Another one for today. Different post than what I usually put up. Had my performance appraisal earlier this week. Hadn’t had one of these since I left the last building. Put it up here so y’all can read what they go over. (this is the copy they give you so you know what’s getting reviewed)
When I get those crazies that rant and rave, they usually say what they gotta say and hop off the bus. BUT this tweeker said plenty for everyone to enjoy.
With the construction happening at Union Square, all of us on the line were getting killed every time we went through there. This was my second trip and I was 30 minutes late at that time. Pretty much if everyone is late and you call central control all they are gonna tell you is “continue in service operator”.
So as I made my way up Market I really didn’t pick up anyone at the stop at 1st. Moving along i got the stop at Montgomery and I loaded up my passengers. I closed the door and moved up a bit and I seen this lady making her way to the bus but not with any real hurry to make it. My gut told me “don’t open the door…don’t open the door…don’t open the door…” but the driver in me just had to. So I open the door and already knew this was gonna be one of those “yup should have listened to my gut moments.”
“oh hi baby thank you thank you for waiting for me” and she went to sit down . I move up a little more down the block and I hear say
“anybody got 2 dollars i can have? i’m not begging i’m just asking. its 2 different things. No? OK its all good” Then she came back up to me and asked me the same thing. I told her nah I ain’t got it but nevertheless what did she need the 2 dollars for. Then I realized I should have done that. That was the cue for her to initiate a full on conversation with me. Ugh.
“oh i’m from Sacramento. I gotta go to my house right now and then head back to Greyhound” and then she went back and sat down. Since we were moving at a snail’s pace because of the traffic this female passenger came up to me right as I got to the intersection and said “can I get out here?” I told her I couldn’t let her out because we were pretty much in the intersection and that once I made it over I would let her off. The lady then walked back all mad. Now the other lady didn’t like that.
“You know you can’t get off here. The bus driver gotta worry about his job and the safety and not yo whiny ass. He trying to do things to get us where we gotta get to and yo just being disrespectful . They go through alot. Baby where you work at if you don’t mind me asking?” and the passenger responded to her! I dunno why she answered her after she basically insulted her but she did. All I could think of was “lemme make it across the street so I could drop off the female passenger; i don’t want them coming to blows.So it took me like 5 minutes to get across the street and when I had a good enough room, I opened the front doors so she could get off. People got on and then I closed the door and then the other lady came back up. “you know you weren’t supposed to open the door like that for her.” I looked at her and told her that I was across the intersection and it was safe. She kinda wasn’t paying attention because and older Asian man got on and she just locked on to him from the jump.
“oh hello. you tourist? I like Asian men. But I may break you. You may not be able to handle all this little man. Do you got 2 dollars for me? ill take more 50 dollars…100 dollars.” Seemed like old man stopped paying attention to her and back she came up to bother me.
“baby, you look so good. I think you making me hot” Nah it’s the weather I told her. “nah its you. you making me horny” and she sat down right near the front this time. “I do everything. I’m just heterosexuals. Nothing else. But I do everything. EVERYTHING.”
Now mind you, this was a tweeker. Bony as shit, age had gotten to her , and not in a million years would I show any interest in someone like her. But there was no letting up from her.
“baby..look at my legs. How they look? you think they look good? go ahead touch them. c’mon go ahead and touch them.” nah i’m good. So I asked her where she gets off at. I had to know how much of this I could take before I kicked her off the bus.
“Oh I get off at Jones. What time you get off? you can come by if you want. What time you come back here? in an hr?” Oh ya I come back in an hour hahahah yeah right ” OK ill be right here waiting for you. Or you can give me your number?” haaahaha nah you can wait right at the stop all night long .
I pulled up to the stop and at the moment she hopped off I shut them doors so fast, you would have thought I stole the bus.
—-PART I —-
Ah yes folks. A signup is among us.
I would rather be forced to watch a Cowboys game(sorry bro, 49ers for life) than deal through the dilemma of signing for a run.
As you can see from the pic above some barns have already started signing up for their choices this week. Granted, my run on this sign up sucks ass so I’m ecstatic that i will finally get off of it so their’s that. But the whole process of a signup as a whole from beginning to end gives more heartache leading up to, during and even after the signup has ended. Depending on how long a sign up lasts(this one is *supposed* to last probably til mid- September) you pretty much gotta plan everything off of what you pick…and if you pick wrong,well my friend, your pretty much stuck with that shit till the next go around. No birthday parties, no football games, no social activities, no watching school plays that your kids put on. Nothing. So nothing like a little pressure huh?
Sounds Awesome right?! (i got my sarcastic face going right now) Wait it gets better.
Ima drop this over 2 posts. The pre signup is going to be talked about in this post and the signup and post signup stuff in the next one.
Easiest way i can explain this folks, is that the signup is basically like the NFL Draft (or fantasy football draft or any type of draft for that matter.) Now I bet your like “cmon my dude… like a draft? I don’t see it.” Ima break it all down for ya so hopefully this will be pretty easy to follow.
As you can see in the 1st picture, we have a POSTING, SIGNUP, and IN EFFECT date. The posting date is when all the information such as run pay, updated schedules, new lines or 1st knowledge about lines that are disappearing on the next signup( yeah you heard that right: the 9 line on the weekend goes to Woods which means no more 60 footers on the weekend) and runs and blocks that you have the opportunity to pick from. The signup date is the day that signup begins. Depending on the building it go from 1-3 days(even longer if its a general signup) This is the 1st part of information that you need because once you have a basic idea of when it starts, you can see if 1. you have to work that day 2. if you do work, will you have to request the time off or will you have enough time to sign up 3. just put in your choices and hope that whatever you pick is still available or 4. be one of the lucky ones and have the day off.
The 2nd picture is the second part of info that you need for signup day: the exact day and time that you will be signing at. As you can see in the next pic, drivers sign at 4 minute intervals. Full Time and Part Time drivers all sign during this sign up so date and time give you positioning that you need to make regarding your picks for sign up. To get an idea of how much this effects everything lemme tell you what I have to deal with:
I sign in the 8 oclock hour. On signup day, I am working my regular shift and dont get off of my first piece till after 9:15am so I have to figure out what I’m going to do.I can either 1. put in to get a run trade and hope I am granted the request(last time I didn’t get it) 2. get said run trade and hope it gives me enough time to make it back to sign up 3. put in my choices when I arrive in the morning of the signup or 4. just let the people doing the signup pick whatever for me.
AND that’s just the dilemma for that day. I still haven’t even looked at the runs I may choose.
Ok got my day and time to sign. Your probably thinking “bro just pick 50 choices and be done with it. ” Yeah i could do that but since I don’t sign till Monday, ALOT of runs are going to be gone by then, so why even look at the runs now? Leave it for the weekend. Then we got the fact that I don’t wanna do a certain line or work only days/twilighters/nights or how bout if im just looking for money on this signup and I don’t care about what i’m driving? Another one could be maybe i need certain days because i gotta do______ (insert extracurricular activity here). Friends of mine got kids so they can only hope that they can get a run or block that let them pick up and do stuff with their kids after work. A general rule of thumb that has proven itself time and time again is that drivers over here go for the money runs and want to get off as early as possible. With that said night runs will always be available and runs with no money are always gonna be available.
Part of picking something you are going to be happy with is the fact that their are people in front of you that might want the same runs you got listed. It helps to know who is in front of you on the signup and most likely it will be the people you came in with when you first started MUNI. Knowing your coworkers is a plus because most people dont change from what they are comfortable with. For example, out of the 5 people above me,3 choose early morning runs, one takes twilighters unless he can get a run with ever so desirable Saturday/Sunday off, and the 5 guy is the wild card; he can go either days or twilighters.
Next few pics are what you are gonna be doing homework on depending on when you sign. I feel like I’m back in high school because now I gotta research these runs and blocks all weekend.Anyways the 1st 3 are the runs broken down with how they pay, when they start/end, what days off, etc.
Depending if the run has to work on the saturday/sunday/ the whone weekend there is also the breakdown to what runs do on the weekend. Another thing that throws a wrench in plans and people skip over is the fact that holidays always work a weekend schedule (usually a Sunday) and with that if for example, you want July 4th off, you pick a run that will have Saturdays and Sundays and doesnt work holidays. Thats easy if you can get Saturdays and Sundays off. If you can’t, you have to find a run that has the day that the 4th has off. Ill get more detailed into how the runs are and what each thing means in another post.
This last picture is what the blocks look like. In the signup you have to look at all options available and for some people who cant get weekends off but don’t want to sit on one line for the whole signup, they sign blocks. A block is usually different pieces of work , pieced together to make a 5 day week. Mainly it covers the 2 days a run has off during the week . For example, driver 1 has run 1 and it has Tuesday/ Wednesday off and block 1 for work would have Tuesday and Wednesday on run 1.
Now bringing it back to signups, this is one of the tougher ones to research because each block listed has at least 3 different runs attached to it. This sign up has 45 blocks to choose from so doing math, if you are checking each block you will be going over the runs 135 times at least by the time you finish.
Yup. Blocks are alot of work.
Signups are stressful as shit. This summer signup is not being sanctioned by the union because per the contract were supposed to have only signups every 6 months. So with that upper management is going to be already are putting this on. Some people like it, some people don’t but you either gonna jump on the boat or get left on the island.
This folks, is the calm before the storm.
Bus Driver Stories 