Archived Letter - 1473

Its the most wonderful time of the year, as the TV commercial goes when its back to school time for the kids.But not for me.I am a schoolbus driver and proudly drove for my company for 15 years. looked forward to Tuesday after Labourday weekend to see all my kids again.Console the ones starting highschool for the first time all nervous and scared stiff. Loved seeing the new kindergardeners and their teary eyed(or happy) moms with cameras waiting at the end of the driveway, and seeing the awesome team of people I work with and work for once again ready to get r done. Is what we do, schoolbus driving gets in your blood.We lost all of our remaining schoolboard runs in the latest bidding war and all we have left is some private school runs and hopefully charters.Once again we have to go our separate ways, there isnt enough work here for all of us. Our Guelph base which is normally packed full of buses is looking empty, most of our buses drove out of the driveway for the last time this summer. No longer needed here. Not looking too prosperous.We took a devastating blow in 2009 when this RFP(bidding) process was first introduced, loosing well over half of our runs in Wellington/Dufferin county. We picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves off and carried on the best we could.But this one is too hard for me to take. Its knocked the wind out of my sails and the fun is completely out of it for me thanks to Wellington-Dufferin student transportation services, the consortium who created this monster. Dont be surprised if you find yourselves desperately low on drivers come Sept. the 4th because many fellow drivers feel the same way I do, I will quit before I drive for a different company. If it aint broke, dont fix it just for the sake of trying to save a buck cause Im pretty sure you wont anyway. The RFP process didnt go well back in 2009, why would it be any better this time? Once again youve turned the lives of many people upside down. There should be a law against this.

Cora Royce