Standing Room Only
I've pretty much decided I am not gonna blog about the last couple of weeks of my bus driver training, primarily because it's all a blur at this point. I've also decided not to really do a big sob story blog about the nearly 5 days I spent in a hospital bed because of some random bacterial infection that wreaked havoc on my body. That's pretty much all there was to it, I got sick, was in pain, got severely dehydrated, and subsequently got better again.
Of course, I've already shared wedding stuff with you, so that's outta the way. So really, its time for getting out of the past and living in the moment....
During the entire 4 weeks of on the road training with the other drivers I never once experienced what we call a "heavy load". Sure I had a few runs where we picked up a lot of passengers, but never where we had every seat full. And most definitely not anywhere close to having standing room only.
No No. Why would I get to experience something like that when I had another driver by my side to help me ease into that sort of madness? That might make sense! Guffaww!
No, instead on my first full day of work (mind you I had a half day of work on my technical first day solo) I had the (dis)pleasure of getting a run where the last leg of it was absolute madness.
Where standing room only was really an understatement.
It was more like "angry mob, sweating, cursing, packing the bus beyond maximum capacity and making life all but unbearable for this poor little silly lady bus driver".
Yeah, and the sh*t of it is that I had to keep stopping at every stop, every corner where people waited for the bus, open the doors, and let the potential passenger decide for him/herself whether or not to join in the sardine-like fun that was my bus.
It was insane. Stressful. And I was nearly 30 minutes behind schedule. I'd called ahead to my dispatcher to explain the situation, he just said "be careful and do what you can". When I pulled up in front of the garage, I'd only lost a few of the passengers in the prior 5 or so blocks. But I didn't really care, because pulling up in front of the garage meant that it was quitting time for me. And the relief driver got to deal with the madness for the rest of the ride. Poor guy.
I'm sure he was cussing me. Being a rookie and slightly overwhelmed, I only managed to hand out "hat checks" to about a third of the riders.
Hat checks are our way of knowing who paid what and to where. When a passenger pays full fare to go to, lets say a zone 2, we give them a #2 hat check card so we know that when they get off the bus in a zone 2, they paid for their whole ride. If they only pay us a dollar, which is base fare within one zone they don't get a zone card. When they try to get off the bus in something other than a single zone, we know they owe us money before getting off the bus.
So yeah, I felt bad about leaving him in a right pickle but I'm sure he managed better than I'd have.
By the time I finally filled out my time card and met my husband outside I was barely holding it together. My stress level had begun to hit the boiling point and when I sat down and buckled my seat belt he asked how my day was. At that point, I lost it. I sobbed and cried and moaned about how hard it was and how I wasn't sure I was cut out for it.
It was kind of pathetic. But honestly, I didn't care at the time. I just needed to let it all come out.
Today went a little better. First half of my day went smoothly. Second half, well... it was crap. But by the time I rolled back into the garage at the end of my shift, I was all but over it. Seems like the more bodies I have on the bus with me the higher my stress gets, when I'm empty... life's a breeze.
Now if I can just learn to deal with the people induced stress I'll be golden.
Of course, I've already shared wedding stuff with you, so that's outta the way. So really, its time for getting out of the past and living in the moment....
During the entire 4 weeks of on the road training with the other drivers I never once experienced what we call a "heavy load". Sure I had a few runs where we picked up a lot of passengers, but never where we had every seat full. And most definitely not anywhere close to having standing room only.
No No. Why would I get to experience something like that when I had another driver by my side to help me ease into that sort of madness? That might make sense! Guffaww!
No, instead on my first full day of work (mind you I had a half day of work on my technical first day solo) I had the (dis)pleasure of getting a run where the last leg of it was absolute madness.
Where standing room only was really an understatement.
It was more like "angry mob, sweating, cursing, packing the bus beyond maximum capacity and making life all but unbearable for this poor little silly lady bus driver".
Yeah, and the sh*t of it is that I had to keep stopping at every stop, every corner where people waited for the bus, open the doors, and let the potential passenger decide for him/herself whether or not to join in the sardine-like fun that was my bus.
It was insane. Stressful. And I was nearly 30 minutes behind schedule. I'd called ahead to my dispatcher to explain the situation, he just said "be careful and do what you can". When I pulled up in front of the garage, I'd only lost a few of the passengers in the prior 5 or so blocks. But I didn't really care, because pulling up in front of the garage meant that it was quitting time for me. And the relief driver got to deal with the madness for the rest of the ride. Poor guy.
I'm sure he was cussing me. Being a rookie and slightly overwhelmed, I only managed to hand out "hat checks" to about a third of the riders.
Hat checks are our way of knowing who paid what and to where. When a passenger pays full fare to go to, lets say a zone 2, we give them a #2 hat check card so we know that when they get off the bus in a zone 2, they paid for their whole ride. If they only pay us a dollar, which is base fare within one zone they don't get a zone card. When they try to get off the bus in something other than a single zone, we know they owe us money before getting off the bus.
So yeah, I felt bad about leaving him in a right pickle but I'm sure he managed better than I'd have.
By the time I finally filled out my time card and met my husband outside I was barely holding it together. My stress level had begun to hit the boiling point and when I sat down and buckled my seat belt he asked how my day was. At that point, I lost it. I sobbed and cried and moaned about how hard it was and how I wasn't sure I was cut out for it.
It was kind of pathetic. But honestly, I didn't care at the time. I just needed to let it all come out.
Today went a little better. First half of my day went smoothly. Second half, well... it was crap. But by the time I rolled back into the garage at the end of my shift, I was all but over it. Seems like the more bodies I have on the bus with me the higher my stress gets, when I'm empty... life's a breeze.
Now if I can just learn to deal with the people induced stress I'll be golden.
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