I Hate People Part 2

One of the things my nonprofit does is run a mobile library to remote parts of one county here without library access. We stop at headstarts, apartment complexes, and even two schools, which I think is sad, because they don't even have a library in the school! We've grown every year, and the grant funds the truck, the trailor, the driver's salary and all the supplies and maintenance, and gas, which, as you can imagine, is ridiculous for a thing like that. We have our own t-shirts, our own slogan, we're recognized in parades, the whole nine yards. It was a really great idea, and it seems to be working out for the most part.

When the bus driver chooses to work, that is.

I don't know what it is about that position, but we can't keep any quality help in it. We've increased the pay, learned from mistakes made in the past, revamped our job description, updated our software, done just about everything except sacrifice somebody's firstborn--and I think we'd do it, if we thought it would solve the problem. Here's a list of the drivers we've had in the last two years and their subsequent malfunctions:

Airforce Husband: He was the first driver, and he was the husband of someone who was working for us at the time. Not a great idea, but it helped them out. He drove it a few times and then promptly tried to kill himself over 20 times. I've been on a library run several times. It's a tad boring, but nothing to induce suicide for. As he was too incompetent/depressed/bizarre to drive the bus, it passed to the second driver.

Psycho Wife: She was the person we were trying to help by giving her husband the job. So she took over the driving of it. The bus went to the garage every other time it was supposed to run because she always "managed" to find something wrong with it. Once she took it in claiming it was "leaking" fluid. Turns out it was the goddamn air conditioning condensation that all cars drop to the ground when you run the air. A couple of times I think she fabricated problems or created them herself. Well, more than a couple of times. Like her crazy ass husband, she got "sick" to get attention. She went to the hospital 150 times in 2006. That's, like, once every two or three days. But in practice, she'd be OK for two or three weeks, and then a little flurry of hospital activity. Always some vague and unprovable disease. At some point, I wanted to start asking to see scars. She quit unexpectedly, and left us completely in the lurch.

Grumpy Genetic Defect Man: He was probably the shortest lived driver we've ever had. I don't even think we got him properly trained before he quit. He was constantly bitching about things and never driving. All I remember of him was that we all went to a conference together and he told us all he had webbed toes. Eeeew! He lived on a farm and had no one to talk to all day, because his wife had a Very Important Job in town somewhere. He was very poorly socialized.

Single White Stalker: This woman we thought would work out great. She was a school bus driver and seemed pretty excited to drive the library around. Trouble is, we couldn't get a damned report out of her to save our lives. She kept tabs of what went on in the library on little slips of paper like this: "Kaylie, Book about dogs." OK. Who's Kaylie, where do you stop for her, which damned book was it, when the hell did she check it out?? She refused to use the software. She also became increasingly weird around me and Director/Buddy. She would say the weirdest things, show up at weird times, call D/B all hours of the day and night, etc. Then, in a moment of revelation, she unveiled her unabated love for D/B, and we're all probably lucky both of them aren't in jail or both dead. D/B is very homophobic, although she's getting better. It's probably her biggest fault. It also makes the incident rather funny. Of all people to hit on. What's funnier is that Stalker woman was convinced the reason D/B wasn't available was because she was in a relationship with ME. Yeh, me of the husband and child. She gave her notice and quit. She continues to be weird to this day, and as a matter of fact, I just got into a giant scuffle with her recently over W-2's. Sigh.

Queen of the Alcoholics: This woman also seemed perfect for the job. She had her CDL, was only looking for part time work, etc. She had all these great ideas for moving the library forward, expanding our services. We were excited. Most of all, she could run the damned reports. She worked for about five weeks. Then, in the fifth week, I get a call (why is it always me??) from a prominent local reporter chick. She's at one of our regular stops doing a feature on the daycare there, and found out our library was scheduled to stop and she'd love to include us in that feature. Holy shit, you can't ask for better publicity than that. Just one problem. The driver was 30 minutes late, did we know when she would be coming, because they couldn't wait long. All the little kids were standing there with big pouts and their books in their hands. God, there couldn't have been a more horrific PR moment. Several billion frantic phone calls later, turns out Queenie is a raging alcoholic who got so drunk on Friday that she was still so hung over on that Tuesday and couldn't take the bus out. She quit/got fired. I was one part very angry, one part very amazed that her blood hadn't poisened her. Being angry and curious at the same time feels weird, I at least have that to report.

Enter the New Spazz: A few weeks after Alcoholic girl left, we hired the New Spazz. She also seemed great in the beginning. They all do. She's been here probably 8 months. I can't get any paperwork out of her to save my life. On top of that, she has these bizarre mood swings where she wants to tangle with me--never with D/B, always with me. Not smart. Who do you think is going to be more influential when it comes time to argue for which of you gets what raise? Piss me off enough, and you'll find out. There have been several times where D/B should've stepped in and settled things. But she just doesn't know how to do that as a manager yet, which is absolutely maddening. She won't turn in any reports, she won't answer emails, and we can't get any real contact from her. I've called her two or three times, she won't answer the phone. We're going to have to fire her, is my bet. Our grant funding this cycle is dependent on those reports. If we don't submit them, we don't get refunded. I'm not letting Spazz ground the mobile library. Not by a long shot. But I don't have the authority to fire her myself. But I can sure as hell make it miserable to speak of her around her. I can bitch about her for weeks on end and how she's not getting things done. We're going to have to hold her pay if she keeps this up through February. Nothing motivates people more than a paycheck. What boggles me is how she's gotten multiple emails and letters about our concerns and chooses not to call in and get the problem solved. Now, we don't see her nearly 100% of the time, because she's supposed to drive the library in the other county, so there's no reason for us to be around her. Unfortunately, that makes it too easy to dodge us when we need her to be accountable.

I have no idea what to do. I've been on the bus run many times. It's not something that should cause you to want to a) kill yourself b) drink yourself stupid c) fall in love with the director or d) hide in a hole in a forlorn county.

Maybe I need to fix the job description to include mental benefits?

-- Virgil