Imagine being a tour bus driver in a city you’re not familiar with.

Also imagine having a tour guide on the bus with you who is supposed to be knowledgeable about the city and is supposed to direct you so you get where you’re going.

That doesn’t sound too bad, but it gets bad when the tour guide isn’t good at her job and doesn’t give you directions.

That’s what happens in today’s story, and the tour guide has to learn her lesson the hard way.

Let’s see how it all plays out.

As You Wish

In a former life in the previous century, I was a tour bus driver.

It was a great job for a single person.

Took me all over the the US and into Canada several times.

The tour companies often hire “step-on guides” to show a busload of strangers around a city or a National Park or suchlike.

The step-on is usually a local resident, and knowledgeable about the area’s history and attractions.

Most are at least competent, and some are remarkably good at the job.

One step-on guide wasn’t very helpful.

One day in a northern city, I forget just where, we picked up a woman who didn’t have much experience with bus tours.

She had an odd personality and was a bit of a “cold fish” but whatever.

I didn’t have to like her; I just had to work with her for an hour and a half.

It soon became obvious she didn’t know what she was doing.

I had never been to that city before, had no idea what was on her agenda even if I had known my way around, and she provided very little information to me.

He really needed her to give him directions.

Obviously, doing an efficient job of directing the driver is a key part of that job, but she told me she would let me know where to turn.

As one might imagine, having a clue or two about where you are headed is very important for the safe operation of a bus.

You don’t just turn at a moment’s notice, especially if you are on a multi-lane road.

I had to interrupt her a few times to get directions, and she was getting testy about it.

He gives an example of what a great step-on guide will do.

I had been doing the job for a while by then, and I was quite good at it.

I got along great with most step-ons and we worked seamlessly together.

The really good ones will incorporate some of their directions to the driver into their narrative: “Okay, when we get to the top of the hill up ahead, Gadwall is going to turn left on 19th Street. As we round the corner, if you look to your left…”

Nice.

The step-on guide did not want to give him directions.

Anyway, this guide got really mad at me the next time I asked her something, like which lane I needed to be in.

She keyed the PA mike and said “I’m sorry for the interruption, but your driver keeps asking me for directions. I keep telling him I’ll let him know where he needs to take us” and on to more blather.

Okay, I thought, we’ll do it your way.

It backfired for the step-on guide.

Soon enough, the guide got into telling some story and we continued to motor on, obviously heading out of town on a major street that became a state highway or something.

After a while, she noticed where we were, and got really flustered.

She didn’t know a good way to get turned around, and I offered no suggestions, just kept driving while she sorted it out.

Everyone laughed about it later.

After that, she started doing her job, and we didn’t have any more trouble.

After we had dropped her off, the passengers and the regular tour guide told me how funny they thought the episode was, and we all had a good laugh.

Hopefully that step-on guide will learn from this experience and give better directions to bus drivers in the future.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person shares a fun fact about band tour buses.

Here’s another story about getting directions too late.

Sometimes it’s easier to let the person who knows their way around do the driving.

This person had a completely clueless tour guide.

Hopefully she learns from this experience.

It was quite the lesson.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.