As you probably know, whenever the
President of the United States of America
is aboard a US Air Force plane, the official
call sign for that plane is Air Force One.
Well, whenever John Murdoch is behind the
wheel of a Brisbane City Council bus, it becomes
the Happy Bus!
There’s no special signage. No rainbow colourscheme.
Just a regular-looking driver and a busfull
of smiles!
On this particular day, the Happy Bus is the
444 from QPAC to Moggill. I’m sitting just a couple
of rows from the front. It’s the perfect place to
observe as people hop on.
We pull into King George Square, the doors
open, and it’s show-time: “Ladies and gentlemen,
good afternoon! The Happy Bus welcomes you on
board, how are you?”
It’s impossible to resist a smile. “Bring on those
happy faces! This is the Happy Bus to Moggill!”
Half a dozen passengers join us at Toowong
and there’s a greeting for every one of them: “On
a beautiful day like today, how could you not be
happy? Good afternoon, keep the happy smile on.
That’s one terrific happy smile you have there!”
At Taringa, a woman hops off at the back and
John calls out: “You look after yourself, till the
next time you’re on the Happy Bus, enjoy the rest
of your afternoon and keep that beautiful smile
please, ba-bye!”
Seconds later, he opens the front door and
three more join the club: “Welcome to the Happy
Bus! There’s a happy smile, keep that with you
please!”
I leave at Indooroopilly, completely touched
by the experience. I catch a lot of buses and I
always say g’day to the driver as I hop on. But John
Murdoch really does take customer service to the
next level.
Next day, I catch up with him at the Toowong
bus depot. He tells me: “Being a talkative person,
I was already welcoming people on the bus. More
and more I told people to come on-board with a
happy smile and they seemed to appreciate it. It
just grew from there.
"I care about my passengers and this is a way
for me to make their trip more enjoyable. When
I finish my work and get back to the depot the
feeling is ‘Hooley Dooley, what a day!’, but I enjoy
being more involved with the passengers,” he says.
John tells me I’m not the first person to suggest
special livery for the Happy Bus: “People have
asked, ‘Can we have anything on the front of the
bus so we know it’s the Happy Bus?’ The best I can suggest is we have a Mr Happy
fridge magnet but every bus I drive is the Happy
Bus, two different buses a day.”
After chatting for a while, John Murdoch opens
up on why he’s so positive. He tells me he was
involved in a head-on car crash on the Warrego
Highway: “My heart stopped three times on the
way to hospital. I wasn’t meant to survive. They
wanted to turn the life support machine off. I
woke up three weeks later with a new lease on
life.
“When you have a near-death experience,
you do see life differently. You only have one
life. You might as well live it. It doesn’t matter
if you’re happy or grumpy, you’ve only got the
one.”
John proudly tells me that in his five years
driving buses, he has received no fewer than
114 commendations from passengers. (Every
time you ring Translink to report a positive bus
experience, your comments are printed on a
certificate which is then presented to the driver).
“If I receive one, I receive one. If I don’t, I
don’t. I just like going out there and having a
happy and enjoyable trip and a safe one for
everyone," John says.
By this stage, I’m soaking up the positivity. So
I ask John for some final words of wisdom.
“When you wake up in the morning, choose
your attitude. It reflects what sort of day you’re
going to have. Even if you do have some
hiccoughs, they may happen, but if you say
you’re going to have a good day and approach it
as a good day, at the end of the day you will say ‘I
had a good day’.”
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