WANTED: New Blood to Run the Gig

I've neglected this blog. With the book release, my efforts have been centered on publicizing "JUST DRIVE - Life in the Bus Lane." It's a lot of work to market yourself while rolling wheels 50+ hours every week. This interferes with the creative mojo.

Transit consumes its workers. From the time we wake up until we can rest again, our bodies are tuned to the hum of 40,000 pounds on six wheels. It's not always a job you can leave behind, especially after a particularly rough day. It follows us home and haunts our dreams. There are times I awaken in a fit of terror, seeing what could have been had I not prevented it. Before you recover from one dream, the alarm sounds the start of yet another day's adventure. "Rinse and repeat," I call it, because as soon as you've washed the previous shift off your skin, another is about to begin.

I began writing this blog simply as an exercise to describe my life. One bus driver's experiences. It's still what this is about. Now I'm tired, beaten and usually rolling toward the next few days off. It's not as fun as when it commenced. When I started this gig, we were #1, baby. Now we've slipped far below that, yet we're expected to believe we're headed anywhere but even lower.

Our GM recently announced his retirement, lusting after his golden prize as we fear our impending demise. My first thought was, "What inept corporate robot will they choose for a replacement?" Surely, it won't be someone who has driven a bus for a living. That would be too eloquent a choice. While our ranks proudly boast multiple talents more than capable of shining in this position, we'll likely be served with a smiling face that can talk to cameras while spouting the corporate line. We've become just another company to be run by many who have never done what they oversee. We could "manage" quite well without some of these folks. Put transit back into the hands of those who have rolled wheels, and you'd see drastic changes for the better. What you're most likely to see is a great to-do about another nothing-much, and the fanfare will be touted by the media as "a new beginning." Realistically, it will likely be yet another ho-hum change of the same old guard.

The new Big Kahuna will be hired from the oozing growth of executives with "impressive" resumes, with transit workers who apply being given a pre-requisite few seconds of consideration. He or she will be lauded by the media as "a promising new direction in local transit." We will just nod our collective heads, saying "Yeah, right. Need some beachfront property in Tucson? I'll sell it to you cheap if you believe this swill."

In the meantime, El Jéfe will luxuriate in his parting bonus, lauding his bridge to nowhere, laughing at his successfully-hidden raises to non-union employees while shrugging off a legacy toward banality. We're headed toward a heavily-taxed coffin, he's off to feast upon golden geese and Donny's tax cuts. This is the post-Teddy Roosevelt reality of the American workforce, and we're 115 years too late to appreciate what the Hero of San Juan Hill accomplished on our behalf.

Maybe I'll apply for the job. I don't have a college degree in Corporata Studies, but I do have a PhD in Blue Collar Americana. That's gotta account for something, eh?

Safe travels brothers and sisters in the real world. It's a rough job, but somebody's gotta do it. Thanks to US, we make transit work.