My Work Experience and Why I'm Still Mad at the Para-transit Driver

I used to teach and care for people with developmental disabilities in a community-integration day program; I did this in some capacity or another for several years. Early on, I was diligent about the paperwork, took notes all day to include in daily documentation, went above and beyond keeping clients safe, worked with clients no one else would work with, and all that with substandard pay and no breaks, taking on the workload of case manager and direct care staff but still paid and treated as direct care staff; not that there should be a difference in treatment, but they had me in the lower position doing the work of a manager in addition to the work of the position.

Part of the job was taking clients, with extreme behavioral issues, on the city bus to go to events and activities in the community. I had clients bound to wheelchairs. When we would board the bus, I'd get on the lift with the wheelchair-bound client, ride it up into the bus, wheel my client into the spot for wheelchairs, strap down the wheelchair, then the driver would have time to bring the lift in and take off to the new destination: Without missing a beat. I knew staff that would refuse to do all that, said it was the job of the driver to strap the client in. I'm fine with that. But I like to do my job: Which includes doing what I can do and doing what makes sense and is good for everyone.

My point?

Well, this is my problem with the para-transit driver who picks my 84 year old mother up in the morning to go to the senior center. In a previous post, I discussed how the para-transit driver refused to pull into the parking lot of our apartment complex and instead makes us--me, the worn out care-taker of his aging mother, and an 84-year-old woman who has physical problems and is often confused--wait at the street. Her rationale, and her half-wit supervisor's rationale, is that it is difficult for the driver to maneuver in the parking lot. I doubt this. I've seen other drivers do it, it's no problem.

The other thing, is that it is the reverse of what I used to do on my old job. I went beyond what was expected on my job because logically it made sense because it made it easier for everyone and I could do it with no problem.

It is much more difficult for my 84-year-old mother and I to wait at the curb in the early morning, usually for half an hour or more, than it is for someone in a vehicle to pull into a parking lot and pick up a client at a spot they are actually scheduled to pick them up at. This driver is simply trying to assert some kind of power rather than do the right thing.

My God.