Back to Life
I was released to return to work this past Monday. But since it was a holiday weekend I ended up not getting to work until Wednesday, since Tuesday is one of my regularly scheduled days off.
I was so nervous as I mentioned in my previous post, about going back to work. But I was all worked up over nothing. The first day back I ended up with a run that was cake. I made two trips out and back in the morning then had nearly four hours off before I had to go back to work and make two more trips out and back. I started around 7 am and was off shortly after 7pm. And still had time to run errands and goof off in the middle of the day.
It was nice to be back!
On Wednesday I pulled a morning tripper which is a short piece of work that is considered kind of a supplemental run. The route was one of the ones I had trouble with when I finally ran it solo for the first time a few months ago. But it's cake now. And so I had a nice easy morning of it for my second day back. When I got back to the shop after completing that run I learned that I was getting blessed with a "special" for that evening.
Specials are charters where we are contracted to run shuttle/routes/whatever for the needs of the event. I've done two wedding charters before and this one was for the local county fair. I was to drive one of two shuttle buses from two parking locations to the main gate of the fair. It was a 5pm to 10pm special. And it was the MOST BORING THING EVER.
There was a severe lack of advertising for the fair, I mean I didn't even know it was happening until I got assigned the special for it! So there weren't really that many people attending that first night, a school night mind you, and so my night was pretty lame. I was asked to keep count of my passengers. I thought "oh gee that's gonna get annoying" but throughout the course of the evening I realized that was the least of my worries. Keeping myself from going crazy was more of a challenge than counting the mere 33 passengers I picked up and dropped off all night long.
Day three wasn't too bad either. I ended up running the same morning tripper as I had the morning before so that was nice and laid back. But the afternoon run I did was the second half of a regular run that wasn't too bad. I assume the regular route driver needed the afternoon off and that's how I landed it. Which was fine by me because it made for an easy peasy kind of day.
Then I got the news that I had to be at work at 4:50 am on Saturday. BAH! And it was for a straight eight run, which is a run that doesn't get a split in the middle. But honestly, it was in theme for the rest of the week because it ended up being a pretty easy day. The worst of it was the last run I made which ended up giving me a full bus load. I'd even go so far as to say that the sum of the first 7 hours was less than the sum of the final hour as far as passengers go. But then, how many people are out riding the bus from 5 am to noon on a Saturday? Not that many!
And so after I completed my straight eight yesterday I feared I'd walk into the garage and see a second work assignment next to my name on the board. But I was most fortunate to see a big smile on the dispatchers face as he watched me check the board. "Have a good weekend." he said.
And I bolted before he could change his mind!
I was so nervous as I mentioned in my previous post, about going back to work. But I was all worked up over nothing. The first day back I ended up with a run that was cake. I made two trips out and back in the morning then had nearly four hours off before I had to go back to work and make two more trips out and back. I started around 7 am and was off shortly after 7pm. And still had time to run errands and goof off in the middle of the day.
It was nice to be back!
On Wednesday I pulled a morning tripper which is a short piece of work that is considered kind of a supplemental run. The route was one of the ones I had trouble with when I finally ran it solo for the first time a few months ago. But it's cake now. And so I had a nice easy morning of it for my second day back. When I got back to the shop after completing that run I learned that I was getting blessed with a "special" for that evening.
Specials are charters where we are contracted to run shuttle/routes/whatever for the needs of the event. I've done two wedding charters before and this one was for the local county fair. I was to drive one of two shuttle buses from two parking locations to the main gate of the fair. It was a 5pm to 10pm special. And it was the MOST BORING THING EVER.
There was a severe lack of advertising for the fair, I mean I didn't even know it was happening until I got assigned the special for it! So there weren't really that many people attending that first night, a school night mind you, and so my night was pretty lame. I was asked to keep count of my passengers. I thought "oh gee that's gonna get annoying" but throughout the course of the evening I realized that was the least of my worries. Keeping myself from going crazy was more of a challenge than counting the mere 33 passengers I picked up and dropped off all night long.
Day three wasn't too bad either. I ended up running the same morning tripper as I had the morning before so that was nice and laid back. But the afternoon run I did was the second half of a regular run that wasn't too bad. I assume the regular route driver needed the afternoon off and that's how I landed it. Which was fine by me because it made for an easy peasy kind of day.
Then I got the news that I had to be at work at 4:50 am on Saturday. BAH! And it was for a straight eight run, which is a run that doesn't get a split in the middle. But honestly, it was in theme for the rest of the week because it ended up being a pretty easy day. The worst of it was the last run I made which ended up giving me a full bus load. I'd even go so far as to say that the sum of the first 7 hours was less than the sum of the final hour as far as passengers go. But then, how many people are out riding the bus from 5 am to noon on a Saturday? Not that many!
And so after I completed my straight eight yesterday I feared I'd walk into the garage and see a second work assignment next to my name on the board. But I was most fortunate to see a big smile on the dispatchers face as he watched me check the board. "Have a good weekend." he said.
And I bolted before he could change his mind!
Comments