Next Stop, Employment: Eight Recommended Requirements for a Job at RTD

Calling all would-be Ralph Kramdens: RTD is on a hiring binge. Again.

Back in 2016, RTD was desperate enough for operators and mechanics that it was offering signing bonuses of up to $2,000. Seven years later, that offer has doubled: Successful applicants for what RTD is calling “key frontline positions, including operators and mechanics” will receive a hiring bonus of $4K. (The bus-driving Ralph of Honeymooners fame would salivate at such a pile of cash; the bonus is about double what his annual salary would have been in the mid-1950s.)

At the end of August, RTD reported that it had 181 vacancies out of 952 budgeted bus operator positions — a vacancy rate of nearly 20 percent. To attract potential applicants for those and other jobs, RTD is hosting a two-day career fair where would-be employees can speak with current and working bus operators, managers, supervisors and other employees. Applications will be accepted on site.

Chris Deines, RTD general superintendent of transportation, notes that "RTD provides competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits, and training allowances and programs to help employees grow in their careers. Working here allows individuals to connect with customers, serve the communities throughout the Denver metro region, and benefit from being a member of an agency that invests in and cares about its people.”

RTD bus operators make almost $25 an hour to start, and no experience is necessary. But what kind of experience might prepare you for this job is another story. Here’s a short list of desirable qualities:

No Hint of Road Rage
Having just taken the 43 bus to the Auraria Campus at 5 p.m. Thursday, I can attest that a bus operator has to have the patience of a fucking saint. Wait, scratch that. Not even saints would have put up with the behavior of the automobile drivers cutting in front of the bus, paying no attention to that “YIELD WHEN FLASHING — IT’S THE LAW” light that helps a bus into a new lane. What should have been a fifteen-minute trip took over an hour, in traffic that would have made Mother Teresa flip someone the bird. And aside from some heavy sighing, I didn’t hear one complaint from the driver — not one insult, not one cross word. That’s patience worthy of a $4K thumbs-up.

A Working Knowledge of Denver's Messed-Up Street Map
Why are downtown streets situated on a diagonal from the cardinal directions, unlike most of the rest of the city surrounding it? Because they were laid out to run parallel with Cherry Creek and the South Platte back in the 1850s. Over a century and a half later, they make drives more complicated than they need to be and confuse the hell out of Denver visitors — who have to have that 17th Avenue/17th Street thing explained to them, often by beleaguered bus drivers.

A Working Knowledge of Denver's Messed-Up Streets
Easy enough to explain why Denver was designed the way it was while you look at a map. Explaining the messed-up conditions of the streets of Denver right now, with construction seemingly on every corner? That's impossible. And so is navigating not just downtown, but Broadway and a number of other major thoroughfares these days.

People Person!
When Chris Deines says that being a bus operator “allows individuals to connect with customers,” he’s not kidding. As a driver, you will connect and connect and connect, even with customers with whom you'd rather not connect because in that specific moment of their life, they’re very high, not in their right mind, belligerent, irrational, grouchy or incomprehensible. Possibly all of the above.

Problem-Solving
You might think you only need to help the occasional confused passenger get to a specific part of town, but there are many more problems to solve. Bus drivers get asked all sorts of things, as though they’re a movable Information Desk for the City of Denver. Which they’re not, not officially, but it helps if you don’t mind being a mobile 311 once in a while. One night last year, I was heading home after a long day at work when someone asked what stop they should get off to go see a movie at the Pavilions. Then they asked if the driver knew what was playing, and when. And the driver looked it up for him on his phone. My response would have been: “Hey, buddy, I just drive the bus.” But that’s one of many reasons I’m not a bus driver.

Not Having a Sensitive Nose
If you’re a parent, you’ve probably been on road trips with the whole family when there comes an odor from the back seat that makes you want to crack a window and pray for the sweet release of death. Multiply that by a couple of dozen people, and magnify it over again because these are not people to whom you are related. One of the best parts of having COVID is that with the loss of smell, you save a lot not buying scented candles and you can drive a bus without having your olfactory offended on the daily.

Bad Weather? Bonus.
In Denver, bad weather means snow, and while sure, it’s a pain to get a big ol’ bus around in a blizzard, there are also a lot fewer people out on the streets both in terms of traffic and potential passengers. You’ll still be working, but it’ll be warm and quiet there at the wheel, toddling around a winter wonderland of Denver with cocoa in a thermos and a song in your heart. Possibly a Christmas tune. Honestly, if I were driving a bus, I’d play carols year-round, as both an invitation for jolliness and possibly an impetus for passengers to disembark at their earliest convenience. Another reason I don’t drive a bus, and shouldn’t be allowed to do so.

An Unwavering Faith in Humanity
And we mean absolutely unwavering. As in nothing can shake your belief that people are good at their core. Despite any and all evidence to the contrary, as often as you might witness bad behavior on the bus and in the world around you, if you can whistle as you drive past the occasional graveyard of human dignity? Being a bus driver might be for you.

RTD's career fair will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, October 2, and Tuesday, October 3, at 3333 Ringsby Court. Find more information on the RTD website.