The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a

Bus Driver

Oh, hi--you the guy who wants to drive bus? I expect your future is going to be fairly easy to figure out.

First of all, you'll need to go get the certificates and licenses you need--air brakes and more--so you'll probably end up driving truck for a year or two before you get hired by a limousine service. That gig will put you in a wide variety of vehicles--the stretch limo, and it's uglier cousin, the stretch SUV, where every grad ceremony or 16th birthday provides you once again with a reminder that human vomit has a stench that is hard to get out of upholtery. You also learn that while the limo company might want to have you keep an eye on the antics of your young charges, glancing at the monitor (the privacy window only blocks your rear view mirror--little do they know that closing it activates a hidden camera back in the passenger area) destroys a little piece of your soul each time you look.

You'll have to take some of those unwieldy machines home for the night after some of your jobs; everyone in your neighborhood will soon hate you for the times you block their driveways or your wide turns chew up their front lawns. Worse even than the pimp service you provide libidinous adolescents is the personal chauffeur duty you sometimes are assigned for various low level celebrities and music stars who inevitably make you wait for them for hours outside some trendy underground nightclub which also happens to be in the worse neighborhood in town--areas where the locals believe that the dude in the uniform in the big limo has to be worth mugging.

Eventually you pull the airport limo gig, and there you learn the truly cutthroat nature of your colleagues driving cabs and other minibuses. You also learn the hard way that the "generous" tips you receive from a variety of foreigners translate to pennies in real money when you visit the currency exchange.

After that, you'll think you've found a better job when you score the local seniors' shuttle--a bus shared by a variety of care homes to ferry their nearly-deads to all manner of painfully dull entertainment. At the end you can nearly always look forward yet another trip to the local IHOP where you learn to despise all manner of waffles and crepes. Still, there's always that box of stale chocolates to look forward to each Christmas.

Finally you manage to break into the city bus line. It's union wages and an easily-memorizable route for you. Unfortunately, as junior man, you'll get the midnight ghetto run, and likely you'll be on anxiety meds within six months, and on stress leave within a year. Of course, maybe it won't bother you--at least that way you'll be happy until the end sneaks up on you at the business end of .45.

Whatever you do, don't drive school bus. My brother did that for a bit, and let's just say, you don't want to be the guy going back to beat on a 12 year old shown on the surveillance video sent round the world...