After toiling away at school for the past 4.5 years learning Chinese and studying everything from Linguistics to International Affairs to Physics to History, I am now just weeks away from earning my bachelors degree. I will finally have an opportunity to put my education to good use, but first I will be taking a pit-stop to realize my life-long dream of being a bus driver.
A few weeks ago I applied to be a bus driver for Town of Vail, and yesterday I had a very easy "interview" and was quickly offered the position. In many aspects this bus-driving job will be a step backward from my current part-time job doing transcription for purposes of linguistic research. First of all, whereas that job looks pretty good on my résumé, this bus driving job won't really help my résumé out at all. Second, I will taking about a 30% pay cut from the transcribing job (although I might be able to keep the transcribing job too and do both, but that doesn't sound very appealing). Third, I can do the transcribing job wherever and pretty much whenever I want, but the bus driving will have a set schedule and will require commuting (because I have the least seniority, I will most likely be stuck with the night shifts that nobody else wants which is a double-whammy because not only am I not much of a night owl, but it also means that I can't take the bus to work because I would have no way of getting home).
But the bus driving job also offers lots of really appealing things that the transcribing job does not. For one thing, I don't get to drive a bus at my transcribing job, also the town of Vail is paying for the training for me to get my CDL. Second, the transcribing job is tedious and pretty boring and requires a lot of self-discipline to sit down and make yourself do all the hours you are supposed to do, but being a bus driver is more the kind of job that you come, do your time, and punch out and you're done. There's none of the stress of keeping yourself from getting distracted and keeping track of how many hours you have actually worked, etc. Third, there is less risk of making mistakes and feeling stupid; with transcribing sometimes I code things incorrectly and I feel like an idiot, but with driving a bus I think there are fewer things to mess up. Fourth, being a bus driver is a more social job than transcribing which is best done in a quiet, distraction-free environment with headphones, very anti-social. Fifth, I will have plenty of time to ski this winter.
So I realize that it isn't a very lofty or glorious job or anything, and I also realize that I didn't need to get a college degree to do it, but I am really excited about it! It will only last through April and then I will be off to do grander things. But I thought that if I were ever to realize my life-long dream of being a bus driver, this is about the best time ever to do it because if I don't do it now, then I will probably have to wait until I am old, retired, and senile before I can do it again.
The next logical step in my bus-driving career will probably be Figure-8 Schoolbus Racing like this:
10 comments:
One very important thing they might neglect in your bus driver training - it's really nice to keep track of where all the regular riders get off, and to wake them up so they don't miss their stop if they happen to fall asleep after a long day at work (or whatever...).
Thanks anonymous, that's some good advice.
If a sizable number of regular riders fall asleep that often and end up frequently getting let off at stops *other* than the one they intended, then how does one go about determining which stop they in fact *intended* to get off at, to provide such value-add service?
OH MAN - That is a complete HOOT!!! And you TOTALLY already have the laugh for that driving job - that great big
MMMWWWHHHOOOOAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
thing I mean. Oh yea baby ... I can see you out there, late at night after you get off the Vail bus driver shift - to get your YaYa's out after shuttling around head-bobbing regulars up/down the service road between Eagle-Vail and West Vail.
I suspect that it wouldnt be long though before you started taunting yuppies in $50k+ all wheel drives up over the berm in the roundabouts, with those regulars suddenly coming to life with a horrifying shreak and you behind the wheel, plaids totally NOT matching, earflaps akimbo, bellowing
MMMWWWHHHOOOOAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
:-)
Ugh, what's with the anonymous posts?!
That's a good question oh nun amos, and that's probably why I will leave it up to the riders to get off where they are supposed to get off.
Yeah, dad, I'm going to try not to scare the riders... well at least not until apriil when the job will almost be over anyway...
Hey Dustin, as for the "anonymous' advice, and your comments that you will leave it up to the riders to know when to get off. But let's say that 'anonymous' rider is someone like KJO and is riding home from Lionshead to Avon and falls asleep... wouldn't you wake her up?
Well, only if I were quite sure the she actually wanted to get off there. Also, if it's someone I know like KJO then chances are I would wake them up.
All hypothetically speaking, of course...
Haha, I could totally see you as a bus driver, working the late night shift. You would be like the party bus shuttling all the wasted ski bums around. When I worked at the post office way back when, I drove a 2.5 ton truck and it was pretty fun. It was fairly big but easy to drive around in the summer. I wonder if those Vail buses do well in the wintertime? If I had the time and money, I would totally visit just to witness you driving that thing around.
What? I didn't know you ever worked at a post office, or that you drove a mail truck! That's pretty sweet.
Yeah, I'm guessing that the night bus is actually pretty dull for most of the night and then it probably gets slammed with drunkards when the bars start closing. I have no idea how they do in the winter, but I'm guessing that of all the places in the world, Vail is probably one place where they would have busses that do well in winter...
I'll try to get a picture (or perhaps even some video) of me driving the bus and I'll post it on my blog or something, so even if you can't come out to witness it directly you will still be privy to it. Sound good?
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