Complaint Review: 10-15 Transit - Ottumwa Iowa

I too also worked for 1015 Transit and regretted every minute of it.  Let me tell you what I noticed and dealt with while working.  A certain driver  always gets his way when he cries to the boss.  This driver is almost always guaranteed his 40 hours a week and never ever has to work on Fridays or Saturdays.  Dispatchers in this place will make sure only certain ones get decent buses to drive and also their 40 hours or more.  The driver I am referring to  usually also gets to drive a brand new bus that has front loading capabilities while everyone else drives a bus that has to put passengers in the very back where they bounce around and complain because of the bumps.  There also is a scam going on when you work Saturdays normally dialysis center in Ottumwa will call your cell phone but if they don't have your number or if they forget, they will usually call Jay Allison the director as evidently his is on speed dial.  So one Saturday I worked, I thought it was odd that I had not heard anything from Jay or dialysis so I drove over to the dialysis center.  Keep in mind dispatchers never ever have to work weekends at transit.  So I arrive at the dialysis and noticed two people waiting. I asked how long they had been waiting they stated to me that approximately 15-30 minutes and within that time I never did get a call until I got them both loaded up and then Jay calls and says "so and so are ready to be picked up". Okay what Jay is doing is not calling the drivers because he knows they are on down time and he figures the longer the better that he won't have to pay them for and that the drivers would hopefully never figure that out so he waits for awhile to call so he don't have to pay the driver for that time. Several times on the new tablets they got down there, things will de deleted including pre trip time and or arrival time. Sometimes the dispatchers or Jay whoever is screwing with it at the time will put it back on there but yet it won't be the same as what is on your paper time sheet which we also use.  There have been times as well the wrong address, or the wrong phone number or no phone number at all will appear on the tablet for the passenger. Also there are times it will say they are somewhere when they actually are not there but at a different location.  When you ask the passenger they state that they told dispatch where to be picked up and that this or that address was wrong and the time was wrong that was listed because I have asked passengers just to clarify.  There are also times that it will say a passenger is ambulatory meaning they can walk on when you pull up, they are in a wheelchair. I asked them if they told dispatch this, they said yes we told them we/I am in a wheelchair.  There are also times that Jay and or his dispatchers will make sure you barely get any hours during the week so that you will either go w/o the hours, or that you will beg for them which they know you will beg, so that you are forced to work Saturday's so other drivers can have it off. Let's not forget Jay decides what hours he will pay you for even if you worked overtime forget it he will cross that off your time sheet. Whatever kind of budget crunch he is in for the week he will alter your time sheet to fit the need and not even tell you about it until you get paid and you notice it on your pay stub when your hours don't match up with what you have.  Jay and his secretary never give drivers a copy of their time sheets when Jay or his secretary decides to alter them.  He also does not copy them after you hand them in even before he alters them.  By IA DOT regulations this is required too do.  Jay Allison never posts bids for open jobs, and if he does post them, drivers will sign them and then not hear a thing back after the posting is taken down in the breakroom.  Usually what happens is that he hires someone else or combines the route that was open into some other route.  Or he will just not have it filled at all and whoever is available or not available at the time usually is stuck with it for one day maybe more depends.  There was a dispatch job that was available once and he called me into his office to ask me if I would be interested in it along with another driver that I think is still there he asked that driver too.  I told him my experience and that I was interested.  Never did hear anything back and neither did the other driver from what I gather.  Jay then had hired another dispatcher off the streets.  In fact this has happened three times.  The last two he got he kept.  One goes to his church.  Jay Allison claims to be a minister but yet does not show the true facts of being so.  Jay Allison has stated that we are to count each passenger as if they are a new one if they get on or off the bus.  Isn't this the same thing Pam Ward got into trouble for?  So basically it could be someone on Medicare and yet we are still counting them each time they get on or off the bus.  Jay states that it gives him $2 per person is why we are doing this. Something to do with federal grant money.  Jay also harrassed and bullied another driver awhile back about comments this driver supposedly put online on the drivers own time, and yet Jay told that driver that the driver was not allowed to make comments online according to "jay's contract" and how it supposedly represented the company.  Jay also makes sure that he does not pay for pre trip time if a driver has to switch into another bus.  Again Iowa DOT regulations are broken here.  You are to be paid 15 minutes for pretrip anytime you get out of one vehicle and into another but I have been in situations where I have switched and Jay tells me that no just go because the passenger is waiting on you and has been for awhile.  Umm that is not my problem that your precious passenger has been waiting.  I need to pretrip the vehicle to make sure it's working such as turn signals, oil level, tires etc.  I have even went against his advice and pretripped anyways as it is required by Iowa dot.  Of course that pre trip time is conviently erased or altered off the time sheet because I can tell how it reflects on the pay stub, it doesn't take a dummy to figure that out.  Also drivers are not logging on the county inspection sheets like they are to be according to Iowa Dot regulations.  They are to log miles, date, time and anything wrong with the bus.  Most drivers don't follow this or let alone have a sheet in their bus.  Sometimes, county sheets seem to "dissapear" when the time sees fit.  Jay also accused another driver of harrasing people at the local mall here in town.  Jay also accused this driver of typing things on Craigslist about him, his company, his mechanic, and his family.  Jay then evidently from what I gather put this driver on a year probation and also told this driver because of his comments that were seen online about a local murder case here in Iowa, that this driver deserved to be put on a year probation.  From what I gather Jay also told this driver according to "Jay's contracts" this was the best form of discipline.  I honestly don't know much about that but just what I was told from the driver.  Jay also accused that driver of taking pictures of the expired insurance of the buses some being excessive amount of 2 years or more of expired insurance. From what I gather Jay harrassed this driver into having the local Ottumwa Police take a fingerprint from this driver becasue Jay said from what it looks like in the picture is that someone's fingerprint would be on the plastic card that holds the insurance and from what I gather Jay told the driver that if he was really innocent he would just let the cops take his fingerprint. Far as I know I don't think that driver gave his print.  You may take 35 minutes to get somewhere due to bad roads, traffic etc and write that all on your time sheet.  If Jay don't think he would take that long or if he thinks it shouldn't take that long he will alter that off your time sheet so yeah you won't get paid.

Jay Allison also states if you work in Ottumwa on passengers you won't be paid hourly.  So basically you could start at 5am and work till 7pm at night but yet maybe only end up with only 7 hrs out of that whole day if you are lucky and of course if you don't get your time altered.  There are also instances where a dispatcher asked me if I wanted early morning route or afternoon on Sautrdays. I told the dispatcher morning.   So I wake up and turn on my work phone and low and behold there is a message lucky that was even there cause most the time dispatchers wont call you and tell you anything, but then was thrown into doing afternoon instead of morning because supposedly another driver "had plans" and could not do it.  Gee what if I had plans? Maybe that is why I picked mornings?  Same thing happened when I wanted afternoon route and was thrown into early morning at last minute notice that is.  Which most the stuff is "last minute notice" around here.

When I was first hired Jay Allison told me to count Saturdays as straight time unless there is a big gap in the downtime then that is when you would stop and then when you restarted you would start all over again with the time.  However this changed not long ago when I was still working there where he said no he never said that and that we are only getting the 15 min drive time to the passenger place, 15 to drop them off, and well your supposed to get another 15minutes but I always got jipped out of that.  So yeah you think your getting paid but your not. Your still gettin shimmed.  

Jay goes by senority when he wants to or when he sees fit.  A lot of times drivers would get screwed over after bidding on something.  There used to be a senority list in the breakroom when I worked there however one week they would follow it the next week they would not.  And as far as I know, the list is no longer there.  There was also another driver who had quit there and was away for like a month at another job.  However the driver was hired back, and gets 40+hours and gets a brand new bus to drive.  Plus that driver gets all the long distance hauls where as anyone else gets shimmed on hours and passenger travels.  

Jay hired a male dispatcher along with the female dispatcher whom the female dispatcher attends his church.  Jay hired the male dispatcher as a mechanic/dispatcher so is this dispatcher making extra or more to be a mechanic when he fills in for the mechanic part?  Also why is it that dispatchers actually get a lunch break at least an hour and other numerous breaks but yet when a driver tries to take a break, they are called to another journey so basically us drivers had to eat and drive or if we even got lucky to eat that is.  We have no breaks at all as drivers at least when I was there we never did and I am sure it's stil the same way.

Jay also has required all drivers in Ottumwa to fill up at the bus barn in the mornings.  He says the BP gas cards and Wex cards are to be used only out of Ottumwa if we are outside the limits.  There are some buses and or most that the gas gauge is not even accurate on them.  So really how can you tell ow much gas you have?  The drivers in Fairfield, Chariton, Bloomfield, can fill up there.  Also while on the subject, all the drivers in Bloomfield, Fairfield, and other counties outside of Ottumwa have all the newer buses and the reasoning from Jay is because those drivers don't have a mechanic nearby so that is why they get the new buses.  

There are several buses in the lot that don't run right, the miles are way over 200,000, the lights aren't the brightest at night, the heaters/ac don't work right or barely or not at all, the doors have gaps in the rubber so you feel cold air blowing in, the electric mirrors don't work or vibrate so you can't see out of them, and when you tell the mechanic there about these problems, he states that it cost too much to fix all these things and that it's not important or at least not to him.  Some of the buses don't even have ramps that operate correctly, cameras that don't operate, and or windows that come undone and open going down the road.  I was told by a passenger once that she felt light headed after getting off the bus because she could smell the exhaust in the back.  No she was not completely in the rear of the bus but mid way of it.  A lot of these buses also have out of aligned steering so most the time the turn signals don't stay on when needed because the wheel is off balance.  Most of these buses also have check engine lights on that aren't taken care of, the wheels need balanced or are noisy on the highway, the tires have very low tread, the vents blow out the vents barely or not at all and then go up into the defroster then back out the vents again but according to the mechanic this is all normal for the model of buses.  Most of these buses aren't safe at all and are still out on the road.  Also some of the ramps don't work right and then will stop mid air or not even go up at all so then the driver has to manually pump the ramp up with passenger on it and or let it down with passenger on it.  

This place does not provide you with handsfree devices but yet expects you to answer your cell phone no matter what even driving down the road at 65 mph.  

When I worked here, a lot of times there would be no return pickup listed on my tablet as this is required by Jay to know that you picked them back up from where passenger was.  So I would call dispatch and they would say yeah we will get it to you.  However 15-30 minutes later after you have already taken off and have sat there and waited a d**n good amount of time for them to send it to your tablet but yet never shows up when you need it.  It only takes a few seconds to send the d**n thing I guess dispatch just gets lazy or don't care of course it's the drivers fault anyways no matter what.  There was also times from the night before I would know when my 1st pickup was going to be and where.  However upon arriving around that time more stuff would beep on the tablet or I'd get a call out of the blue that so and so was to be picked up an hour or two earlier and then dispatch asking me why I was not there and how long am I gonna be getting there.  There is even times that dispatch would have things so back to back that it was nearly impossible to get across different parts of town without running into being late.  Most the times there are even things that are listed as same pickup or drop off times but yet two different parts of town.  How the hell are you supposed to do that?  However when asked, dispatch claims it's RouteMatch fault and that is how the computer programs it.  Umm computers don't do anything unless the operator programs it that way. Duh idiots. So glad I don't work here anymore.  One more thing is if there is a rowdy passenger who gives drivers trouble, and if the driver tries to refuse givin the person a ride, Jay Allison says we are a public service and that we are required to transport all types of people no matter what and that we are not to refuse a ride to anyone.  But yet the city side buses can?