Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services
Katrina is a member of the Transport Canberra occupational violence working group.
Katrina will proudly tell you she has the best job in the world.
For the past five years, she has worked as a bus driver for Transport Canberra. Some days she’s out on the road driving, and other times she’s a supervisor at the bus depot. But no matter what her day brings, she absolutely loves what she does.
“I get my own office, I get to hang out by myself all day, but my office also changes every day depending on the weather and where I am in town. The seasons are so beautiful,” she says.
Both Katrina and her husband applied for bus driver roles with Transport Canberra many years ago, but with their youngest son still in nappies at the time, Katrina opted for a 9-5 role instead. Once the kids were a bit older, Katrina applied again, and says the shift work now suits her family perfectly.
“I’m on a rotating roster. Most weeks I get up before the birds do and come into work. If I’m driving for the day, I hop on a bus and go for a little drive around town for at least eight hours, if not 10, and interact with the public all day. Otherwise, I do duties around the depot. I may have to go and do a bus swap if a bus breaks down or take buses that are out in the shed and move them into the workshop. It’s a bit of everything, it’s pretty good,” says Katrina.
“And then I go home and parent. There’s football training, taking kids to and from work, cooking dinner – all the fun things!”
Just like with any job, there are of course some downsides. On any given day, bus drivers interact with Canberrans from all different walks of life, all dealing with different highs and lows – and sometimes our front-line workers are an unwitting target for frustration. Whether it’s traffic hold-ups causing the bus to be late – or people just having a bad day – in some cases, that frustration can result in passengers becoming aggressive or even violent with drivers.
As a member of the Transport Canberra occupational violence working group, Katrina hears firsthand about the experiences of others as well as contributing towards solutions to help the workforce.
“A lot of the occupational violence, from what I’ve heard around the workplace, has got to do with fare evasion and people not paying for their fares. But the same people don’t call an Uber and not pay for it, or they don’t go down to the supermarket and get the groceries and not pay for it, but then expect to hop on the bus for free.”
Drivers are responsible for getting their passengers where they need to go, safely. That means they need to have a dual focus – not only do they need to be alert to the traffic conditions, but they also need to monitor what’s happening inside their bus. So if passengers get aggressive, it can be a scary predicament. But Transport Canberra has plenty of measures in place, so drivers have the support they need.
‘Drivers sit behind protection screens, plus we’ve got CCTV on all the buses. If you feel you are in danger, you can request immediate assistance and support via a range of methods. This request will be responded to by our Field Transport Officers and when required, ACT Policing.
“I want to go home to my kids without being assaulted. So, if you’re going to get on the bus, just take a seat and be nice.”
Despite it all, Katrina is adamant there’s no other job she’d rather do.
“Especially in customer service roles, there’s always going to be people who give you a hard time. If you are in a customer-facing role, you’ve just got to learn some techniques on how to deal with it. But we’ve got things in place. There’s always someone not far away who can help,” she says.
“Everybody around the depot says it’s the best job in the world. Once you actually hop in the driver’s seat, and you get to drive around in a big vehicle, and the majority of your clients are beautiful people. They say hello, they say thank you when they hop off. It just makes my day and I get to drive around Canberra, it’s so pretty.”
* For personal privacy, surnames of interviewees have been removed.
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