(FORTUNE Magazine) – IT'S NO ACCIDENT that associate editor Brian O'Reilly looks at home behind the wheel of a Greyhound bus. In an earlier incarnation O'Reilly was a driver for the famed bus line, an experience that adds depth to his profile of John Teets, Greyhound's hard-charging chairman (page 124). O'Reilly picked up his bus-driving skills near Poughkeepsie, New York, where, as an aspiring Marist brother, he used to bus a dozen other novices to classes at a nearby college. Deciding against taking his final vows, he studied at Fordham University in New York City, where he used the chauffeur's license of his novitiate days to drive beer trucks and taxicabs. After graduating in 1971, English-major O'Reilly was dismayed to find that his only marketable skill seemed to be his ability to swing the steering wheels of large vehicles. After two years as a school-bus driver in San Francisco, he survived Greyhound's tough six-week basic training -- two-thirds of the prospective drivers flunked out. The resulting brotherhood of Greyhound drivers is ''a big, robust, macho thing,'' he says. ''It's almost like being a cowboy.'' Chairman Teets, a robust, macho guy himself, ''thought it was neat'' that a FORTUNE writer used to be a Greyhound driver, O'Reilly says. Teets joked to a maitre d' that Brian was ''the only bus driver who'd have dinner with me,'' a reference to an acrimonious seven-week strike in 1983. Brian's own tenure at Greyhound lasted a mere six months: he kept committing minor infractions, like wearing a longer-than-regulation mustache and, a major infraction, losing his hat. Greyhound was ''just too military for my taste,'' O'Reilly says. Occupational hazards of another sort confronted associate editor Faye Rice. Reporting on the boom in franchising (page 60), Faye visited outlets ranging from exercise centers for children to snack-food chains. Too much < investigative reporting at the latter businesses made her face break out. ''The amaretto popcorn and the M&M cookies did me in,'' says Rice. She counterattacked first by banning all junk food from her diet. Then she treated herself to a 60-minute cleansing facial. In this case, she figures, the $46 luxury was a necessity: ''I was panicked.'' Luckily, it worked. For another story, on how Japan's Honda has surpassed American Motors as the fourth-largest U.S.-based automaker (page 30), Faye Rice visited Honda's state-of-the-art auto plant in Marysville, Ohio. To her great relief, ''it was unbelievably clean'' and no threat to her skin.