Speaker 1: 0:14

What's up everybody and welcome back to the Rock Bottom Podcast. I'm your host, your therapist, your chaos navigator, your unpaid school district investigator, dj ESG, and today I have the stories of all stories for you. I know I say this a lot, but this one right here, this is the one. It's not just a story, it's a saga, a cautionary tale, a behind the scenes documentary If the documentary was shot entirely on a flip phone in a broom closet and edited by raccoons. I've been sitting on this one for six months because I needed that long to emotionally recover. I tried to do this seriously because you know it's for the kids, but it's impossible to be serious when you're living inside a sitcom directed by the DMV and written by your angriest middle school teacher. So let me tell you about the time I almost became a school bus driver.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Starts with these mystery text messages and I'm talking ghost text from random numbers in the Midwest no names, no intros, just stuff like want to be a bus driver, come in for an interview, bring four friends, four fucking friends. All right, I'm there. Like what? Is this an mlm for school buses? Are we selling avon or transporting children? I get at least seven different people messaging me. Nobody knows who's in charge. It's like they gave a burner phone to every poor teenager in nebraska and told them to start hiring people. They didn't tell me who to talk to. No names, no times. Just come in whenever, like it's a cookout not a job interview.

Speaker 1: 1:38

So I finally go in and I'm like let me just see what this is all about. And I walk in and it's like stepping into a fucking time warp. There's paperwork everywhere like piles and piles of it. Like these people have been printing emails since 1996 and just never stopped. I thought I was walking into the archives of the library of congress. There's a sweet old lady at the front who greets me with the energy of someone who's been asking for help for eight years and she's like just sit down over here, someone will be with you shortly. I offered to help clean. I mean it looked like a hurricane filing cabinet just tore through the room. I mean she declined respectively, but barely Now. Because there aren't enough computers. They hand out some old people like ThinkPads with the red nipple mouse in the middle and the rest get like paperwork, literal carbon copy paper, like we're applying for jobs in the Cold War bunker.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Next thing I know I'm told to go to a doctor's office in Oxford Valley and I'm like, can I just go to my own doctor? Nope, we have a contract, of course. Of course you do. So I roll up to this random medical office that's packed like. There's one girl at the front desk. She looks like she's five seconds away from filing a lawsuit against time itself. And the tests, I kid you, not eye exam, they stared at me, that's it. Blood pressure boop done, blood work, poke bye. It took like 10 minutes and cost me three hours of my life. So I'm just like fuck this, I'm not waiting any longer, I'm going home.

Speaker 1: 3:02

So a month later, same ad is back up, but this time they're desperate, like they're texting me with bonuses Come back $500, sign on Free unicorn, bring more friends Please. It's like a fucking idiot. I go back. Same mess, same paper explosion. Same mess, same paper explosion. Same three office ladies who now look like they've gone through three divorces and a tax audit since I last saw them. They hand me more paperwork and I go through the same song and dance again.

Speaker 1: 3:26

So now we get to training and I walk in with these big, bright yellow shoes trying to match the bus. You know, show some spirit. I walk through the back door and instantly get punched in the face by the smell of boiled fucking sadness. The bathroom hasn't been updated since the Kennedy assassination. The break room looks like a scene from the Walking Dead and everything is coated in a mysterious dust film that I'm convinced could legally be classified as a new organism.

Speaker 1: 3:51

The training room All right, one window, ac unit, zero airflow, six sweaty people packed in a tiny wood-paned box. It looks like it's assembled by a blind intern with a glue gun. Now we're watching outdated videos and the trainer standing there going ignore that. We don't do that anymore. That's from a different state, that's 12 years old. Why the fuck are we watching it then? And then a random other trainer comes in and goes oh yeah, we had a guy get fired for showing up drunk, hitting cars and trying to leave with the bus.

Speaker 1: 4:21

What On day two Fun fact. So let me tell you who's in this class with me. Alright, there's one guy literally limping with a sock up to his knee that needs like an ankle replacement. There's another short guy just talking about sitting on phone books to see over the wheel. There's another guy outside who's sleeping in his car between shifts because the job doesn't pay enough. There's a lady outside crying, nobody knows why, and someone else is trying to sell me drugs and he just took a drug test and this looks like fucking Pauly D shit ass cousin from I don't know Staten Island.

Speaker 1: 4:57

And the other half of the trainers, uh, are being held together like knee braces and caffeine, except for like this one guy who's just like he used to be in the military. I mean, this dude has more energy than fucking pico, right. So now I'm behind the wheel training the guy training me. Nicest dude in the world. I think you just moved to florida, you know. But like, everything else about this is just fucked up, right.

Speaker 1: 5:22

So we get in the bus. The seat doesn't move, mirror is broken, window doesn't work, the check for kids button it's dead. I say, shouldn't this bus be, you know, not in service? He goes, yeah, we're supposed to be getting new ones from like the carolinas. I'm like, well, it doesn't fix the problem we're in right now. We're driving kids around and rolling lawsuits. So, like, I'm filming a checklist for myself, right, just, you know, for learning and for learning. And my trainer even tells me so do it, mic it up, filmed, Edited, I share it with the other guys so they can study too. You know why not? Let's go.

Speaker 1: 5:50

So next thing, I know I get called into the boardroom of doom. Right, there's a guy in there, nice guy, gm. He's just. You know, that's the shirt between neo, small and medium, remember the outsiders. And uh, days are confused, like the one where you take, like the cigarette pack of marlboros and roll it up in the arm and there's a woman that runs the entire operation but gets no credit. You know that, like that woman. So they sit me down along with this other dude and, um, you know he's drilling me. Like, oh, you're putting a shit on youtube. For I'm wait what your trainer told me. I'm allowed to film it. I put it on YouTube to share it with other people.

Speaker 1: 6:29

So I didn't answer him right away because he was drilling me and I'm like dude, you need to calm down. And now you're telling me that I should have asked you first in case the training wasn't accurate. I'm like, excuse me, if your trainer's training isn't accurate, then why the fuck is he training me? That's what I realized. I'm in the fucking twilight zone, like I left the meeting and never went back. He goes this doesn't work for me, you're fired. And I'm like I'm wait, stop, I'm fired because your trainer. Okay, forget it, I'm done, you know. But since then I've gotten like 15 more texts asking me to come back. Bring a friend, friend, we need drivers, we'll pay you, no thanks. And I got one the other day. They want to be a bus driver.

Speaker 1: 7:10

But here's the truth. This place is a hot disaster, tucked away in one of the nicest towns in Bucks County. The building is crumbling, the equipment is broken, the morale is nonexistent, the superintendent of the township total clown, pretending students first always is a motto, while letting this transportation system take a shit. He knows what's happening. He just looks the other way and hopes nothing explodes. Fucking bullhead to prick.

Speaker 1: 7:34

Meanwhile you have overworked people, bad equipment, broken air brakes, busted mirrors, exhausted drivers praying not to fall asleep behind the wheel. And you want to fix this problem? Here's the wheel. And like you want to fix this problem, like, here's the plan, give these people amenities TVs, ac, internet, like the firehouse down the street Firehouse 73 got beautiful. Go down there and take a look. Pay these people like they're driving the most precious cargo. They are your fucking kids. Replace these paper mountains with actual, like digital systems. Fix the buses no heat, no AC, no brakes. Come on and maybe, just maybe, you'll attract good drivers who actually want to be there. Until then, good luck, cause this ain't it. I'm DJ ESG. Peace, love God above. Fix your buses, fix your people. Tell the superintendent to suck my ass. Stop texting me and I'm fucking. That's.