Transit Operator - Job Change - Advice needed

[Gerbs]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

The Rolex has retained equity.

My international ski and golf trips pays lifetime daily dividends of invaluable memories with great company!

The exercise and companionship gives me retained equity on my joints and mental health.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by bcrdukes

The Rolex has retained equity.

It's a fallacy, most people do not sell them so the equity is just a myth.

[lowside67]

Originally Posted by EvoFire

It's a fallacy, most people do not sell them so the equity is just a myth.

Just because something is not for sale does not make equity a myth. Your house isn't for sale today, is the equity you have in your house a myth? Of course not. You could say that the equity in your Rolex can't be accessed if you don't sell it, but it's not a myth.

In fact - while a Rolex is not a very good investment, it is a far better choice than a car or a diamond if that helps anybody sleep better. If a couple was financially astute, they'd buy the wife a cheaper engagement ring and the husband a better gold watch... that sure sounds like an easy sell!

-Mark

[CivicBlues]

You can access your home equity thru a HELOC or reverse mortgage, what sort of financial instruments allow you to access equity on your rolex? Vinny the loan shark might take it on as collateral?

[underscore]

Cars and diamonds are about the worst "investments" there are, it's not hard to beat them lol.

[Gerbs]

Hey, I bought every car i owned as an investment!

[yray]

when do you get to drive the bendy bus? or can you drive them straight out of the gate?

[noclue]

What’s the diesel tank size and range? And whats the mpg for heavy stop and go city driving lol

[mikemhg]

Devil's advocate for Dark as well, the Rolex also might buttress to his role as a sales guy.

Sales are all about optics, the illusion of success, it's the same reason your average real estate agent drives around in a Beamer/Benz, tailored suit with a nice watch.

That purchase is essentially him "investing" into his career, projecting success to his clients.

It's all very stupid, but the way the world works.

[Eff-1]

This thread reminded me of something from many years ago. There was a guy who worked in advertising and he decided to quit and be a bus driver. He started a blog and wrote about his training and his adventures (this was like 10 years ago when blogs were still a thing).

It was really entertaining. I tried finding it again but looks like it's gone, however he did instead publish a book. I bet it's pretty good tbh. https://www.blurb.ca/b/3797129-adver...vs-bus-driving

(Spoiler:

Spoiler!

He's no longer a bus driver, he didn't pass probation, I won't share the details in case you want to read it).

Here's one except I found on his FB page.

The Ghost Bus

The 20.

The bus all the other drivers warned me about. Don’t sign it, don’t trade for it, don’t even look at it. Well, guess what I got on a Saturday night at 2:30 in the morning? Yup, and it’s the super deluxe version, avec fromage. The N20. The late night version of most notorious route going.

It did not disappoint.

I diffused a race war, solved a crime, got boarded by the Transit Police and I had a very strange encounter with a 90 something woman I picked up outside of a McDonald’s on Commercial Ave. This is mostly her story.

I had two more runs to go before I could call it an evening. Or was it a morning? When you start to mistake early morning joggers for people running for your bus the line gets very blurred.

My first run would take me on a route down Commercial than east bound on Hastings till I hit the downtown corridor. The second would take me in the opposite direction back towards Commercial. I picked up an old woman outside of the McDonald’s, she seemed to be aproximately the age of at least two of the surviving Golden Girls put together. She boarded my bus with a large fry in her hand and a comically slow shuffle that would remind my parents of a young Tim Conway.

Grandma Shuffles,“ Excuse me driver do you mind waiting for my friend, he’s still in there.” I checked the McDonald’s and my time and decided I probably could. “Not a problem mam, we’re ahead of schedule, we can afford to wait for a bit.” Shuffles seemed happy with my response and at roughly the speed of tectonic plates shifting she took her seat.

After about 3 minutes had passed and no one had joined her I started to wonder. “Mam?” I tried to get her attention but couldn’t seem to. “Mam?” Nothing. Loudspeaker, “Mam, has your friend joined you on the bus yet?”

“Oh yes. Thank-you.” The seat beside her was empty.

“Okay, we’re going to take off now.”

“Thank-you dear.”

After that I kind of lost track of her. The bus filled up quickly and before I knew it, it was standing room only. Half filled with the recreational drug users on Commercial and the other half with the hard core downtown crowd.

The route hit every seedy bar on Canada’s most notorious street, the boulevard of broken dreams and intact meth pipes, Hastings Street. And because of that the bus often gets boarded by the transit police looking to keep the peace and protect the driver.

Yeah right. All the transit cops managed to do was infuriate all the passengers on board by charging them full fare then leave me with a bus full of angry drunks. Before I knew it I was 15 minutes behind schedule and heading back towards Commercial with an over capacity, overly intoxicated bus.

After dropping most of my crowd off at the Skytrain Station without too many incidents I was surprised to see that Shuffles was still on board. In fact I ended up dropping her off directly across the street from where I picked her up. I think she took the 90 minute loop downtown just so she could cross the street. I apologized for the craziness and asked her if she was okay, her only comment was, “Too much excitement for us.”

She still had her large fry and she was still alone. I lowered the bus and she shuffled off into the early morning light.

[68style]

Why everyone harping on Darky about his watch, dudes are BORN to waste money on shit we don't need constantly... I'm happy for him, took a huge risk out of his comfort zone at some sign place, doubled his income even if it was only temporary... he needed to wild out with all his family responsibilities that's cool.

Now he can blind other drivers with all that blang doing a gangsta lean out the window in the summers. Or some hobo in downtown will grease it right off his arm. Either way!

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

Devil's advocate for Dark as well, the Rolex also might buttress to his role as a sales guy.

Sales are all about optics, the illusion of success, it's the same reason your average real estate agent drives around in a Beamer/Benz, tailored suit with a nice watch.

That purchase is essentially him "investing" into his career, projecting success to his clients.

It's all very stupid, but the way the world works.

if i saw a hyundai guy come up with me with a rolex id punch him in the face first, and then steal his watch.

[noclue]

You will gasp if you go to HK and see average joes from all walks of life with a rolex. Not sure how authentic it is though lol. Plus if I remember the photo he got a regular date just, not a GMT/daytona or a precious metal president.

[JDMDreams]

Well it's also no tax in HK

[Gerbs]

I bought the poor man's rollie just to realize I'm not a watch enthusiast

[Badhobz]

thats like you buying a ferrari and realizing you dont like cars. excellent!

[68style]

Originally Posted by noclue

You will gasp if you go to HK and see average joes from all walks of life with a rolex. Not sure how authentic it is though lol. Plus if I remember the photo he got a regular date just, not a GMT/daytona or a precious metal president.

I read in one of those airplane magazines on Cathay Pacific a few years back while flying to HK that HK alone buys 65% of all the luxury watches sold in the whole world. This was like.. 2017? But even back then that's pretty nuts.

[EvoFire]

Originally Posted by noclue

You will gasp if you go to HK and see average joes from all walks of life with a rolex. Not sure how authentic it is though lol. Plus if I remember the photo he got a regular date just, not a GMT/daytona or a precious metal president.

We call those Super A products

[hc529]

Originally Posted by dark0821

To be honest, it is "hard" and "easy" at the same time. I have RS Translink GURUs at my disposal which I harassed them daily for like hours on end and be like.. what is this... how is that.... WTF do i do here.... how are the exams appointed... what are they looking for lololol

SUPER DUPER LONG READ (I cant write concise, lolol sorry guys, but I think its interesting)


****it is a long ass process to get hired though.... I guess it is the same for all public sectos....


1. I havn't been back to school for like 2 decades (but the amount of reading expected of you is absurd) (of course I didn't read the material, I uploaded the pdfs to various AIs and read summaries) and even then its a solid 45min to 60min of reading every single day (there is an online quiz every day, you have to keep up 80%)
- legit have somone fail on this part... which was... but I understand, some students kepts a second job during training which was crazy to me

2. written exams (mid term and final) to maintain 80% as well, you get a 2nd chance to take one big final exam if you fucked up the midterm + final
- one of our student did that as well... and honestly not his fault, English was like his 3rd language.... and the multiple choice answers are tricky (as in even if you knew the answer, they word it in a way where even I have to read it 5Xs over and be like... ahhh ok!)

3. driving in general... this is the "easy" or "hard" part... You are expected to 100% make mistakes, and LOTS of mistakes at that... they just want to see how you react to your mistakes.... there are A LOT OF POLICY AND PROCEDURES that are there to protect you, your passengers and other road users in a SAFETY FIRST manner. when you fuck up... and lemme tell you, during training i fucked up.... they want to see that you can
remaing calm. deep breath
do the proper PROCEDURES in the correct order to resolve the mistake
- this part of the program is also based on "lucK", you can have bright sunny days, with calm traffic, courtes drivers and easy going passengers, you can have a very "smooth" day... or you can have drivers trying to cut you off, pull out of parking without seeing you coming up to them at full speed (which I hate the most, you stomp on brake, you might send passengers flying and injure them) you lay on your horn, the car might freeze up and just cont to occupy the space which now you bus is gonna occupy in the next 2 seconds... yes they teach you defensive driving (which shameless plug here, it overlays the PRS class 6 motorcycle school pretty extensively) helped me alot since I already practice a lot of these things for the past few years), but yea, if you are unlucky, from what I heard from classmates, the "incidents" that occured which we are told "so and so" are no longer with the program, half of it is how they handled it once it happened, but also a portion of it being "lucky" it just so happens to happed to them in the first place

4. Road test... road test is easy, just like every other road test bascially the jest of it is "dont do stupid shit"... the only unconventional part of the road test is before driving, you are given 45 minutes to articulate your "pre-trip", ie checking the commercial vehicle over to make sure it is road worthy before putting the vehicle on public road. You are required to do this daily if you are the first driver of the bus brining the vehicle out of the yard. You need to tell your examiner during the test, ofc when you do it yourself in the future, you don't need to speak, but do make sure you still check. Because if the bus fucks up during your shift and it was something that should "have been found during your pre-trip".... get fucked...

5. Trolley... this is the part where alot of students gets fucked (I almost did as well, I just got lucky tbh).... so you are driving this large vehicle for probably about 20 hours in total (unlike other vehicles, you "cant" practice at home, so the 1 to 2 hours everyday is all you get). You are trying to keep your bus straight (even on the Oak/Granville skinny lanes), not to have poles wipe out your mirrors, look for other road users, traffic lights, bus stops, pedestrains, e-scooters, e-bikes, etc etc)... now you gotta look up at the wires in the sky... the trolley wires are from 1940's, they are "NOT" automated, there is a switch inside of the bus that you must control during "switches", and the switches are very sensitive to the angle/speed which your bus approaches them... for the longest time I can't do it, my eyes are so busy doing everything else (especially in downtown where there are a million delivery "silent" e scooters and bikers that likes to get in a few inches of your stupid bus) I just dont have the time to look up.. and sometimes the wires blends into the tree shadows... etc etc....
-we lost the bulk of our students here

6. Final evaluation drive on a trolley.... once again this comes down to luck... i got extremely lucky, in all the test routes, i got the easiest.... #41 bus.... its a straight line from Joyce to Crown and back... no routes to remember, just a few switches near the major intersections that I need to be careful of, nice wide lanes, nothing to "squeeze thru"... some of my classmates got the effed up routes with a million turns... or the nightmare.... a million turns in downtown that goes into DTES (nothing against DTES, but once again just one more factor that you can't control, they like to "hang out" on the street, and cross the road with 0 regards of what around them) etc etc.....

***oh and yes what dukes said, be humble, you are there to learn, once again they expect you to make mistakes, lots of them, as long as they are not super repeated, and you improve everytime you make the "same mistakes", if there are progress you are good, unless it is a blant dangerous action like running cyclist off the road or going thru a red light //// and yea.. the last thing you want is to start some shit with your instructor, they have a huge wait list of applicants, they are not here to cater to you, one of our classmates comes from a class 1 big rig background, not going into details, he argued that he has more "hours" driving large vehicles than the intructors, got into a heated argument and was escorted out the building and we never saw him ever again //// it could be down to personality, but I jivved with every instructor, all of them are easy going, thats why they are in the training department, if you dont bring an ego in, you will have a good time like I did //// did I think every note on my daily assesment is "fair", mayyyybbeee someone are a bit over critical, but I am not gonna start making excuses and defend myself /// let it go /// as long as it doesnt affect my graduation who gives a f


Now the real test starts.... probation is about 5 months, union basically told us, they are pretty much powerless to help us during probabtion, so dont fuck up.... once you pass probation, then the Union can fight for you going forward... so... wish me luck guys!!!!

I will bring the good new after Spring Break lololol

Fucking RS gurus. GTFO. i lost so much sleeping helping your damn ass do your homework. LOL but congrats. welcome to the slavery! TypeRnammer and I are still waiting for our Daimanya meal!

[Badhobz]

pathetic ! DESTROY HIM NAO !!!!

[hc529]

Originally Posted by Badhobz

pathetic ! DESTROY HIM NAO !!!!

He's getting destroyed by the system alone. HAHAHAHAH
He thought he can ride this career on a cushion to retirement. LOLOL

But during training, dude was stressed out as fkkk.

Jacky I'm just joking. You're doing good! Go kick some DTES Ass and be the best transit operator!

I got the fk out of Vancouver Transit Center asap from graduation. Aint no joke when it comes to the DTES shit. I unfortunately got forced back to VTC for 1 year, but thankgoodness i was a little more senior and I signed something called the Holiday Block (so i cover 1 week at a time) and I managed to sign work that avoids DTES

Now I'm just driving out of Poco Transit Centre. Cushion work for sure!

[SSM_DC5]

^ Samsung wasn't doing it for you?

[TypeRNammer]

Originally Posted by hc529

Fucking RS gurus. GTFO. i lost so much sleeping helping your damn ass do your homework. LOL but congrats. welcome to the slavery! TypeRnammer and I are still waiting for our Daimanya meal!

Legendary response after years of not logging in RS

[hc529]

Originally Posted by SSM_DC5

^ Samsung wasn't doing it for you?

Holy shittt... That's like ancient times... 🤣 2017? 🤣 So long ago bruhh. Found out my manager at that time (which was my ex's cousin) has a sexual harassment case going on against him.by 3 female employee . So I said fuck it and left. 🤣

Originally Posted by TypeRNammer

Legendary response after years of not logging in RS

LMAO! Seriously I've been mostly lurking on and off maybe once or twice a year. And then saw this post. I had to fking reply. The amount of help Dark asked for was ridiculous 🤣 felt like TypeRnammer and myself did the training ourselves instead.

[Badhobz]

Originally Posted by hc529

The amount of help Dark asked for was ridiculous 🤣 felt like TypeRnammer and myself did the training ourselves instead.

FINISH HIM !!!!!!!!!