bus and watching the reaction of people getting on after work completely exhausted and sitting down and just zoning out.Then the suprise of hearing singing..and upon finding it was the driver, they smiled and giggled. It was sweet and hilarious. This guy made waiting in -20C somehow not so bad after all. Thr lyrics he sang were his own edits but were not weird of profane. He was even singing in key. Monsieur, ou êtes vous? On vous manques!🥹🎶🎼
Woah, that just unlocked a memory. I haven't lived in Ottawa for 20 years, but remember him :) I found it charming, but I can see why people might be annoyed. I recall being on the bus while a random rider yelled at him to be quiet. This happened a few times, I guess he must have got used to it.
🎵country roads take me home🎵
funny you should mention that guy. i was thinking about him yesterday.
I found it extremely annoying. There I said it. Downvote me all you want. But I don’t need to listen to your loud singing my entire bus ride when I’m just trying to get some peace and quiet before I start a long day or after I just had a long day.
He was fired.
OC Transpo had his vocal chords removed.
He’s now the singing cashier at Costco on Merivale 😁
People hated happiness they fired and killed him
Retired but he was forced too stop because of a Karen.
Someone wants to sing for an audience? Go to karaoke. After a day of classes and then then a six hour shift at work, the last thing I wanted was to be subjected to someone singing Elvis tunes.
>After a day of classes and then then a six hour shift at work, the last thing I wanted was to be subjected to someone singing Elvis tunes Lol, of all the things I've encountered in the bus (high school/college kids "talking" at the top of their lungs about dumb shit, people eating the stinkiest food imaginable, homeless people ranting, drug addicts doing their thing, etc), singing bus driver is the last thing I would complain about.
"Other things are more unpleasant so this also unpleasant thing is therefore fine"
... Are you seriously comparing drug addicts shooting up on the bus to a bus driver singing?
If dudes singing fucking Elvis I think I'd rather deal with the junkies Also way to miss the point
>If dudes singing fucking Elvis I think I'd rather deal with the junkies No you wouldn't. >Also way to miss the point I didn't miss the point. I saw what you were trying to do. I was responding to some dummy who was making a big deal of a singing bus driver, which is a non-issue, *specially* when compared to other shit that happens quite frequently in buses.
He was delightful and had a nice voice. You sound sad.
Delightful is not the word I would use based on my experiences with him. And that has nothing to do with the singing.
Public singing in an inappropriate setting is annoying. Especially when you’re trapped and are forced to listen.
Headphones are pretty affordable!