It's something quite interesting, the work of a public servant.
Not the ones found working at Government offices sitting at desks piled up with files and an old computer. But those who we chance to see doing their work everyday as we head for our workplaces. In our mode of commute. The public transport buses. The bus conductors and drivers too fall into the category of public servants and are those who add real meaning to the label they are associated with.
I take a bus route that has a standard set of bus numbers and sometimes I end up in the same bus that I have taken before. The bus conductor  looks familiar in such a case and  I even get a smile of recognition, which is nice. This gesture made by some of them caught my attention and I started observing them more.
There is a lot more than meets the eye in the work a bus conductor does.

From a third person's perspective the job profile of the bus conductor will be just to collects bus tickets at every stop. This is probably a task that is insignificant if taken all by itself.
The conductor will have to ensure that everyone gets their tickets. But this is no easy job as people try to blend into the to get a free ride, the conductor's job is to ensure this doesn't happen.

Also he has to very fast with his arithmetic! Collecting and neatly arranging notes in his brown satchel  and tendering exact change to whoever hands out a hundred for a meagre 12-13 rupees ticket.

His set of tasks also involves noting down some figures of tickets sold by each stage of the bus route in this small sheet of paper folded in his pocket.
The conductor will have to monitor and reprimand people who bring luggage into the bus. Vendors bring their aluminium vessels which occupy quite a bit of space. He has to ensure that they are kept where it does trip somebody or cause any inconvenience to the other commuters

He has to ensure that everyone gets their tickets, this involves constantly and loudly reminding the people who got in at the previous stop to get their tickets or atleast pass the money and say where they need to go.
To add to this once the bus starts getting crowded he has to regulate the standing crowd asking them to move in to give way to the ones who will get in at the next stop.

He has to keep shouting out the stop names to ensure that people atleast make an attempt to get near the exits so that the bus doesn't have to stop for too long.
Alerting the driver about someone who wants to get off and to whistle and shout out an 'ok right' when it is safe enough for on-boarding passengers to get the bus moving.

Just a job of issuing bus tickets?
I'd like to think otherwise.