bus driver

cleaner

fitter

electrician

apprentice mechanic

Go-North-East

A typical day at work begins with checking vehicle over making sure its fit for service on a morning. Drive your bus, have your break, drive again and go home. 

Passengers are hard work and almost every motorist on the road has a chip on their shoulder. 

Management are open and helpful. They have changed with the times so communication are in the 21st century by using Facebook and Blink. I personally find at my depot that they will listen and try to make positive changes but have to go with current customer demands. 

Workplace culture is good. Deptford has some great characters working there and more often than not, you look forward to spending time with colleagues on your breaks. Across the company though, job opportunities in my opinion are "if your face fits" policy.

The hardest part of the job is passengers. Because people are working from home or just not venturing out, it means there is less demand for busses to run. It then has a direct impact on the services that the company can run. Now because services are being reviewed/not running because of this (and driver shortages) people are turning their frustrations to drivers - although you are advised to ignore, it becomes difficult when people become irate and begin to abuse you.

Work/life balance is not great, especially for weekends. Different depots have a variety of different rotas which include full time 5-day week, 4-day week (longer shifts 10.30+ hrs), split shifts (weekends off), night-shift and part time. You can expect to work up to 5 out of 6 weekends before you get one off depending on the rota you get onto. Rotas are being "looked at" to try and improve this though.

- free bus and metro travel for you and heavily discounted bus pass for the family
- full sick pay for 6 month
- extra weeks holiday 
- holiday pay
- job security
- smart uniform
- regular overtime

It's an honest job that pays weekly. 







The interview process was easy and fast, with a job being offered immediately. 

Driver training was chaotic and disorganized. In passing my driving tests and getting my full license I went to PM depot. The depot gives a few weeks of mentor training to route learn and learn to use the ticket machine. Then you are driving alone and left with little to no support. I was given no training on several existing routes and I now have to learn these routes by myself with no support/mentoring given. The management team, specifically at PM depot, are unsupportive to new starters and can be rude/argumentative with their staff, this may be due to the fact they have no experience of working as bus drivers so they do not comprehend the pressures of the role. New routes are added with management paying staff to go route learning once, then being put on the road alone. The route of the bus is hugely important but management give little to no training and expect low paid staff to drive the route flawlessly. One week of early starts 3.45am/5am is followed by a week of late finishes midnight/1am, there is no consistency or question of preferred working times. 

New starters are paid a lower rate for 12 months (approx £2 per hour less). After 12 months the rate of pay is still not very good considering the responsibility for passengers/other road users safety and awful working times. Anti-social hours are the norm for new drivers. No sick pay is given above SSP. 

Actually driving on learned routes is enjoyable and the public are mostly nice and easy to work with. 

Shifts were horrendous, finish at 23:55 on a Saturday and be back in Sunday at 09:00, legal so they do it. Passengers treat you like something they'd wipe off their shoes and the kids were even worse. Had windows bricked and the depot tells you to keep going. Bus runs late and that's your fault and the depot gets snotty if you ask for your clocking off time. Fares go up, drivers fault. Bus in front of yours never turned up, drivers fault. Bus is dirty, drivers fault. Can't get five push chairs and a wheelchair on, drivers fault. Pay was awful with overtime about £1 an hour more than normal rate. Any pay negotiations you're fighting for 1-2% over two years. Union rarely backed the drivers up, just in the job for their own benefit. Most of the managers had probably never been on a bus let alone driven one but are quite happy to tell you how to do it. Staff turnover is high because the company doesn't care about you, you're just a number, they have no interest in staff retention hence the reason they're constantly hiring. More depot closures mean the drivers they can keep have to travel further to work, so you're either leaving home even earlier to drive in or hope the staff bus picks you up. I'd want £50,000 a year to put up with the grief you get on the buses.

Too much responsibility is placed on one person therefore creating a very stressful environment to work in. There is a lot of pressure being put on one person to be as they say a professional driver we are expected to concentrate on our work while being harrassed by the public be a councellor to the public keep to time limits and be screamed at by the public if there has been road works which is out of the drivers control but they shout at us because we are the first person they see. We as the driver have to sit there and be abused if we say just the slightest thing even apologise the customer complains stating we have said words that were never spoken then the driver gets hauled in and gains warnings for things that have not occured.We are expected to know where the 54 has been when all the driver is in charge of is the 32 for 4hrs if we don't know the information we are abused the customer has no idea how a bus company works and makes the bus drivers life extremely hard.

Sign on at depot then given 10 minutes to check over vehicle including coolant and windscreen washer , this is not nearly enough time and that is why i have to come in about 15 mins early to be able to do it  safely. . Once starting on route again not enough time given to do your route , I could be on the bus for up to 5 and half hours at a time with very few times to actually get out of your seat to stretch your legs , go to the toilet or drink some water there is seldom any time to even think its just relentless. Are  you getting the picture yet? not enough time to do your job, very very stressful job.     

It's not as good as people make it out to be but a job is a job pay is rubbish  as we don't get payed enough for what we do every day and what we deal with on day-to-day basis we deserve alot more than we get. You can't be off work ill as you will get pulled in for it and face punishment you can't choose your holidays as they plan when you take your holidays within that year busses keep breaking down. Everyone's got different options, the best thing to do is experiencee it for yourself, and then judge. But once you've experienced it and turns out it's not for you remember your bound to a contract if you leave the company within a certain time frame you pay all your training fee costs back to company for your training.

This job has absolutely no work-life balance. 
Shifts are all over the place with no real routine. 
Some shifts are placed with less than 10 hours between shifts. 
The buses break down on a very regular basis making it harder to complete a full route most days and have to deal with face to face complaints from customers on a daily basis. 
Driving hours and routes are not the best. 
Holiday is extremely difficult to take as you are put in specific blocks and if you don’t take your holiday in your block you don’t get it at all or you are forced to take it. 
You need to book time off minimum 3 weeks in advance as they will not accept anything last minute or emergency paid leave etc. AVOID AVOID AVOID!!!

Was sold a dream which became a nightmare.
The elite training fantastic can’t fault it, but once you pass your test it down hill from there.
You just become a number.
Buses brake brown every other day.
No support  from curtain O/S.m, just verbal abuse.
Abuse from passengers aswell.
Management have attitude.
Very stressful as day to day problems don’t account into your times which make you late.
Poor facility's for staff.
When you leave they find away to take your last wage from you and then your in dept with a PVC licence that’s going take years to pay back.
I could go on but management just delete any truthful messages if they don’t like what they read and putting heads in the sand.
 SO STAY CLEAR 

Management is hopeless and seems far more concerned about passengers than supporting its drivers. Drivers are given very little room for mistakes, and any issues are usually blamed on them. The management culture is poor, and I would not recommend joining this company.

Many of the managers are much younger than the drivers and appear to have little understanding of the challenges and experiences that come with working in the role. It can be frustrating when a 25-year-old manager with limited practical experience is telling long-serving drivers how to do their job.

Overall, it is a disappointing environment to work in, and the lack of support from management makes it an unhealthy workplace.

The job itself would be perfect, if only you didn’t have to take out vehicles that are unfit for purpose and you are waiting to break down every day. The purpose of the management is to blame drivers for everything and seize any opportunity to drive you out of the business without any support. They do not promote a positive environment where feedback is a gift and two way. They hide behind policies that are outdated, (typically 2010) and not relevant to the state that the business is in. The recruitment process is polished and impressive, but far disconnected to the reality of when you do the actual job and you’re on your own! 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Bus driver 22 salaries reported	£14.13 per hour
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Fitter 7 salaries reported	£15.97 per hour
Electrician 1 salary reported	£21.97 per hour
Apprentice mechanic 9 salaries reported	£183 per week

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