DEE123

Business casual means don’t show up to the office in sweatpants and a hoodie or in pajamas like you rolled out of bed, just dress like a decent person. That’s it. Regular jeans and a polo shirt, or dickies and a button down. You don’t even need a tie. If you walk in there with a sweatsuit, they can turn you away. I haven’t seen it happen but it’s not worth the risk.

But honestly, I think they just skip your name the first time if you’re a no show and then automatically reschedule again for another date. they’re not really concerned if it’s a date that works for you or not because that’s the nature of the job, if you have to show up and be ready for work if you’re called no matter what circumstances you have at the time. They just give you a 2nd chance and automatically reschedule, if you didn’t show up the first time. After the 2nd or 3rd time of rescheduling and you don’t show up, they knock you off the list and you'll have to re apply.

lol I was an annoying prick, I emailed exam operations rescheduling, and like 12 different emails that had direct influence with HR all in one group message with a detailed explanation of my situation and that I have been calling and leaving voicemails, and nobody is answering. eventually that week they got back to me. if that doesn’t work I would re apply and go through the information session these people are talking about. I don’t have the emails of people anymore because I organized my inbox.

Where’d you wind up?

If you took the test for the passenger endorsement and passed it, then you’re going to show the restriction for passengers until you pass the road test with DMV because you’re not certified to carry passengers until you pass the road test with the DMV instructor. they will move you quick if you already took the drug test. Probably in about a week you’ll get your medical. If you pass the medical and all your paperwork is completed the way they want it, then you will get the offer for the job.

If you live in Long Island and want to work in queens, I recommend working for MTA bus company and picking college point. Most of the local routes are decent and easy, and they have a lot of express routes. Every operator out of that depot I spoke to were very happy to be there, and left only because of the commute or because they are younger and want the TA NYCERS pension which can be Transferred to another agency if you get tired of driving and want to do something different with the city or MTA. All the other depots in MTA bus out of queens especially the further south you go in queens aren’t fun depots to work out of. Alot of the streets are super tight, you’re gonna be in gridlock traffic almost all day, you’re gonna have passengers all the way to the front of the bus all day, And the routes are confusing because they go through a bunch of side streets. if you do mabstoa I guess fresh pond or grand ave would be ok, I don’t know much about those depots. But yeah, your best bet is college point if you can get it. I know I wouldn’t have left college point myself if I was given the opportunity to work there.

Staten Island, Yukon depot.

Finally. Congrats, don’t want to ruin your parade, but it’s gonna be a very long year for you. The 7 days of training, and the year of probation are no joke. Please be careful. a lot of idiots on the road that don’t know how to drive, and a lot of unpredictable pedestrians, bikes, and scooters that walk and drive right into your buses path of travel from every single angle, it’s no joke. Keep the mirrors the way Zerega wants it, and Do everything Zerega tells you, or else you’re gonna get fired. Probies are losing their jobs every single day and being replaced by new operators every 2 weeks. I have 5 months of probation left fingers crossed. It’s hard, but the end goal will 100% be worth it.

Being from the Bronx, and working in another depot that served queens and Brooklyn was the biggest culture shock for me ever. The roads I had to drive on were ridiculously tight, on top of that, some people would just park their cars on the crosswalk and leave the car there overnight leaving you with inches of space on both sides, if that. Everybody disobeys the no standing anytime sign on the corner of the block, and leaves their car on the corner 24 hours on the day, overnight, they don’t care, some people double park on the corner where it’s a no standing zone and abandon their cars just so they can go to the deli to buy a bacon egg and cheese, and they will see that you need to get through, but they don’t care, and will keep their car parked anyway. People would deliberately park their cars in the middle of the street and block you while sitting in the drivers seat waiting for their passenger to finish with whatever they were doing, hoping that you would try to squeeze through so they can get a new paint job on their car, these people don’t care that you’re behind them even if you blow your horn for like 15 minutes straight. It doesn’t matter if you’re in route, and you feel you might make contact with another car or object it doesn’t matter how many of your coworkers have already made those turns, just call it in and wait for instructions. It happened with me literally every other day, and I don’t care especially on probation. Don’t worry about the passengers, let them curse you out, I have seen with my own two eyes, an express bus try to make a tight turn, and made contact with another express bus that was sitting at a bus stop. He shattered like 5 of his windows and knocked the other buses bumper off, just because he was trying to get the passengers to their destination on time, and what winded up happening was the passengers instantly vanished from the bus and walked away looking for other options to get to work not even 30 seconds after the incident happened every passenger left the bus and found another way to get to work. If that happens to you on probation you’d probably get fired.

I recommend you Start practicing all the routes by looking at all the turns on the google maps street view and the transit app over and over and over like at least 5 times a day for each route, and keeping the landmarks in mind, and write them down. For Example: Right South conduit (BP Gas Station) service 3 bus stops immediately get on the left lane after the 3rd bus stop on 130th Ave Left on Myrtle (Pioneer Supermarket) I don’t recommend relying on your line trainers, because you might not remember if you only did a certain route once, and now it’s 2 months later and you’re being told by the dispatcher to do the exact route that you don’t remember or even done before in line training, yeah you’re probably not going to have training on all the routes by the time you graduate, you might be unlucky and get the same route like 7 times, this happened with me. Another problem is the turn by turn route instructions paper NYC Transit made, can have mistakes on them. I have been on routes where I tried using the official route instructions paper, and I went off route because NYC Transit failed to add that particular turn on the paper. When you’re on your own, you’ll most likely be on the extra list and there are going to be days that you won’t know what route you’re doing that day until you report to the window and they give you a run, and then tell you to start immediately, if you use google maps and can take good notes, from today, it will save you a lot of anxiety, when you’re alone trust me. In December you’re gonna have a choice to transfer to a depot closer to your house. Idk how that works.

in the two days at Zerega, I think the first day is customer service day and then the 2nd day is some state mandated class where you watch a bunch of videos. Some time in those two days, you’ll get the choice of what depot is available for pick in seniority order. After the 2nd day at Zerega its usually union day where you’ll get your uniforms. You won’t need to go to eastchester at all

Yeah most likely some time mid week then. I remember going to nova bus training at mtv on a Friday, then the following week was 2 days at Zerega followed by union day. Local 100 gets fitted for uniforms on union day.

It should be around the time your class goes to eastchester for CDL training if you’re in TWU100.

Lol it’s probably too late now, but when you get over there, only the violations and accidents that you had in the last 3 years.

If you file for the MABSTOA or MTA Bus exam You must have the permit on the day of the test They’re gonna check. If you apply for the Transit Authority exam they don’t require the permit until the first day of processing.

I’ll check it out, thanks

The emails are automatically generated and doesn’t mean anything. Just as long as the sign in sheet has the right exam and list number is all that matters.

Happy to know we get some line training ,that’s excellent. I would need to see those express routes a couple of times, because I only had one express bus line training when I was brand new while working in queens, so by the time I was alone doing an express route, I was following the signs for trucks only and winded up off route when I got to Manhattan because I was supposed to be on the side where it said cars only in the queens tunnel. I can’t imagine what the buses have to do when they’re coming from and going to NJ The turn by turn sheets in my old depot didn’t help much because there were a bunch of errors and bad information on some of the routes I was doing. It would tell me to make a turn on a street, but the street I had to turn was halfway down the block from another street and I got lost at least 10 times trying to follow the route instructions. I took the paddle the night before and typed exactly what I was gonna do that day from the transit apps.

Zerega told me something else idk. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow, my only issue is the express buses, all the local routes look straight forward and easy

I’m going to SI tomorrow. We got the holiday off today, how many days do they give you to learn the lines?

Exam 3601 #3x. Did my 2nd lab and medical last week. next class is 1/14

That’s terrible. I’m running the risk of having the same exact problem trying to go to TA as a B/O. It seems like changing divisions or job titles in recent months has been secretly frowned upon. I tried to switch from MTA Bus Company to mabstoa and TA. I’m on 3 lists. 2 for mabstoa and 1 for TA. I did 3 day 1 processings and drug tests, and I never hear anything back not even to take a 2nd drug test. it’s been over 90 days for two of those exams. And nothing no matter how many emails I send and how many times I call them.

I’m a B/O so 120k is normal if you’re in top pay and get a 10.5-11 hour run every pick. I don’t know how it works in T/O land.

Yeah I don’t understand what the drama is about. All you need is a GED, for a job that gives you full benefits and 120k a year, and literally all MTA asks of you is to not call out sick and not make any mistakes just like any job. Idk what these guys expect from the agency. It’s like this in almost all government agencies where people with seniority can legally screw you.

I already know what the deal is. extra list for 3-5 years, no sleep between shifts, never get called into the office for any reason at all whatsoever or you’re terminated. Easy as that