I am sending you this online proposal because I have a splendid idea, and because my efforts to contact any Greyhound official through the website have seemingly been in vain I have chosen to now direct this proposal towards this email address. (I can only assume there must be something wrong with the online form seeing as how I made it infinitely clear that I expected a reply to my considerably serious issue and now, two months later, have heard nothing from any member of the Greyhound family. Obviously this is a technical flaw and not an issue with the company itself, right?)
Let me tell you a story about a young woman who has had the misfortune of being forced to use your services every week for the last two months due to some serious spinal issues requiring medical attention in Calgary which happens to be two and a half hours away from where she is currently living, equally a three and a half hour bus ride (I'll leave the curiosities of this math problem up to you). This girl expects to meet her mother at the Greyhound Calgary bus depot at 8:00 in the evening because hell, going to the hospital by yourself at any age is absolutely traumatic, and we all need support once in a while. So imagine this girls surprise when she's given a note and told that her mother's bus was mysterious cancelled (with absolutely no explanation, just so you know) and that she ought to go on to the hotel alone. "Okay," the girl thinks, "I can handle that. I'll see her in a couple hours." Well, a couple hours gives way to a couple drinks in the hotel bar, and finally at 12:00, that would be ten plus two or midnight for those of you that have issues with telling time (as the whole of Greyhound seems to have), the girl's mother shows up and announce that not only was the 5:30 bus out of Red Deer cancelled and she was not informed until 6:00 but the 8:00 bus sent to replace it was 2 hours late and AGAIN, no one was informed that this was happening.
I'm sure you can appreciate that not only was this girl at the point of mental breakdown because, again, once you have 5 spinal surgeries and you come to rely on the support of a parental figure, not knowing where they are or why they are late can be quite frightening.
So here's my grand proposal for Greyhound. Stop being so utterly ridiculous. I understand that as a company it possesses a monopoly. I have no choice but to take your God forsaken bus system from Lethbridge, but after so many rides I can't help but wonder if maybe I should be just saving my money and searching Kijiji for used spines. At the very least I would never have to sit in your sticky bus seats or talk to people who smell like questionable herbal products and like to tell me how nice my hair is and wouldn't I like to buy a hemp bag? And I wouldn't ever have to run the risk of sleeping for two nights on the cold floor of the Calgary bus depot where no blankets are provided nor pillows nor explanations and oh, no hot water, no offer to be put up in a hotel and hell, no general human compassion offered by your ridiculous company at all? If I added up the hours I have spent wasting my life back and forth between cities, stuck on your buses, in your depots, getting stickier and hempier and more miserable and closer to hanging myself in your disgusting public bathrooms, I would probably have a total emotional break down due to the complete waste of time.
Being the biggest lug around doesn't give your company any right to treat your customers like utter shit, which is exactly what you have done time and time again. You're nothing more than a pathetic bully with a high and mighty sense of self that, trust me, isn't warranted nor deserved. And the fact that your company blatantly ignores customer complaints is absolutely staggering. Do you have absolutely no idea how to run a company? How far up does this incompetence run? Really, how often have any of your so called 'officials' traveled on one of your coaches and ended their trip satisfied?
Greyhound is an appalling and shameful company and needs a serious revamp all over. Start listening to your customers, start acting like a company worthy of monopoly you have or for the love of god, just get out of the province. I'd rather have nothing to deal with at all than put up with more of this crap. Considering the power of the internet these days, and the many, many rants I have located regarding both Greyhound in general and Greyhound's inability to respond to customer complaints, I would think it would be in the company's best interest to do something about it. And yes, this letter will be Cc'd to absolutely everyone and anyone I can find possibly associated with your company and if I don't hear back from at least one of you, I'm going to reach a new and more impressive height of rage that will result in non-stop complaints until someone acknowledges that there are serious issues with your company that needs to be fixed and shows me proof that such changes are made.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Sawisky
Note: In January I spent two nights at a Greyhound bus depot. No food offered, no blankets, or pillows, no fun. Someone's going to pay.
