Locked inside a depressing Greyhound depot

[Dion]

Originally Posted by keratosis

What "celebrities" took the hound?

He picked up the 1986 Canadiens from the airport and transported them to their hotel during the Cup Finals. The coach Jean Perron made all his players sign a stick for my friend.

The other one was transporting Ice T and his group to a celebrity event in Banff. He then had to wait until the event was over and then transport them back to Calgary and their Hotel.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by Locke

Oh you worked at that one? My first office was just across the Avenue on Manilla Road.

But as for the Hound, man...we had to load and unload the Courier Vans and that was a trip.

Greyhound bought this vastly complicated machine of rollers and conveyor belts so that the Courier Drivers could just back in, we Lane guys could unload the freight onto the conveyor, it would then be moved to an area where other Lane guys could sort it and then be moved to the lane where it would be loaded on a Bus.

Sounds great? Right? Nice and complicated.

That POS never worked. The Boss always bragged about how it cost $1 million dollars or some BS like that, but that POS never worked.

We dubbed it 'The Bottle Depot Reject.'

So the Lane guys, if there wasn't a bus to unload or they didnt have a trip for a bit, spent chunks of their shifts unloading and sorting all of the freight from the Courier guys...

But we had to Hand-Bomb all of it. It was just sheer labour. Everything was done by hand. And it sucked!

And those Courier guys? They...I will say that they were an interesting crowd. Largely nice guys...grumpy as all hell...but we always saw them at the end of the day.

But they only had to move this crap from Point A to their Van.

I have to unload the van onto the useless conveyor. Sort the freight onto skids. Hope the 'Forkie-of-the-day' knows what he's doing and have it brought to my Lane...or...we had wheelie-freight racks which I then have to push the damned thing to my lane, then I've got haul all that crap off again and 'Tetris it' into my goddamned Bus hoping some ass clown isn't moving to Olds or Leduc or something and has a million pieces of luggage and I'll have to haul stuff off the Bus to accommodate it all.

That happens more often than you think. Greyhound being used as a pseudo moving company or a kid going to school somewhere and his clearly loveless Parents just throwing his ass on the Hound but he's got like 5 bags of stuff.

Thats the thing...as Loaders, we dont know how much Freight or Luggage we have to deal with until it shows up. There was no planning system or anything, we just..."Here it is! Deal with it!"

The NE courier guy was Dany Heatley’s uncle. He was a prick. There was another weird long haired ####er who looked like Charles Manson. Strange dude. Didn’t deal a lot with couriers, but they were almost all #######s.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by habernac

The NE courier guy was Dany Heatley’s uncle. He was a prick. There was another weird long haired ####er who looked like Charles Manson. Strange dude. Didn’t deal a lot with couriers, but they were almost all #######s.

Hey! I knew him!

Like...look...its not great when 'long-haired Charles Manson looking dude' is a dead accurate description but in this case, I know exactly who Habby is talking about.

Aww....I cant remember his name. Its been too many years.

He was actually one of the nicer ones. But...'strange' is also accurate.

[habernac]

Ron. He was a decent guy.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by habernac

The NE courier guy was Dany Heatley’s uncle. He was a prick. There was another weird long haired ####er who looked like Charles Manson. Strange dude. Didn’t deal a lot with couriers, but they were almost all #######s.

I largely didn't know them.

Because I started my shifts, usually, until I was there full-time over summers, but I usually started my shifts at around 4:30.

The first part of your shift, unless a Bus is coming in, is unloading the Couriers. So I'd get there and its the 'start' of my day and the end of theirs. They'd usually just have a smoke and chat with each other until their vans were empty.

So much smoking at Greyhound.

Now...smoking doesnt really bother me at all, it never really has, but man there were times...I really wasn't confident that there wasn't something around that might explode when exposed to an open flame.

The Diesel fumes were the worst. A little cigarette smoke? That was nothing. It was almost a refreshing change.

Thats how awful that job was. If I die of Lung Cancer I want to be buried in that goddamned Depot! They owe me!

[Locke]

Originally Posted by habernac

Ron. He was a decent guy.

Ron! Yes! I wonder what he's up to these days?

Yeah. He was a nice guy.

[habernac]

Weird but polite.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by habernac

Weird but polite.

He would actually help unload from time to time even though he knew he didnt have to.

Yeah. He was one of the better ones.

[BigThief]

Who did the announcements at the Edmonton depot all those years? His voice was so smooth and buttery

[Blaster86]

If we are talking about Locke's past I'd like to hear about his Attainment Ceremony.

[dammage79]

I worked as a bus washer/grease monkey in Banff at the then owned Laidlaw shop. Washed all the ski busses and what no from like 99 to 2000? No grosser than draining the blue toilet water at the end of a ski day.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

If we are talking about Locke's past I'd like to hear about his Attainment Ceremony.

Lol! You want an Attainment Ceremony? From these people? That'd be insane.

"We shall teach you!"

Oh ho! Really? This oughta be rich.

Originally Posted by dammage79

I worked as a bus washer/grease monkey in Banff at the then owned Laidlaw shop. Washed all the ski busses and what no from like 99 to 2000? No grosser than draining the blue toilet water at the end of a ski day.

Ugh...yeah. Thankfully I was not involved in 'Bus Cleaning.'

The closest I ever got was being asked to drive a 'Used Bus' through into the cleaning bay.

I was in no way licensed to drive a Bus, but I know how to do it.

So if nobody else was available they'd ask me to drive a Bus into the cleaning bay. Because the downtown maintenance Depot was closed they had this haphazard cleaning Bay at the 9th Ave station, but unless you wanted to get into some really complicated multiple-point turns with people all over the place and limited visibility the only way to really do it was to drive the Bus outside the station, go around the building and then enter from the other side and then into the cleaning bay.

But I never had to actually clean a Bus. That...oof. I cant imagine that being a pleasant experience.

Probably lots of chicken bones.

And that bathroom...my God...that bathroom.

The only thing that could clean one of those things is a grenade.

[dammage79]

Originally Posted by Locke

Lol! You want an Attainment Ceremony? From these people? That'd be insane.

"We shall teach you!"

Oh ho! Really? This oughta be rich.



Ugh...yeah. Thankfully I was not involved in 'Bus Cleaning.'

The closest I ever got was being asked to drive a 'Used Bus' through into the cleaning bay.

I was in no way licensed to drive a Bus, but I know how to do it.

So if nobody else was available they'd ask me to drive a Bus into the cleaning bay. Because the downtown maintenance Depot was closed they had this haphazard cleaning Bay at the 9th Ave station, but unless you wanted to get into some really complicated multiple-point turns with people all over the place and limited visibility the only way to really do it was to drive the Bus outside the station, go around the building and then enter from the other side and then into the cleaning bay.

But I never had to actually clean a Bus. That...oof. I cant imagine that being a pleasant experience.

Probably lots of chicken bones.

And that bathroom...my God...that bathroom.

The only thing that could clean one of those things is a grenade.

Yep, them bathrooms were the worst

Speaking of diesel, our fuel pump was right beside a power station. So tons of high voltage wires maybe 50 feet from a fueling bus. Diesels fumes for days are we washed and fuelled 30 busses a shift.

[habernac]

I learned to drive stick on a Greyhound bus.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by habernac

I learned to drive stick on a Greyhound bus.

Oh...I'm betting a 'Silver Bullet?' With the bulkhead in the back?

One of the old-timey Greyhound Buses? Oh those bastards...

I've driven a few of them in my time.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by Locke

So much smoking at Greyhound.

This whole thread is bringing back memories of my 4 years at Safeway in high school and university. Smoking was a big thing at Safeway back then. The lunch room would be unheard of today. There were two tables. The front table close to the door was the “nonsmoking’” table and the back one the smoking table. Somehow that foot between tables was supposed to make a difference?

[surferguy]

I was at Calaway today and saw a women with a tattoo on her arm, it was a Polaroid of a greyhound bus! I wanted so badly to ask for a photo but didn’t have the courage.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Buff

I've often heard Grey Puppy. Perhaps I didn't pay attention to it's usage but I'm fairly sure it was people calling the bus the grey puppy. Probably those people confusing the terminology.

Having a Pup was great! Because when you're loading a run you HAVE to get the luggage out but you are strongly encouraged to get all of the Freight out because thats where the Hound makes it's money.

So if you got a Pup? It was awesome because you could just load the freight into that, save your tanks for luggage, from a loader's perspective.

2 small problems.

Problem the first: Often the Driver doesnt want to haul a Pup and they inspect and check everything prior to departure and if they can find even the smallest thing wrong? They can deny the trailer.

Problem the second? Often the Bus isnt just sitting there waiting. You line up your freight in preparation, and sometimes the Pup is put in your Lane so you can load it.

That means you need a Forkie.

To put the Pup in your lane for loading, to remove the Pup so the Bus can come in and then subsequently (competently) attach the Pup to the Hound.

So theres a number of things that can go wrong.

And if the Driver refuses the Pup for whatever reason the Forkie has to remove it and take it to maintenance. And...depending on the reason for refusal you may have to unload it and reload it onto another trailer.

Originally Posted by habernac

Bus passengers complaining about the movies. I think they had A River Runs Through It for about a year.

I also ran the south parcel depot in Calgary on Manitou Road. I met my wife there, actually. We always hated dealing with the main depot because of their incompetence. We loved getting parcels from there that had clearly been run over by a forklift. Or covered in diesel. Nice work.

Sorry this still makes me chuckle.

Honestly...I wasnt very 'frontline' oriented. But the sheer lunacy of the Main Depot? I can't imagine it was fun for you guys either because some of those guys? It was astonishing. Packages were certainly damaged. I saw it. I know. And you have no idea who did it but you have to face-to-face explain it to a customer which...I am sure...sucked.

And you cursed us Depot People for that suckery. Which was certainly your right.

Our jobs were..."Get it in...Get it out." Condition was rarely considered.

Further...the Main Depot? It was either Hellishly busy with people and buses everywhere or outrageously boring with rarely anything in-between.

So...its a Union Job. Ergo you need seniority to bid on shifts, if you have seniority you're probably trying to bid on Forklift shifts, because you get to sit down all day.

If you have that seniority it means you've been working there a while, which also tends to mean that you have a lot of experience driving a forklift.

But remember my forklift training story. That was the first year guys had to even get trained to drive them.

Which means...the people who have the seniority to bid on the Forkie shifts have never actually been trained to drive a forklift, and furthermore...they have sufficient seniority that if they damage something or do something stupid they have enough Union seniority that they cannot be disciplined.

Oooh....thats a dangerous mix.

I'll tell more Forkie stories in a bit, I've got lots of them. One is pretty damned gruesome though, so I'll save that and maybe 'NSFW' tag it.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by FurnaceFace

This whole thread is bringing back memories of my 4 years at Safeway in high school and university. Smoking was a big thing at Safeway back then. The lunch room would be unheard of today. There were two tables. The front table close to the door was the “nonsmoking’” table and the back one the smoking table. Somehow that foot between tables was supposed to make a difference?

Well...again...they had closed the Downtown Depot so the 9th Ave station dealt with everything so there were buses idling constantly whether it was in the lanes getting loaded or in the cleaning bays or in the maintenance bays so the place just reeked of Diesel fumes and there wasnt sufficient ventilation.

I swear its taken years off my life. I literally would spit black saliva at the end of a shift.

So on one hand its easy to say..."whats a little cigarette smoke added to the mix?"

And in the other hand..."do we need to make things worse?"

But nobody cared. It just was what it was.

And thats the other thing! We had GIGANTIC bay doors for the trucks to come and go and for the Buses to come and go. You cant just leave the Bay Doors open for a bit? Air the place out a little?

Nope. Costs too much for heating.

Oh! And there were 'No Smoking' signs everywhere! Nobody cared. I hilariously remember that my supervisor had one bolted outside the door of his office in the Lanes.

Because he'd lean against it while having his smoke.

Nobody cared.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by surferguy

I was at Calaway today and saw a women with a tattoo on her arm, it was a Polaroid of a greyhound bus! I wanted so badly to ask for a photo but didn’t have the courage.

That...would have been Bold but Awesome!