2-4-6-8 Who Do We Appreciate? The Bus Driver....The Bus Driver

How many of us are familiar with the cheer in the title of this post, 2-4-6-8 Who do we appreciate? When I was a child, this often familiar cheer was cheered at the end of a school field trip with the celebrant being the bus driver. All of the children on the bus would fill the bus with chorus after chorus of "2-4-6-8 who do we appreciate, the bus driver, the bus driver." This was to show our appreciation for the driver taking us to and fro safely.

Albert Rutherford in his book THE SYSTEMS THINKER says "Critical thinking is a metacognition otherwise known as thinking about thinking." Mr. Rutherford further states that critical thinkers don't worry about whether the issue is right or wrong and that critical thinking is more of an opinion-based type of thinking. Mr.Rutherford's definition is exactly why I created this blog, THE CRITICAL THINKER. When I post, I am not concerned about whether the issue I am writing about is right or wrong and the post is my opinion written to challenge you to think. You do not have to agree or disagree, I do challenge you however, to think about the issue in each post. 

With all of that said, many of you who follow THE CRITICAL THINKER probably have figured out that I am a champion of the underdog or for those who are perceived as having "menial" jobs. You also know that in my opinion, there is no such thing as a "menial" job. To me, all jobs are critical, hence my posting about custodians, secretaries, sanitation workers, maids, hospital housekeepers, etc. etc. I know you will find this hard to believe, but there are people out there who look their nose down upon people who perform jobs such as those I listed. In my podcast THE MARC MEDLEY SHOW, I released an episode titled TREAT THE SANITATION WORKER THE SAME AS YOU WOULD TREAT THE CEO. In this episode, I unpacked the popular meme that says "I was raised to treat the janitor with the same respect as the CEO."  Which brings me back to the bus driver.  

Over the weekend I took a road trip by bus. I normally love driving, however, the trip was on short notice and I really did not feel like driving with such a short turn-around. I went down on Friday night and returned on Saturday night. It was a four-hour trip one way. I had not been on a Greyhound bus in literally forty years. I've been on buses during that time, but not an infamous Greyhound bus. My mother often tells the story of my being afraid of the greyhound dog painted on the side of the bus as an infant riding in the car. She says when we would be traveling on Route 95 heading south and I caught sight of the greyhound dog on the side of the bus, that I would just cry in fear. Ironically, when people would ask me when I was a child what I wanted to be when I grew up? I would answer "a bus driver."

When I ride a bus, I always sit in the front seat if the seat is available and that did not change for this trip as I was seated directly behind the driver both going and coming. What came to my mind and prompted this post was the fact that every passenger on that bus was traveling for a different reason. I no longer saw the driver as a bus driver but someone who was taking people/individuals to their stories. Some were going to bury loved ones. Some were visiting children or parents. Some were heading to college. Some were relocating. Some were just going to the "city" to hang out. It dawned on me that the driver was delivering an entire busload of people to their individual story. None of us on the bus knew each other's story. For the fifty plus individuals on that bus, that driver's job was extremely important and not menial at all.

We must not assume that because a job does not require a college degree that it is not worthy of respect. For the passengers on that bus, the driver was the CEO. Our lives and ability to arrive at our stories was in his hands. We cannot afford to take anyone or the job that he/she performs for granted as every job is important, regardless of whether it requires a college degree or not.

I had an enjoyable experience on the bus largely in part because of the professional skills and knowledge of the driver(s). As I shared in my podcast, if you are one who takes people for granted based on the job that he/she performs, in the long run, you will live to regret it. All people and the tasks they perform are important. Every job; bar none. Something to critically think about.

You can hear me live each Saturday from 6-9 a.m. ET on gobrave.org, FM radio WP88.7 FM, and on the TuneIn Radio App as I host The Reading Circle with Marc Medley. You can also follow my podcast THE MARC MEDLEY SHOW on all of the major podcast platforms.