Why not to complain when you are annoyed

I wanted to share my story today. It was a lesson for me, to shape up my personality. A lesson from a cleaner of a private bus service.

I was like anyone, who is just returning from a successful event in which he was part of, flying on the skies. Just about 8:30 pm on 12th Sep, a passenger who boarded the bus in which I was traveling asked the driver to stop the bus, complaining that the a/c was not effective. I knew that the a/c on a bus worked almost similar to a car and would be cooling at peak only when the bus runs beyond a particular speed. Before I could explain this to the passenger, he was annoyed and refused to travel anymore and got down.

I then had a good sleep. By 4 am, there were a couple of people near my berth talking to each other. I knew something was wrong. The a/c on the bus had issues and there were sparks and smoke filling the cabin. They switched off the a/c and continued the drive as not many were awake. I couldn’t sleep because of the smell of the smoke so I moved to the driver’s cabin and asked if I can stay there for a few minutes. They did not hesitate so I stayed there, for more than few minutes.

One of the driver asked me to get back to my berth and I felt that it was not polite on his side to ask me to move. Although I was annoyed, I did not complain and I kept moving to my berth. For a few minutes I couldn’t sleep but then I thought I should not be annoyed and got back to sleep.

After an hour, at around 6 am the cleaner of the bus came to my berth looking for me. He said that he had a wallet which he thought was mine. It looked like the wallet slipped off my pocket and went beneath a seat. Before I went to pick it up, one of the drivers of the bus came and gave me the wallet. I was surprised, and learned two lessons for the day.

I was annoyed when the a/c went off and also when I was not allowed much time on the driver’s cabin. By not complaining about being annoyed, I saved my wallet! If I had lost it, I would not only have lost the money, but also my ID cards, driving license, etc.

I thought for some time.. what if I had reacted when I was annoyed. I would have lost an opportunity to help someone be honest. While I appreciate the integrity of the cleaner of the bus to return my wallet, I still believe that if I had reacted an hour ago when I was annoyed, that would have taken his integrity to a test.