So I'm a city bus driver in Connecticut. At the moment I work 47 hours a week more or less. As it is that's a lot not because my job is particularly physically straining but because it's mentally draining dealing with people both in my bus and the cars on the road. I'm basically tapped out at 47 hours a week.
However it's been made clear to me I'm gonna be expected to add to my workload both with school busses and possibly another shift. You probably heard that we're having a really hard time retaining drivers. It's really true and mangement's whole attitude is not helping. These are insane hours we are expected to work. 10 hour shifts, some with no breaks, save for 10 or 15 minutes here and there. I work past 1 am 4 days a week.
Another city bus driver just told me a few days ago that she's quitting because she cannot take the constant badgering. They want her to work more and more and she just wants to be with her grandchild. I can really understand why she's leaving but now she's gonna leave a big hole we have to fill. Everyone it everyone's like yeah we're a team we all have to pitch in but I can't.
For a while there I was working 60 hours a week which sounds crazy because it is. I almost had a nervous breakdown. Even then people were like, “yeah that's expected” and “sounds about right.” Worse yet, that come from other drivers, not dispatch. What's wrong with these people?? This is no life.
I had some guy throwing pistachios at my head yesterday. I regularly get cursed at, yelled at by unstable people. I find hypodermic needles embedded in the seats, used condoms??, garbage of all sorts honestly. I hate when people say the busses are dirty because we do try but but it's free here in Connecticut and people will just wander on and off all day.
There's no support from management. If I mention incident that's bothering me they just tell me to write-up a report and that's it. I don't have any shoulders to lean on.
They are going to push hard for me to work more and guilt me guilt me guilt me in every way they can think of and it's gonna suck. They are gonna look out down at me when I say no and it's insane because what the hell do they really expect?