*The level of sexism in this place. You have to have a very thick skin to survive as a woman bus driver there. Criticised for choosing a childfree lifestyle, for not having a partner, told women should not be driving buses, told that women are incompetent workers compared to men and should be home with children, yet the company can't understand why women don't want to drive buses or work for Transdev? Cognitive dissonance was what got me through the day.
*I actually wasn't told until very late in the recruitment process that I was a part of the first ever all women's recruitment drive. This type of attention definitely impacted my time there as male colleagues thought I was only there because of this program and not because I earned my right to be there (undertaking extensive driver training and having years of customer service experience)
*A lot of virtue signalling through Transdev and the Department of Transport but no action on facilitating a safe, happy and flexible work environment for women
*Inadequate sanitary facilities on the road. Most of the time, there were no sanitary bins and you had to carry stinking pads and tampons with you until you could get back to the depot. You are using filthy public toilets that stink to high heaven and are so unsanitary. On the rare occassion that a driver specific toilet is provided, you are sharing it with men who pee on the seat and floor, and have zero concept of hygiene and cleanliness. Cleaners don't visit these locations regularly enough so it's not unusual to be out of toilet paper or paper towel on top of having other sanitary issues. Not many loo brushes around either.
*Certain expectations around driving were not made clear to me during training (prime example: PTV doesn't pay bus provider as much if the bus is more than 5 minutes late to a timing point). Just told that if I was late to "not worry about it" and call operations if over 10 minutes late. Never knew this until 4 months in and I think this impacted my performance tremendously and was a big reason why I was let go.
*Faulty geomapping meant that I was criticised by management for leaving timing points early when that was not the case
*Some timing points were unsafe or not suitable to stop at as they blocked traffic or increased the likelihood of accidents, so yes, I did have to leave some timing points early due to this fact and got criticised for it
*Lack of ongoing training. Forced by staff to take routes I had only done once or never at all, but management saying not to do it, which is a saying only not a practice they stand behind. When approaching management, they would say "look up the left and rights in the book" (the turns in the route). Yelled at for refusing to take these routes by management, but the one time that I took one (at the dead of night through a rural area), I made a wrong turn. Guess who got in trouble?
*Rude comments made about gay employees to me that were unnecessary and derogatory. Someone's sexuality should not be a talking point or criticised.
*Being one of 5 female drivers out of 200 drivers at the depot was a very strange experience in general. Felt like an outsider due to this and for also being quite young compared to most of my colleagues.
*Carpark for buses and cars were both terrible. Lack of drainage meant the ground was flooded whenever it rained. Back car park for cars was a sludgy mess when it rained.
*Terrible work life balance as a new starter (relief driver). No set hours (even though I was employed full time) - You can be doing split shifts and straight shifts in the same week. You can be doing night shifts one week and early shifts the next. You cannot plan any appointments or schedule your life at all. Sometimes shifts were not scheduled at all and I was contacted one hour before the start of one on the same day, or I'd have to chase up my own shifts only to be told I should have started 2 hours ago. Treated like a casual employee not a full time one. My sleep suffered and my anxiety rose during these times.
*Old buses that should really be retired are still in the fleet (leaking roofs, no adequate demisting, no adequate air con or heating, poor acceleration and braking, GPS tracking not working so had to rely on paper sheets for routes and timing points, terrible turning wheels). Management tell you to DVR the bus (defective vehicle report it - tell fleet maintenance what is wrong with bus), but most of the time, it cannot be fixed.
*I was set up with a female trainer who had never trained a driver before. I was also a brand new heavy vehicle driver who had just completed a 10 day course. There was a minor tailswing collision between my bus and a tree which chipped some paint due to the fact that it was dark and raining heavily (my first time driving in this condition) within my first week. My trainer treated me very differently going forward (like she hated me). She refused to have any friendly non work conversations with me, overmanaged me, criticised every minor thing, expected me to drive ridiculously lower than the posted speed limit. Asked other drivers about this and they said that this was not normal training behaviour and driving at such a low speed is incredibly dangerous and can lead to road rage from car drivers (which did happen to me). My buses after that day were also very late and it caused a lot of customer annoyance. As a probationary driver with the company, I felt very uncomfortable saying anything about this to management due to a fear of losing my job. Luckily, I had an extra week with a male trainer by the name of Lou and he is the nicest guy! That was meant to be my punishment, but it was the best week of working there! I learned a lot from him :)
*You are dealing with the public, so you can be in contact with drunk and drug affected people. I had a guy scream on and off for 30 minutes on one of my routes one day. You definitely need a high level of patience, tolerance and focus to do this role.
*My firing was the most heartless, cold and calculated one I've ever experienced. Five months into a six month probation. No real reasons given. Tried to go through the TWU union to get further info. Transdev wouldn't disclose anything else (probably to avoid Fair Work dispute). I had worked a split shift that day (worked in the morning and came back in the afternoon for my 2nd half to then be told I was fired). Why do that? Why make me drive a 1 hour round trip again just to hear I'm fired? There was zero urgency required around my firing (no serious misconduct or anything like that), so why be so heartless and cruel?
*Not a criticism of the company per se, but there should be a bus lane 24/7 on Hoddle St (between Johnston St and Eastern Fwy off ramp) and the other side of the road should be a bus lane 24/7 too. Safer merging for the 246 going back to Clifton Hill needs to implemented too. The amount of near misses I had with cars being irresponsible with not allowing buses to merge there was a joke.
*This is also not a company specific problem, but a Department of Transport problem: Lack of layover spots or other bus companies taking over layover spots (Dysons and tour bus companies are notorious for this). Even trucks and cars did it to us. The amount of times I just had to keep driving my bus around on break times or between runs was a joke. DOT and the Police really need to monitor these places.
