Steve Moe sits in his bus on a Saturday night, awaiting the customers he says can be both a joy and a hassle. Moe drives for the Right Way Shuttle bus service and has been driving buses for roughly 20 years for the Chippewa Falls School District.
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Bus driver transports citizens young and old safely
By Brian Reisinger
reisinbj@uwec.edu
Steve Moe heard the cell phone and lumbered to the front of the bus, a kind of amused anticipation in his eyes.
“Right Way Shuttle!” he answered, pushing his grating, cigarette-baked voice above the blaring bar music on the other end.
“Alright, I’ll be there in five minutes. No, five minutes. OK? OK?”
He hung up the phone and shook his head. A bright smile crept out from behind his ragged brown beard as he impersonated the customer, leaning into an imaginary phone right next to what could only be an imaginary DJ booth.
“It’s like, ‘Hey, can you hear me?’” he said with a laugh.
It was a typical moment with the type of customer that he said can be frustrating and entertaining, all at once. Moe, 46 of Chippewa Falls, works during the week as a school bus driver for the Chippewa Falls School District and logs additional hours on the weekend as a driver for Right Way Shuttle, a company that offers bar-goers a safe ride home.
He’s been at his weekday job for roughly 20 years – the majority of his adult life, save for a four-year stint in the Navy right out of high school in 1978 and a few years living in Washington state. His weekday shifts are relatively new, beginning two years ago with the inception of Right Way Shuttle.
Obviously, he said, driving children and driving sometimes intoxicated, rowdy adults are two very different tasks. But in some ways, they offer the same challenges and rewards.
In terms of challenges a bus driver faces, he said, oftentimes customers – whether they’re uncertain children or intoxicated adults – leave him struggling to meet their needs.
Children miss the bus or fail to help him find their homes if he is unfamiliar. Bar-goers can also be undependable, often giving him specific addresses he can’t see at night and then neglecting to watch for their destinations.
“It can be frustrating,” he said, pulling a drag from a cigarette as he lounged in an empty bus seat, a blue Right Way Shuttle cap sitting high atop his head. “‘Hey, how long before we get there?’ they’ll say, or ‘Hey, you passed me up.’”
And then there’s the possibility of a weekend customer who meets the unsavory consequence of enjoying his or her evening too much and too fast – an event Moe addresses with a kind of empathetic disappointment. Like someone who’s been there, but understandably still isn’t fond of cleaning up vomit.
But it’s those same customers, both young and old, who provide the kind of pleasant human interaction that makes his job a joy on a regular basis, he said.
“The school kids are a blast,” he said, describing with excitement how rewarding it is to have random children recognize him. “Everywhere I go, ‘Hey! There’s Steve!’”