First thing is to understand a bit about the job. You’re in charge of transportation for a large, and growing 15,000 student, unit school district. Every day, your own 96 buses, and another 60 or so that you contract, transport about 10,000 of those kids to school and back. Included in that are special needs, special ed kids – some that have behavior disorders, some with severe physical disorders, some that go to schools 40 miles away. You have wheelchair lift buses, A/C buses, and plain old regular buses, both short and long. Also, some early bird, early childhood kids, and lets not forget the kindergarten kids that go half-days, so we run a full boatload of mid-days, bringing the AM kids home then sweeping out again to bring the PM kids in.
135 drivers and monitors, 7 office staff, and 4 mechanics. A Nextel phone that lives on the charger whenever I get into my office, because the damn thing never stops some days. A superintendent, 4 assistant superintendents, 17 principals, 22 assistant principals and two bus companies I contract with – any one of whom feels the need to call me…oh, any time.
So…a “normal” day is a day in which multi-tasking becomes the largest understatement ever.
And yet, today was so,……so………NOT normal. There are some things that happen over the course of a year, or a month in this world that you just come to expect. There are accidents, there are freak parents that do incredibly stupid things, there are lost kids to find and account for, there are bus drivers that get lost or do stupid things, there are employee meltdowns, there are freaky equipment breakdowns.
What you never expect, is all of these things to happen all on the same day. Strap in, enjoy the freakiest Bus Guy day ever. Well, almost ever. The most bizarre day was 9/11/2001 –but for different reasons.
6:00 AM: The boss has an 8 am meeting, but before that, at some point, he and I agree we need to meet to go over the strategic planning/mutual expectations and commitments business that all us administrative types committed to this summer. Keep this meeting in mind, ‘k? I arrive at work, just tired enough that the bad vending machine coffee just may be as good in my mind as that coffee that gets crapped by monkeys or cougars or whatever it is.
But we’ll never know now, because while the coffee came out, there was no cup present to catch it. Screw this, maybe it’s a Diet Coke kind of morning…….
7:00 AM: Just getting ready to pick up the phone and call the boss. But no, the radio tells me we had an accident. On the way to the scene, I call the boss. We’ll do the meeting late morning, or afternoon. The accident was minor. A good driver with 30 years of experience did a dumb thing, and backed into a bloodsucking bitch. I mean an Acura, driven by a bloodsucking bitch. Long story made into a short one is that the bus backed up less than 3 feet, and left a very, very small hole in the plastic bumper, and the bloodsucking bitch went off in an ambulance with a neck brace. The kids never even felt the impact. Even the paramedics were shaking their heads and smirking.
I leave the accident scene – a replacement bus/driver is on the way to take the kids to school and I have another school to get to. Where I arrive at about….
8:25 AM: I drop in to see Principal Jeff, have a quick chat with him, ask to use his washroom and….get locked in.
8:45 AM: Back in the office. Reading e-mails, checking voice mail and I come across one from Ms. V. This lady is the prize of the day. From the first day of school, her poor daughter, a 2nd grader has missed the bus all but one day. The bus comes to her stop at 8:16. Not 8:22, at 8:22, it’s GONE. She lives three doors from the stop and doesn’t even start getting the poor kid dressed until she sees the bus coming. Today she pissed off my dispatcher, the capable and usually unflappable L. Today, I’m listening to Ms. V’s latest rant on my voice mail, a rant containing the phrase “ya know” no less than every 4 seconds. Ya know? L comes in to my office, sees the WTF look on my face, and mouths Ms V’s name. I just nod and start looking for my drool cup, I know it’s here somewhere.
About the time I’m Ya know’d out, One of my supervisors comes in with the latest. It seems that the lovely and insane Ms. V has now out done even herself. After the bus left her daughter, by (imagine this) coming two minutes late and STILL not waiting for her to get off the potty, she packed little girl into the car and started to drive her to school. On the way, at an intersection of 2-four lane highways, she spies a school bus.
Ask yourself: What would I do in this situation? Ok? Now imagine wild boars have been feasting on your cerebellum for days and left you with just the barest smattering of cognizant thought.
Of course! You pull up next to the bus, which is in the left turn lane, and motion for the driver, who is not just not your driver, but going to a different school, and start yelling at HIM for all your problems with timeliness and responsibility. Nope still wrong. You pull up to the bus, he opens the door and you start calling his boss (Me) bad names, and talking about how no one cares about your daughter’s safety. The driver tells you he’s sorry but there’s nothing he can do right now for you, so what’s your next move?
BingBingBing!!! NOW you’re thinking like a complete nut job……What you do, is when the light turns green, and the silly bus driver thinks he can turn left with funny green arrow thingy, you race your monkeyshit green ’79 Regal in front of the moving bus, slam on the brakes, drag your poor little poopypantsed daughter out of the car IN TRAFFIC and walk her back to the bus, insisting that the bus driver take her to school.
Poor guy did the wrong thing by the book, but entirely the right thing. In his words to me later, he summarized: “Boss, even if I wasn’t going to the right school, I figured that poor thing was one hell of a lot safer with me on the bus, than with her mom”.
End of the story is that I take my driver’s written report, my driver and get in my car and go to the police station. A couple nice cops take the report, shake their heads and go off to see Ms. V. Oh, did I mention the part where DCFS (Children and Family Services) was also called?
Sigh. Now, it’s all of……
10:00 AM: I walk back from my car into the Seventh Circle of Hell. AKA: My special services coordinator’s office. Where I find her in tears and unable to work any more today because (hold on, this is good) her neighbor’s niece’s steer might have some sort of disease that may or may not be bad enough to keep her from winning or even entering the big 4-H confabulation this weekend, in fact might even not make it through the weekend and she has to run home to help her son go help the neighbor’s niece perform some kind of procedure to (farmers correct me if this is wrong, I swear this is all made up to test me) untwist it’s innards, or gizzards or something bovine like that. I remind C that yes she does have time to use in personal days but we’re down a supervisor today, and this is after all the day she is supposed to get the download for the new early bird kids and get them routed on buses by tomorrow.
No word on how the cow is doing, but I’m sure there are burning Bus Guy effigies on the farm tonight.
11:15 AM: My secretary asks if I’m going out for lunch, could I bring her something from wherever? I make an excuse and escape to Panera. Alone.
12:30 PM: The Principal at the school where Ms V’s daughter goes to calls to tell me that she believes that the subdivision Ms. V lives in used to be an Indian burial ground. We laugh. Power goes out in half of my town while we’re on the phone. I stop laughing.
1:00 PM: Lights come on. I decide a nice strawberry shake from Coldstone would go down nicely.
3:00 PM: I go stand to watch buses arrive for the aftrenoon at a junior high that’s just been a nightmare for us this year. It is incidentally right next door to the aforementioned elementary school – they share a ‘campus’ and are just down the hill from the Indian burial ground/subdivision. I look up the hill and shudder from the cold chill. Somewhere a hawk circles, a coyote yells and darkness fills the land…
17 buses arrive to take kids home from school. 15 leave, because as they’re pulling away, routes # 4 and #5 decide to mate. Bumper to bumper. Not my buses, they’re the contractor’s but they’re my kids and now I have two elementary routes that will run late as well as these two.
Fabulous.
4:15 PM: The worst words we can hear: “We have a lost child” This is immediate all hands on deck, and again as always I am proud and amazed at the response. First, the details. Little first grade boy from THE SAME FRIGGING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL gets on the bus. Doesn’t get off at his stop though. Mom calls us and we mobilize. In ten minutes we have me, two supervisors in cars, and 6 of my buses in the area looking for a 6 year old brown haired boy in a blue t-shirt and black pants with a Spiderman bookbag. Just as I get in the area, the driver of his bus calls in. While he made his last stop, he finds the little guy snoozing on the floor.
I’m waiting at the house with bawling mom when the bus pulls up and off steps little J, all brown haired, white polo shirted and blue shorts wearing, carrying his Chicago Bulls bookbag. 
I met the assistant Principal there, and briefly ran down my day for her as we walked back to my car so I could drive her back to school. God bless her, she decides that (A) I don’t make enough money, and (B) she can’t wait to see me at our 8 am meeting because she’ll just sit there and imagine my hangover.
Which I plan to begin working on right……about….now.
PS: Oh, remember that 6:00 AM meeting with the boss? It’s at 10 tomorrow.
