Attitude

This morning as I was riding the bus to work there was a huge thunk that made everyone sit up and look nervously around. An SUV had smacked the rear corner of the bus as it cut over to change lanes.

The driver immediately said, "Ah, man, why do people do that? Why, why? Did you see that? She just tried to cut across three lanes of traffic to make her turn." Sticking her arm out the window to gesture, she said, ostensibly to the driver of the SUV, although the driver couldn't have heard her, "Yeah, you DO need to pull over!"

Moments later, with the bus and SUV pulled over to the side of the traffic circle, the two drivers conducted a short conversation through the opened bus door. The SUV driver was inclined to be hostile, but the bus driver was in the better position. She was seated, looking down from a much larger vehicle, in uniform, with the trappings of authority about her.

"Honey, you hit me, it's your insurance that's gonna pay," she said, unperturbed. "It's all on camera. It's on camera. It's on camera. You can stand there and argue all day. It's on camera what happened. Now you give me your license and registration, and I'll give you mine."

The SUV woman told the bus driver to get out and follow her to get the information. "Oh no, that's okay, YOU can bring it back to ME," the driver said. The SUV woman said something snippy that I didn't catch. "All right, and that's how you wanna be, I hope you have a great day," the driver said in a mock-sweet voice. The SUV woman - a sharp-dressed professional in a power suit - stalked off, but she complied and brought the insurance info back. I was deeply impressed.

Here's how it would've gone down if I was driving the bus.

thunk

Erin: "Oh no! A car hit me! Ahh!... Oh I hope she pulls over. Oh, phew, she's pulling over."

I would then probably open the bus doors and hurry over to the SUV to conduct the conversation looking in her window from the sidewalk.

SUV woman: "What the hell were you doing?"

Erin: "I was just driving around the circle. I didn't change lanes or anything."

SUV: "You're an idiot. This had better be reimbursed." (gesturing toward her scraped front bumper)

Erin: "I'm sorry. Do you want to exchange insurance?"

SUV: "Yeah, you bring me yours."

Erin: "OK! Can you wait here?" (scurry back to the bus)

It's ridiculous, because even as the real-life conversation was going down, I was thinking how differently (and how badly) I would have handled it. I have one technique for dealing with authority or anyone aggressive: get really submissive and eager to please. It often works because people realize there's no point bringing out the big guns for a softie like me. They lighten up and get what they want without yelling. I can't handle yelling - it just destroys me.

Actually any kind of confrontation can leave me shaken up and replaying the incident in my head for days. When I do run into the occasional person who realizes they can jerk me around and I'll just go more and more belly-up, it's a bad scene. I wonder if, pushed far enough, I would be able to find the words to fight back. It's not that I don't want to. It's just that I go into such extreme "flight" mode in stressful situations, I can't even think what I should have said until hours later.

"Yeah, you DO need to pull over!" She was awesome. I should take lessons from her.