diesel mechanic

bus driver

operations supervisor

dispatcher

controller

Big Bus Tours

A typical day at Big Bus starts with the morning briefing. The morning briefing consists of the following:

- The days service (frequency of departures 10, 15 or 20 min) 
- Detours, upcoming detours and closures
- Excellent performances from the previous day (passengers carried, targets achieved, sales mix of bus tickets versus attractions, average ticket price, customer reviews)
- Daily target
- Additional information 

Once the briefing has concluded half of the customer service representatives go to their locations located around Fisherman's wharf while the other half stay on the bus as it takes them downtown. Once downtown a few of the CSR's make their way to other locations while the rest stay at Union Square. Union Square is an extremely competitive location. I'll stay in Union Square the first few hours of the day to observe the competition, approve discounts, make sure the service is running on time and call in any extra buses in case of capacity issues. Once the operation is up and running without any hiccups I'll make my way around to the rest of the locations staffed by CSR's. Ensuring the quality of the Big Bus product is maintained at its normal high standard. After checking in with the CSR's located on the wharf I'll make my way to stop 1 and check in with the controller. I'll check in with the controller to see how the service is running, are there any customer complaints, how busy stop 1 has been, how drivers are doing etc. Once I've finished checking in with the controller I'll make my way to my desk to compile the CSR's commission, check their time and attendance, approve pay roll and work on the next schedule. 

Communication is THE key. The most valuable thing I've learned throughout my career is how valuable the way communication is delivered. Yes every business needs it to thrive and be successful but that's not what I learned. I learned that communicating in a positive or even neutral manner with zero tone and negativity is what makes the difference. It's the difference between managing staff who go through the motions and are just at work to collect a check vs staff who want to come to work and be cohesive, a team working toward a common goal. There is a massive difference in telling an employee, "hey we really appreciate what you do here and you've excelled in these areas but we need you to concentrate on these other areas to bring your overall performance to the next level. Do you need any help with that? Maybe some additional training?" vs "hey we really need you to pick it up, you're performance in these categories is poor and if you can't right the ship, we're going to need to discuss your future here." If people want to go to work, they will produce naturally and everybody is a winner in that type of work environment.  

Management at Big Bus is very supportive. From mid level all the way to the executive level. Not only in providing the tools necessary to do the job but also in mentoring and providing leadership. Mentoring and leadership in the fast paced environment of hop on and hop off is impressive because there are a lot of judgement calls to make. Making those calls with accuracy is what makes a good manager and leader worth following. 

The hardest part of the job is the unpredictable. If there is a line of 50+ people in Union Square and the buses keep arriving full, then an empty bus needs to be called in to pick up the people waiting. The hard part is if at the same time a bus on tour breaks down or you have a line of 50+ people at stop 1 waiting to board a bus. 

Mentoring staff and being able to see that mentor ship benefit not only the company but the individual is what was most enjoyable. I take great pride and satisfaction in mentoring employees. Teaching them skills it takes to complete the job at a high level while at the same time learning additional skills it takes to advance their career.

Big Bus offers a really awful shocking service, they only care about making profit on tourists and their employees. They don't care about anything else. They have a really poor management, made up of incompetent people, with obviously no experience in people management, but very arrogant for no reason. But now let's talk about the services they offer. The buses are without air conditioning, so with hot temperature, but even in relatively warm days with temperature above 23 degrees, it can be very critical and unsafe. The tour lasts almost two hours but you spend most of your time stuck in traffic. For tourists it is a terrifying experience. But that is not all. I worked for Big Bus for two months and I can say that I have never seen so much carelessness towards someone, indeed it happens frequently to see people at the stops several times, waiting to board on their buses to use their ride. The buses are running every 20 minutes, but I saw people waiting for more than 40 minutes for the service they had rightly paid for. Very often it happens that the buses are full and tourists, especially with small children, have to wait for the next bus or the one that goes after, if they are lucky, especially in very crowded stops like Schonbrunn. Many other times it happened that the buses left already full from the Opera stop or the stations nearby the city center. Meaning that in the other following stops it was not possible to board rightaway, unless waiting until some buses had some available seats or using public transport. So paying extra money. Many customers were rightly angry and often asked to be reimbursed, even if it wasn't your fault. And you had to keep you selfcontrol on everything and smile. In conclusion, Big Bus only cares of your money, but also the money of its employees. Unfortunately, for my personal experience, my commissions for the tickets I sold have never been paid to me and these good people have put a clause in the contract, which says that the commissions paid are voluntary. Even if they push you to sell as much as possible, to achieve these commissions. This is totally immoral, as if they decide they don't want to pay you for the tickets you sold, they can safely keep your money. Therefore, the hourly wage you are paid for is also very low for Austrian standards, and as long as you will work for Big Bus, you will end up burning your skin in the sun or getting sick in the cold. The commissions are however charity money, not worthed even to wake up in the morning from your bed. Sometimes you have to fix problems that are created by others and you spend the whole day selling almost nothing, making higher the company revenue and lowering your motivation to stay there. Moreover, meritocracy doesn't exist at all there. People are evaluated only based on seniority and on personal simpathy, so it will happen that certain people will be very often located at favourable locations with favourable conditions, so for better commission, and certain people will always be designated to locations which are far from the main attractions or the bus stops, or where is basically pointless to sell tickets. It is not worth working for such a little money and for such as arrogant and careless, grumpy, selfish and greedy management. As someone already wrote on the web "toxic work environment" , I cannot really disagree with it. And also a massive tourist trap.

Since day one the entire Miami Branch of BigBus is one giant mess. They are highly disorganized and have been saying it is because they are going thru major changes, which they have. They have almost cleaned house in the last 4 months, but even with all this new corporate blood, nothing has been fixed and nothing has changed except the names and faces. The working conditions are brutal, the buses have no air and some are even fully enclosed (no opening windows) at the bottom deck and many are filled with roaches. None of these buses can even handle the rain, the buses are not built to endure the always changing weather conditions of Miami. The routes are long and there are no breaks. when you get caught in traffic, which you always will be, and come up short on your schedule time, you don't get a break. The average shift is around 10hrs a day. but often times it goes over by 3, upwards to 6 hours, making it almost 16hr days at times. And many of them you are expected to return back to work first thing at 6am the following day. When you work at BigBus, that is all you have time for, BigBus. Your personal life and well being will always come second to BigBus. I have lost my voice countless times with the hours they've asked me to work leaving me incapable of working as the week continues. The Tours themselves have been forced to be "dumbed down" because as a tour guide i am now more acting as a sales rep/ Trolly Stop conductor, rather then a guide talking about the city and what makes it unique. At this point I'm not sure why I am even a guide. they should all just listen to the recordings and be done with it.
The only saving grace are the drivers and other guides who try to band together even tho Management often times attempts to pin us against each other and blame scheduling/timing issues on Drivers being slow in traffic or Guides "taking to long with customers". They are the true backbone of this company and the only reason BigBus Miami has not failed yet, because Management, especially Upper Management, doesn't seem to care.

Its a fun job, being a tour guide, but not with BigBus.

The management will assure you that they will be accommodating of your class schedule if you start towards the end of the semester and into the beginning of peak season. The money is great especially for students is much easier than working in food and doesn’t take much effort to learn all the routes. However anything you’re told when you Interview or attend orientation is not how the management operates. They will write you up and talk poorly of you for requesting days off or to leave early for exams or appointments or funerals, even if you do so weeks in advance. The management refused to approve time off for me to take my final exams. I ended up quitting, a process that was still a hassle for management to handle decently. Not only will they not accomodate time off they will ignore your scheduling requests even if it’s the same day and time restrictions from when you interviewed. I had to fill out several availibility form and send repeat email reminders as they continued to schedule me on days that I said I was unavailable. Overall the job itself is simple and fun at time but, poor management makes it a pain to even show up to work on a daily basis.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I loved getting to look out over the beach three times a day. Also learning new things about Los Angeles to keep my speech and  tour fresh was pretty fun.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Language barriers could be a problem. Also the terrible mismanagement and the greedy lying quote unquote Union we were supposed to be a part of. Thanks for getting my job back after covid you sons of.......

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Most of the day is you, the driver and the guests which is fantastic. Sometimes bathroom breaks were hard to come by. Lunch break was punched out yet practically unavailable.  The job was quite fun. The employee treatment left a lot to be desired.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Very stressful 15 minutes as you'll wait to leave the bus stop. Three two hour tours that range from relaxing to a very entertaining. Separated by two pseudo brakes where you would either sit alone or be talked down to. If they had any complaint about me it would be that I didn't clean the bus enough or come downstairs after every stop. But I'm disabled and they hired me disabled.

I worked for this company for a short time and never seen anything like this: employees come in to work drunk and high, (there are many customer reviews corroborating this behavior). I witnessed supervisors making inappropriate comments to the girls that work with them, but wages are so low that they can't afford to fire neither the employees nor the supervisors as they will find no replacements. The General Manager and Operations Managers are both women who have no idea what they are doing, they have no processes for hiring, training and developing and worse firing an employee... Not sure how they got their jobs.

The company is so disorganized that at times employees do not get paid on time or get paid less than actual worked hours. When I left the company I could not obtain my W-2, they had lost it / misplaced it; I had to contact corporate offices in order to find it--delaying the declaration of my taxes.

I have had an overall Positive time With Big Bus Tours. Being a tour guide and meeting various people is exciting. Summer hours are constant and can easily get overtime. 

The typical work day during the summer is arriving at base near White Sox stadium. You get on your bus and you will give the a tour. Average tour is 2 hours. You will repeat this 2 to 4 times a day. Once you learn your tour it isn't that hard. It does become difficult with traffic and delays making you improvise the situation accordingly. This can also effect your break times. 

The pay system is hourly. Tips are split between you and your driver. 

The Position also reflects the season. Summers are constant and plenty of hours to fill. Winter season are still active, but incredibly slow. Longtime workers get first pick if they stay or not. New Guides may get the seasonal lay off.

It's also new on the scene so many things are also changing.

Overall a fun Job. 

Other than Tour guide there are positions as 
- Driver (always needed)
- Ticket agent

I was promoted three times in the 8 years of working with Big Bus Tours. My typical day changed as I moved into different roles. On the local level I spend a lot of time early developing partnerships and looking for opportunity to grow different sales channels. San Francisco was a very competitive environment within the tour operators back then. When I moved into the AGM role for the SF operation the challenges changed to managing the heads of each department effectively. Everyone had a lot on their plate but needed to work efficiently together. Communication clarity and direction from above was very important.  By the end of my time on the local team we had eliminated the majority of our direct competition. As a Head of Marketing I worked remote for the national team out of NYC. My job became much more project based and my challenges were organizational. I had 4 local teams I worked with and manged their design (on all levels), social media marketing, PR and online branding.

On a daily customer questions has to be answered, I have learned how to communicated with customers on a personal level which felt more welcoming to clients. When a client emails you months after their trip just to say hello or to see how your doing that is very satisfying. This taught me to keep a relationship with your clients while still doing your job. My co workers and I have become family, we knew what our teammates were thinking and what we could expect in our teammates. The hardest part of my job was having to terminate employees when you gain that relationship with staff, it's hard to let go but the business needs is what is most important. I enjoyed participating in company events and working in the field, marketing our brand. Our team would go on company ventures to improve customer service and to promote our company. Giving great ideas to better the business is what I will miss. Family and work best describes all that we became.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Nothing.. This workplace is a garbage.. Management is a garbage.. The double decker bus made in China is a garbage with no air conditioner. Benefits are a garbage. It is a seasonal job.. Beginning October 28, 2024, the working hours are limited to less than 34 hours.. Do not come here or you will regret yourself..

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Garbage management and garbage bus with no air conditioner.. Driving in summer is like standing in furnace.. No benefits.. Only benefit is medical insurance with such a high cost.. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Garbage-like management.. Garbage-like bus with no air conditioner.. No incentive to work hard for the company.. Company earns lot of money but never invest..

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Driving the tour bus with no tips expected.. Poor work environment..

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Diesel mechanic 9 salaries reported	$33.11 per hour
Bus driver 8 salaries reported	$26.20 per hour
Operations supervisor 1 salary reported	$25.00 per hour
Dispatcher 1 salary reported	$18.50 per hour
Controller 1 salary reported	$18.00 per hour

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