Silicon Valley work shuttle: A Vignette

It is 6:50 am and I’m waiting on Divisidero and Pine (the first and last stops of the 49C depending on which direction you are coming from). I have my RideFriend app open. It has a one star review on the app store which I’m hoping is not a reflection of the bus’s brake system. But you don’t know what the hell a 1 star means anymore. Stars are given to everything from national parks to professors.

As I wait, I notice a string of black hoodies whose wearers are all looking intently at their phones, standing at a respectable distance away from each other so as to not cross the colleague-friend boundary.

A gleaming monster of a bus appears and it discreetly says “MTV”. My company is in Mountain View too and I make the mistake of asking the driver if the bus goes there. He looks at me, bored, and says 'Google’. The Googlers hurry past me into the bus, badging in with their holographic IDs.

I back off. I should have known that my company’s bus would never have actual work tables or two decks for that matter.

Another monstrosity comes by but this time, it is clearly marked- Genesis.

My RideFriend app is stuck such that my bus appears to be rotating in it’s place, at an intersection two blocks away.

I kill the app and reload it. All of a sudden the bus has moved and flown to exactly where I was (my position marked by a blue dot). What the..

Oh wait. I look up and see another bus. Subdued, calm and unhurried, like the company itself. It has been around for over 60 years I believe. They have nowhere to hurry to.

I walk in and show the driver my clipper card.

The card reader doesn’t work but the driver is nice enough to let me in. I choose a seat and prepare to shut off life for a good two hours.