On a hot spring day, students circled a Metro Transit bus, watching intently as their instructor gave each wheel a solid whack with a hammer.
Tire pressure, good. Mirrors, adjusted. Brakes and lights and doors, all working smoothly. Bus interior, clean. Everything safe and set for the next class of Metro bus drivers to take the wheel.
Metro Transit is hiring.
Experience has taught transit officials that their next bus driver could come from anywhere. They've put Ph.D.s behind the wheel. They've taught teachers and lawyers and police officers and health care workers how to thread an articulated bus between the potholes and orange barrels of summer construction season in the city.
"We can train people to drive a bus," said Donathan Brown, assistant director of bus administration. "I'd say the perfect person [for the job] is someone who actually likes people."
The pandemic gave Minnesotans time to consider whether the careers they had before lockdown are the careers they want afterward.
Metro Transit is hoping at least 80 to 100 people — people who enjoy the public part of public transportation — will sign on as full-time bus drivers before commuters start commuting again.
German Gonzalez Sr. and German Gonzalez Jr. are father and son and Metro Transit teammate trainees.