Pros
There really aren't any. I guess I didn't die?
Cons
The wages are ok compared to other jobs, but it's nowhere near enough money for what you have to deal with. You will be expected to babysit a bus full of adults, many of whom have issues with substance abuse and mental health, all by yourself while also watching the road and driving safely on Spokane's crumbling and narrow streets. Passengers and commuters will treat you like scum all day long and you just have to take it. If you even so much as verbally defend yourself you'll probably get fired. You'll get cussed out, spit at, hit, called all the slurs in the book, and management won't back you up. One passenger has a file an inch thick of complaints from drivers (including physical assault), yet he is still allowed to ride the buses to this day. You will spend the first 10-15 years of your career working 12 hour days, split shifts, nights, weekends, holidays, or any combination of those. Often times you'll only have 8 hours between shifts, so have fun driving on only 4-5 hours of sleep! It's a union job so everything is seniority based. Problem is, the older drivers aren't retiring when they're eligible so you'll be stuck at the bottom a long time doing all the worst shifts. You will have no life and very little time to see your family. If you have kids or other dependents, this is not the job for you. The union is toothless because all the union reps are also STA employees so they're afraid to rock the boat. The CEO has been known to target people who speak out against her. The supervisors, bless their hearts, they sure try. They're good people. But upper management is cruel, ignorant, uncaring, and blindingly incompetent. They've wasted $93 million of taxpayer money on a completely redundant route (City Line) that doesn't serve any new areas of town, but ooooh look at the shiny new battery bus! But of course, when it comes time to negotiate driver wages, they pretend to be broke and the union has to hire an accountant to call their bluff. Every time this happens, STA has been found to be blatantly lying about the company's finances. When I started, there was a person in upper management who was retired military and like any good leader, he stood up for the employees and pushed the CEO to take better care of us. The CEO's fragile ego cannot tolerate when someone doesn't bow to her, so she created an increasingly hostile work environment until he was pushed out and resigned. Let me rephrase that; this man literally went to war in the middle east, and even he couldn't stand that tyrant. Now all that's left in upper management is sniveling yes-men who wouldn't dare to question her. They have no idea what it takes to do the job and they would not last 10 minutes in the driver's seat, yet they still think it's ok to treat employees like trash. It really bums me out because I truly believe that STA COULD be a great place to work. But that would require 100% turnover for management and the Board of Directors, and that will never happen. So STA is doomed to remain a giant waste of taxpayer dollars and a net-negative for the community. If anything, just get a job there for the free CDL and then go work somewhere else.