I’m a school bus driver. Last year our union shop steward got pulled over for DUI and blew a .32 which is insane. She was stopped at 3 AM and cited but somehow was at work that same morning at 6:30 AM and drove her normal route. The district found out about her DUI later in the day and she was suspended, but it’s clear that she was still horribly fucked up when driving kids.
After more than a week she was allowed to resign rather than being fired, which means she was able to get a job driving for a different district. How she was able to do this with a DUI on her record is a mystery to us, too. She is also a councilwoman in a neighboring town but it’s hard to imagine that level of politics gives you immunity from DUI. She did apparently flash her councilwoman ID to the officer that stopped her but that did her no good, at least at the time.
How is being a school bus driver? I lost my job recently and I’ve been struggling to land another thanks to the current job market. There’s a part of me that’s hedging and looking at what else I might be able to do for work if I can’t land another IT role quickly enough
I absolutely love it, although the best description of the job that I’ve read is that it combines the jobs of truck driver and zoo keeper (not completely accurate - zoo keepers have bars and thick glass protecting them from the animals). The obvious downside is that it’s a major pay hit coming from the programming world like I did. I now make about 1/6 of what I did at my last job. My district pays pretty well (over $30 an hour) and provides health care, but most districts pay less with no benefits so it depends on where you are. I work less than five hours a day and I have enough time between my morning and afternoon routes to go for a bike ride and have lunch and a nap, and I’m able to take my elderly parents to their appointments and such. It really doesn’t feel like work and it’s a good feeling to know what I’m doing is actually of some benefit to humanity - unlike programming, where I think that 95% of what I did never got used by anybody.
It seems like the IT career world is utterly and hopelessly doomed by AI. My fear is that shit is eventually going to take over driving jobs as well, although I think school bus driving will last a bit longer than other things (hopefully it lasts until I’m dead).
I just became a city bus driver a few months ago. It’s not the most exciting job there ever was. I’m in a smaller Midwestern city, so we don’t deal with nearly the amount of bs (violent drug addicts and or mentally ill people) that bigger metro areas get. The pay is decent, not great but enough. The benefits are top notch though. Good pension, best health plan I’ve ever had.
Our union is the Teamsters and when I was taking my school bus training class I joked to the guy next to me that I was concerned I was going to start getting calls to go down to the docks and break somebody’s kneecaps. This guy, dead serious, said “I’d like that”.
I’m a school bus driver. Last year our union shop steward got pulled over for DUI and blew a .32 which is insane. She was stopped at 3 AM and cited but somehow was at work that same morning at 6:30 AM and drove her normal route. The district found out about her DUI later in the day and she was suspended, but it’s clear that she was still horribly fucked up when driving kids.
After more than a week she was allowed to resign rather than being fired, which means she was able to get a job driving for a different district. How she was able to do this with a DUI on her record is a mystery to us, too. She is also a councilwoman in a neighboring town but it’s hard to imagine that level of politics gives you immunity from DUI. She did apparently flash her councilwoman ID to the officer that stopped her but that did her no good, at least at the time.
How is being a school bus driver? I lost my job recently and I’ve been struggling to land another thanks to the current job market. There’s a part of me that’s hedging and looking at what else I might be able to do for work if I can’t land another IT role quickly enough
I absolutely love it, although the best description of the job that I’ve read is that it combines the jobs of truck driver and zoo keeper (not completely accurate - zoo keepers have bars and thick glass protecting them from the animals). The obvious downside is that it’s a major pay hit coming from the programming world like I did. I now make about 1/6 of what I did at my last job. My district pays pretty well (over $30 an hour) and provides health care, but most districts pay less with no benefits so it depends on where you are. I work less than five hours a day and I have enough time between my morning and afternoon routes to go for a bike ride and have lunch and a nap, and I’m able to take my elderly parents to their appointments and such. It really doesn’t feel like work and it’s a good feeling to know what I’m doing is actually of some benefit to humanity - unlike programming, where I think that 95% of what I did never got used by anybody.
It seems like the IT career world is utterly and hopelessly doomed by AI. My fear is that shit is eventually going to take over driving jobs as well, although I think school bus driving will last a bit longer than other things (hopefully it lasts until I’m dead).
I just became a city bus driver a few months ago. It’s not the most exciting job there ever was. I’m in a smaller Midwestern city, so we don’t deal with nearly the amount of bs (violent drug addicts and or mentally ill people) that bigger metro areas get. The pay is decent, not great but enough. The benefits are top notch though. Good pension, best health plan I’ve ever had.
Sounds like Wisconsin
Like a public sector job in Wisconsin would have a union (and isn’t police).
Our union is the Teamsters and when I was taking my school bus training class I joked to the guy next to me that I was concerned I was going to start getting calls to go down to the docks and break somebody’s kneecaps. This guy, dead serious, said “I’d like that”.
Philly suburb.
at least she was able to get a job with (hopefully) a felony