Muni bus driver Mc Allen, who just spent a week at work, might be the most famous in his profession in the whole of San Francisco.
Following his completion of the SFMTA training program, Allen only had two shifts when he viewed “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” over the weekend. His wife suggested that he share his take on the bus chase scene, given his work, while they took a little break from watching the movie, SFGATE reported.
Allen did what his wife suggested as he took a deep dive on the bus chase scene – from seat cushions’ color, air brakes’ mechanics, up to the driver’s violation like not wearing any seatbelt – all laid down in a thread of 31 tweets.
“I spent like 40 minutes on it, just freeze-framing the film as it went along, and did it stream of consciousness. I didn’t re-read the thread, I just did it all at once,” he shared.
He expected that only some of his followers would find his tweets amusing. But Simu Lie, the star in the movie, entered the picture.
“I didn’t even finish the movie before Simu Liu had seen the tweet already, within an hour of me having put it out there. I still don’t know how he found it, I didn’t tag anybody or use any hashtags,” Allen said.
His tweets have gone viral. Allen, however, cannot monitor his social media as he goes back to his shift.
“I can’t actually have my phone turned on while I’m working. That’s against SFMTA policy. There’s an electronic device policy that says operators can’t have personal electronics devices on their person or turned on during a shift,” he said.
After work, he said he saw the post gathered millions of views, with 47, 300 likes and 11, 300 retweets as of Tuesday afternoon.
“People will just tag somebody they know on a quote tweet, then that person will reply with just a laughing emoji. It feels like somehow that’s the most entertaining part for me,” he said. “Somebody really liked this, then wanted to show somebody they knew. I see that, and I have a little window into this interesting friendship between these two people.”
Many bus drivers also participated in a positive way, making Allen avoid an imposter syndrome case from having a short job tenure.
Allen might be one of the individuals that have a lot of knowledge about the city’s public transit even if he is new at his job. He is also found to be the author of a series of 20 poems published in the now-inoperative Bay City Beacon regarding the different Muni lines in the city. He was once featured in Curbed SF as he shared his experiences travelling via Muni line with his children in 2018.
Allen views his job in a positive light, although some might think that being a Muni bus driver is a hard task.
“Driving a bus is really fun,” he says. “I think some of the most pleasurable things for me are getting onto the red transit lanes, the red carpets for buses. There are moments when you’re in traffic, then the transit only lane becomes available to you, and it’s like a hug from the transit agency.”
“And making a really great bus stop,” he said, “just exactly how you want it, I still get a little rush every time I get it exactly right.”
