Charter Story

I drove a bus for one person.

I showed up to drive this charter I had signed up for and, lo and behold, there was no record that I had signed up, and another driver was present and ready to work. So we had to fight it out to the death by the diesel pumps, and I won. (Actually, we were told that one of us could stay and drive it and get paid two hours, and the other could go home and get paid two hours anyway. So did I really win?)

The instructions for the charter involved four buses starting at a local hotel, sitting there for 30 minutes, and then taking the group somewhere else in town. Perhaps it's wasteful to have a bunch of buses idling for half an hour, but we do as we're told. When the people started coming out, I headed to my bus to crank the heat back up. It seemed to be running awfully smoothly, I thought, then realized that the bus was not, in fact, running. This is not a fuel-saving feature; apparently this bus just shuts off sometimes.

I got it going again and waited for passengers. They were loading the buses from last to first, since the last bus was closest to the building they were coming from. I was the first bus. Finally, the contact person for the event came up to my doors. I was guessing she'd ask me to wait for stragglers or tell me my bus wasn't needed.

"It looks like I might have my own bus!" she said.

Seriously?

Off we went, four buses with 34 seats each, mine with 33 empty. I drive because I like it, so it wasn't really a problem, but it just seemed a little silly. I hope she enjoyed having a few minutes away from her group to get some phone calls made.

So in the end, there were two drivers, each getting paid for two hours, to serve one person. In terms of passengers per hour, this one ranks right up there with the time I drove for a football game that involved sitting on the bus during the whole game and carrying a total of three passengers after it ended.