...or something like that.
Basically, the Monday after Memorial Day, I'd had it.
My cab had been broken into.
Business was starting to tail off tremendously.
I had come down with a nasty bug, and driving wasn't helping.
I took Saturday and Sunday off to get under the covers, shiver and shed a few tears.
However, by the time I made the decision to quit on Saturday, I felt uplifted... and it came from an old source.
Friends, I haven't been right since my mother passed away nearly 6 years ago, and it only got worse when my old man followed 18 months later. I won't go into the details here, but it's sufficient to say that St. Lavinia popped in on me on Sunday. She spoke, as she often has in this afterlife she's attained, in simple and direct language. "Talk" Or more importantly, communicate.
So, there I was on Monday, getting ready to cancel my contract with Yellow and the assistant licensee manager asks me, "Do you want to hang on to your car?"
My answer, "I'm down to my last 40 bucks, and I don't know what I can do right now. I was sick over the weekend and shit's gotten just plain strange."
"Yeah," he answered, "it does for a lot of guys, not just the new ones, during the summer."
So, he takes me off of Code 5 (terminal lockout) and says, "80 bucks a day, you'll be caught up in no time."
My answer, "just like that?"
"Yep," was his reply. "We know you need to pay rent, gas and groceries."
There is no greater gift anyone can receive than the gift of time... as long as that gift isn't squandered. Basically, the week that followed consisted of me learning how to conserve my resources and re-think when and where I worked. Make no mistake about it, the market sucks right now, and there are times when I wait up to an hour to take someone for a ride, but because of where I'm choosing to work, those rides are still profitable.
A couple of other things popped up to help ameliorate the recent bullshit, too. 1.) I managed to get my check from my most recent acting job. It helped me take a day and a half off in the middle of this week as some of the consecutive days were kicking my butt. 2.) Part of my outstanding balance was the body shop deciding to charge me for replacing the window damaged by the jackass(es) who broke into my cab. I called bullshit on that and cited my 5 dollar a week supplemental insurance I was paying. I will be seeing $174.50 coming back to me tomorrow because of those keen powers of observation. That's another two days I won't have to pony up the 80 bucks.
Oddly enough, I've had to learn that my usual sources of "karma" weren't exactly going to fuel the fire. MSP trips for the elderly and disabled are so few and far between that it's silly on my part to say I'm going to crusade for every trip that isn't being picked up. In fact, that's the biggest thing I had to change about how I work. I would drive incredible distances for people I would think were "stranded," and occasionally hit a jackpot. More often than not, though, it was simply a trip that barely paid the cost of gasoline and slightly more. However, what I lost in those trips wasn't just the money and the gas... it was the time. Time I could have spent not clobbering myself in traffic... and time I could have spent taking a trip closer to where I was.
So, this is where I stand tonight. My lease is paid, I'm getting ready to hammer home the balance of the light bill and take care of a couple of other nagging bills. They're all small... for now. Fact of the matter is, that if I had learned back then what I know now about conserving my resources (don't get me started on my ill fated forays into the Bay Area), I'd be way ahead of the game.
As it is, I get a little better every day.
80 bucks at a time.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The Illogic of Waste...
Apparently, when I was being recruited to join Yellow Cab as a driver, there was no mention of how things slow down during the summer.
I get it, there are no guarantees.
However, I've also been seeing the writing on the wall the last two weeks, also. Grown men, sitting in the back or middle seat of their cabs with the side door open waiting for their next call. Sitting or sleeping. Taking that 12 hour day and turning it into an 18-20 hour day. The day after Memorial Day, half of Yellow's owner operator fleet was placed on Code 5, that means that 400 well-meaning cab drivers weren't able to pay their lease on time.
Anyway, that's where I've been... and it finally came to a head yesterday when I worked from 4am to 5pm and made 80 bucks - before the cost of putting more gas in that banana wagon and getting myself something to eat... leaving me with about 55. Needless to say, I went back on code 5 this afternoon.
My father had a saying, and I never agreed with him on much, but it went like this:
If you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing, it'll hurt you.
So, here I am, sleep-deprived, sick (only a bad cold, I hope) and I haven't been able to do any housework other than the laundry in the last 4-5 weeks because I've been staying out longer and longer trying to make the same amount of money.... until finally, the money just isn't there to be made.
Contrast the beginning of my cab driving experience with how it's been lately.
In February, I would roll out at 4 in the morning, and usually have my first trip within 20 minutes, and I would be working steadily through 9-11 in the morning. The haul would be somewhere between 80-150 bucks, and I would then switch to the bid board to pick up more trips through the middle of the day. In other words, there's no reason why I shouldn't have made $250-plus a day.
Now... well, I've pretty much described it. You log in, hunker down, and wait for that first call... and then you hunker down where you drop off at to conserve gas unless you see something on the bid board. Here's the thing, though... instead of being the only guy "who'll go to that call," you're now competing with a couple dozen or hundred other guys who need to eat.
But here's the thing... I don't need a taxi cab to eat. The sole premise of my driving a taxi was based on that conversation I had with that young man a couple months ago. FLEXIBILITY. Now, it doesn't take a math whiz to figure out that if you need 30 minutes or so in the morning to slap yourself to life and another 90 to unwind and let your brain drift before you crash every day before a 16 hour day, that means you're sleep depriving yourself and robbing your body of needed rest. There is no time to work on my novels or an acting project unless I deliberately take a day off. And, with the current environment out there being garbage for earnings, there's no point to it.
A conversation I had with a passenger not too long ago encapsulates it nicely. He's an older gent from India, but every word rang out loud and clear. "I've noticed that when I call for a cab now, it only takes five minutes or so, instead of the usual hour... the cab companies are money-lenders, and if they could take your blood from you, they'd do it and drink it right on the spot." He then went on to say that he was praying to "Almighty God" to make things better so it would take him longer to get a cab.
How apropos, I suppose.
Houston, for all its diversity and splendor, is hardly a New York or Chicago when it comes to working as a cab driver. You can't toss a Houston cabbie the keys for 12 hours, and expect him or her to come back with 150 bucks over and above his/her lease. Even in downtown, there's nowhere near the flagger environment that there is in those other cities. And, as I mentioned, a lot of us are having bad days and running at a deficit. Then again, is the country's current financial dilemma just plain running us all into the ground? Are the New York hacks in trouble? Is it rough on the cabbies in Los Angeles?
The sad part about this decision I have to make is the fact that I truly enjoyed being a cab driver, but not at the expense of my health and sanity. When you go to bed at night and you dream about driving a cab and not making money, that's your sanity. I still remember the stories of how Melissa Plaut was working only 4 days a week in New York and supporting herself. I wonder how much those times are changing the nature of this business. I didn't walk into this expecting easy money. Far from it. I wanted to work my ass off. But here's the deal:
If there are no flaggers to pick up, it doesn't make sense to drive around looking for them... other than Friday and Saturday night downtown, that is.
If there are no jobs within 10 miles on the bid board, it's usually not a bright idea to go burn off 5 dollars worth of gas if you get one, and most likely, someone closer to it is bidding on it too now that the work is drying up.
Finally, when you're hunkered down over a four hour period and all you get is one "take me to work" call and three 5-dollar "take me and my groceries home," that aint enough to feed the bulldog. I'm not going to sleep in a car for the sake of saying I have my "freedom."
And frankly, at my age, this bulldog doesn't eat as much as he used to.
This pretty much brings an end to the cabbie blog, since I will be discontinuing my contract with Yellow come Monday. What the hell... I had too many damn blogs going anyway.
I get it, there are no guarantees.
However, I've also been seeing the writing on the wall the last two weeks, also. Grown men, sitting in the back or middle seat of their cabs with the side door open waiting for their next call. Sitting or sleeping. Taking that 12 hour day and turning it into an 18-20 hour day. The day after Memorial Day, half of Yellow's owner operator fleet was placed on Code 5, that means that 400 well-meaning cab drivers weren't able to pay their lease on time.
Anyway, that's where I've been... and it finally came to a head yesterday when I worked from 4am to 5pm and made 80 bucks - before the cost of putting more gas in that banana wagon and getting myself something to eat... leaving me with about 55. Needless to say, I went back on code 5 this afternoon.
My father had a saying, and I never agreed with him on much, but it went like this:
If you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing, it'll hurt you.
So, here I am, sleep-deprived, sick (only a bad cold, I hope) and I haven't been able to do any housework other than the laundry in the last 4-5 weeks because I've been staying out longer and longer trying to make the same amount of money.... until finally, the money just isn't there to be made.
Contrast the beginning of my cab driving experience with how it's been lately.
In February, I would roll out at 4 in the morning, and usually have my first trip within 20 minutes, and I would be working steadily through 9-11 in the morning. The haul would be somewhere between 80-150 bucks, and I would then switch to the bid board to pick up more trips through the middle of the day. In other words, there's no reason why I shouldn't have made $250-plus a day.
Now... well, I've pretty much described it. You log in, hunker down, and wait for that first call... and then you hunker down where you drop off at to conserve gas unless you see something on the bid board. Here's the thing, though... instead of being the only guy "who'll go to that call," you're now competing with a couple dozen or hundred other guys who need to eat.
But here's the thing... I don't need a taxi cab to eat. The sole premise of my driving a taxi was based on that conversation I had with that young man a couple months ago. FLEXIBILITY. Now, it doesn't take a math whiz to figure out that if you need 30 minutes or so in the morning to slap yourself to life and another 90 to unwind and let your brain drift before you crash every day before a 16 hour day, that means you're sleep depriving yourself and robbing your body of needed rest. There is no time to work on my novels or an acting project unless I deliberately take a day off. And, with the current environment out there being garbage for earnings, there's no point to it.
A conversation I had with a passenger not too long ago encapsulates it nicely. He's an older gent from India, but every word rang out loud and clear. "I've noticed that when I call for a cab now, it only takes five minutes or so, instead of the usual hour... the cab companies are money-lenders, and if they could take your blood from you, they'd do it and drink it right on the spot." He then went on to say that he was praying to "Almighty God" to make things better so it would take him longer to get a cab.
How apropos, I suppose.
Houston, for all its diversity and splendor, is hardly a New York or Chicago when it comes to working as a cab driver. You can't toss a Houston cabbie the keys for 12 hours, and expect him or her to come back with 150 bucks over and above his/her lease. Even in downtown, there's nowhere near the flagger environment that there is in those other cities. And, as I mentioned, a lot of us are having bad days and running at a deficit. Then again, is the country's current financial dilemma just plain running us all into the ground? Are the New York hacks in trouble? Is it rough on the cabbies in Los Angeles?
The sad part about this decision I have to make is the fact that I truly enjoyed being a cab driver, but not at the expense of my health and sanity. When you go to bed at night and you dream about driving a cab and not making money, that's your sanity. I still remember the stories of how Melissa Plaut was working only 4 days a week in New York and supporting herself. I wonder how much those times are changing the nature of this business. I didn't walk into this expecting easy money. Far from it. I wanted to work my ass off. But here's the deal:
If there are no flaggers to pick up, it doesn't make sense to drive around looking for them... other than Friday and Saturday night downtown, that is.
If there are no jobs within 10 miles on the bid board, it's usually not a bright idea to go burn off 5 dollars worth of gas if you get one, and most likely, someone closer to it is bidding on it too now that the work is drying up.
Finally, when you're hunkered down over a four hour period and all you get is one "take me to work" call and three 5-dollar "take me and my groceries home," that aint enough to feed the bulldog. I'm not going to sleep in a car for the sake of saying I have my "freedom."
And frankly, at my age, this bulldog doesn't eat as much as he used to.
This pretty much brings an end to the cabbie blog, since I will be discontinuing my contract with Yellow come Monday. What the hell... I had too many damn blogs going anyway.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Phase VI... Zen and The Quill
One of my stated goals for this new profession of mine was that I was going to make the time to write more. It's materialized in bits and pieces, but not to the extent that I was hoping for.
This last Sunday, I got an unexpected boost by taking some time to go downtown on Sunday and get a better lay of the land and figure out how the grid is laid out. I'm now better acquainted with some of the major landmarks... the major business buildings, hotels, courthouses, Minute Maid Park and the Toyota Center and so on. I'm not completely ensconced, but beyond my tour this Sunday, there'll be no better teacher than experience. Also, completely by accident, I got flagged down twice and it turned into about 80 bucks worth of work.
I called it "Phase III" for me because I'd been avoiding it and I thought it would be tougher than I made it out to be.
That said, there's another little mountain to climb. Airports. Herein lies the key to me getting some writing time. A typical wait at one of Houston's airports is somewhere around 3 hours for a trip that hopefully brings in an average of 50 bucks. So ideally I can get about 2-3 hours of writing done, pick up an airport trip, make a decent return on investment time-wise and then go back to doing street cabbie work the rest of the day.
Now, I'd gotten used to this idea for one real reason. I've started to get used to the notion of sitting in place instead of burning off all my gasoline going after things that may or may not pay off. I had too much of that happen during the storm yesterday when sunshine soldiers would run from the streets like scalded dogs and then I would wind up getting dispatched to trips that had been sitting for over a half hour, and in at least 6 cases, weren't at their pickup points. Averaging that out, that's in the neighborhood of 50-100 bucks that I didn't make because cabbies were leaving the streets and I was chasing after their wretched refuse. Also, I found that if I thought an area was potentially profitable, I'd sit at that location. This was the case in the Bay Area on Friday. So, now that I'm developing a tolerance for letting the grass grow under my feet a little, going to the airport to write and wait for a trip makes sense now.
Thus, begins Phase IV.
Other things of note...
I just realized last night that when I thought I'd taken my first call girl to work, that she was actually my third or fourth. That particular one, however, was the first one who tried to add me to her list of clientele. I've learned a few of the telltale signs:
1.) The nature of the cell phone conversation when she gets in the cab. Items that are giveaways tend to be "I'm wearing (item or items), is that OK?" Phrases like, "you're looking for me?" Sure, I can go to (new destination) instead.
2.) If that conversation results in you changing your destination to one of Houston's many "chain" hotels.
3.) If you get propositioned by your passenger. (OK, that's ones a little obvious)
4.) And, oddly enough, the "working girls" actually tend to be friendlier than your average night time passenger. They're true night owls and they're chirpy like someone who's on their way to an expensive lunch or dinner.
This is also the reason why I tend not to judge them harshly. Frankly, I wish all my passengers were that damn friendly. If prostitution was a regulated industry, like transportation was, instead of being stigmatized and criminalized, the women who do it would be far safer than they are now. At least in Nevada, a girl working at a ranch or brothel would have backup in the form of half a football team to come kick some guy's ass out the front door - opening the door being optional, of course.
I do have my worries, of course, about whether someone using my cab to get them to work would make me an accessory to a crime. Frankly, though... I worry more about the lady's safety than I do my own skin.
And, of course, that's why I'm also considering running the airports. I figure that way I can get some of my writing done and, if I do run into call girls or prostitutes there, I'll be meeting the ones with a sufficient travel budget for flying that they don't even call what they do prostitution.
After all, it worked for Monica Lewinsky, right?
This last Sunday, I got an unexpected boost by taking some time to go downtown on Sunday and get a better lay of the land and figure out how the grid is laid out. I'm now better acquainted with some of the major landmarks... the major business buildings, hotels, courthouses, Minute Maid Park and the Toyota Center and so on. I'm not completely ensconced, but beyond my tour this Sunday, there'll be no better teacher than experience. Also, completely by accident, I got flagged down twice and it turned into about 80 bucks worth of work.
I called it "Phase III" for me because I'd been avoiding it and I thought it would be tougher than I made it out to be.
That said, there's another little mountain to climb. Airports. Herein lies the key to me getting some writing time. A typical wait at one of Houston's airports is somewhere around 3 hours for a trip that hopefully brings in an average of 50 bucks. So ideally I can get about 2-3 hours of writing done, pick up an airport trip, make a decent return on investment time-wise and then go back to doing street cabbie work the rest of the day.
Now, I'd gotten used to this idea for one real reason. I've started to get used to the notion of sitting in place instead of burning off all my gasoline going after things that may or may not pay off. I had too much of that happen during the storm yesterday when sunshine soldiers would run from the streets like scalded dogs and then I would wind up getting dispatched to trips that had been sitting for over a half hour, and in at least 6 cases, weren't at their pickup points. Averaging that out, that's in the neighborhood of 50-100 bucks that I didn't make because cabbies were leaving the streets and I was chasing after their wretched refuse. Also, I found that if I thought an area was potentially profitable, I'd sit at that location. This was the case in the Bay Area on Friday. So, now that I'm developing a tolerance for letting the grass grow under my feet a little, going to the airport to write and wait for a trip makes sense now.
Thus, begins Phase IV.
Other things of note...
I just realized last night that when I thought I'd taken my first call girl to work, that she was actually my third or fourth. That particular one, however, was the first one who tried to add me to her list of clientele. I've learned a few of the telltale signs:
1.) The nature of the cell phone conversation when she gets in the cab. Items that are giveaways tend to be "I'm wearing (item or items), is that OK?" Phrases like, "you're looking for me?" Sure, I can go to (new destination) instead.
2.) If that conversation results in you changing your destination to one of Houston's many "chain" hotels.
3.) If you get propositioned by your passenger. (OK, that's ones a little obvious)
4.) And, oddly enough, the "working girls" actually tend to be friendlier than your average night time passenger. They're true night owls and they're chirpy like someone who's on their way to an expensive lunch or dinner.
This is also the reason why I tend not to judge them harshly. Frankly, I wish all my passengers were that damn friendly. If prostitution was a regulated industry, like transportation was, instead of being stigmatized and criminalized, the women who do it would be far safer than they are now. At least in Nevada, a girl working at a ranch or brothel would have backup in the form of half a football team to come kick some guy's ass out the front door - opening the door being optional, of course.
I do have my worries, of course, about whether someone using my cab to get them to work would make me an accessory to a crime. Frankly, though... I worry more about the lady's safety than I do my own skin.
And, of course, that's why I'm also considering running the airports. I figure that way I can get some of my writing done and, if I do run into call girls or prostitutes there, I'll be meeting the ones with a sufficient travel budget for flying that they don't even call what they do prostitution.
After all, it worked for Monica Lewinsky, right?
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Pimpin Aint Easy...
...but I'm doing what I can to make it fun again.
I've actually taken the day off and I'm going to work tomorrow with the express intent of driving around downtown and midtown on a nothing more and nothing less than a fact-finding mission. If I make a couple bucks, all the better. I know the key to making a more consistent money day is to have the confidence to work downtown and midtown where the action is. The middle lynchpin of my $180 dollar 3 hour burst a couple days ago was from 2 Shell Plaza. This area can keep me working consistently.
I've learned a thing or two about my relationship with the Bay Area. It's just too affluent to consistently work in. Friday was rough, and got rougher when another monsoon blew through Houston late that night. It was pretty much my last experiment. It's time to look at the "known" hot spots and learn my way around them.
In other news, I got a busted headlight replaced and another oil change. Not earth shaking news, but the latest.
I've actually taken the day off and I'm going to work tomorrow with the express intent of driving around downtown and midtown on a nothing more and nothing less than a fact-finding mission. If I make a couple bucks, all the better. I know the key to making a more consistent money day is to have the confidence to work downtown and midtown where the action is. The middle lynchpin of my $180 dollar 3 hour burst a couple days ago was from 2 Shell Plaza. This area can keep me working consistently.
I've learned a thing or two about my relationship with the Bay Area. It's just too affluent to consistently work in. Friday was rough, and got rougher when another monsoon blew through Houston late that night. It was pretty much my last experiment. It's time to look at the "known" hot spots and learn my way around them.
In other news, I got a busted headlight replaced and another oil change. Not earth shaking news, but the latest.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Instant Karma's Gonna Get You...
Or "Sometimes, The Universe Intervenes on Your Behalf."
Cab driving in Houston is a funny critter. Work can trickle along in 6, 12, 4 and 7 dollar spurts... and then you get a couple of larger runs through the day and then it fizzles again. A lot of days Monday through Thursday are like that.
The key is coping and sticking with those days, I suppose.
Monday, for whatever reason, just did not turn out anywhere near what I expected. I started well, took the regular midday break (although I've been telling myself to just work a straight 12 and not break it up - which may be part of the issue). I then decided to run into the Bay Area to see what mischief I could get into.
I have this strange relationship with the Bay. I've had some of my biggest runs come from there and yet, sometimes, it falls on it's face earnings-wise... flatly.
Monday was definitely, flatly.
I got sent to the same bogus call at Baybrook Mall, twice. I got stood up at a sushi bar. However, I did score a 40 dollar trip into Hobby from a bar off of NASA Road 1. However, that was it... just enough to pay for dinner for that night and gas for tomorrow.
Tuesday creeped along and I got sick... mostly due to the fact that I was hemming and hawing about how late to stay up Monday. So, when I finally got up at noon on Tuesday, I made just enough to add something to what I'd already brought in from the weekend to say I "broke even."
So here it is, Wednesday. I need about 150 bucks to make my lease for the week (on time, anyway) and... I miss waking up on time. I hit the road at 7am, and bleech... make 30 bucks before I roll into the yard to give them my vouchers and credit card receipts from the week. Here, I encounter a surprise and find a $35 credit slip I forgot I made on Monday. Duh.
Still, for some reason, I hang onto my cash for not other reason than that little voice saying, "you'll need it." Also, it said, "go get something to eat... get those new shirts you wanted get your head right and roll into the Bay."
Bay Area?
You're kidding, right?
After Monday's debacle?
Fine.
I go to the Bay and tell myself, "OK, this is a leap of faith, here...but I'll go." I hit the Wal Mart on El Dorado and score my 3x golf shirts for 9 bucks a piece. Not too shabby. They're black, but the material is as thin as t-shirt material, which is what I want. Just enough to cover me, but not broil me in the coming heat.
I pick up my first trip of the afternoon, a grocery trip in Pearland that ends up being a 20 dollar hit because the rider is in a wheelchair and he needs me to lug his bags for him. So, it was really a 11.50 trip with a sizeable tip for my lumping work. Also, I managed to "save" the trip using my GPS. Garmin has a lovely feature that allows you to put in the name of the place you're looking for... which came in handy when the dispatcher gave me the wrong address. Only a mile and a half difference between where I was sent... an empty building... and the actual grocery store.
So anyway, I was actually grateful for the exercise. Christ on a stick, these people buy a lot of groceries!
Next, I pulled into a strip mall at Pearland Parkway and Broadway and waited...
... and waited...
...and freakin' waited.
Almost a full hour passed until the terminal beeped again.
"Business Center Drive"
OK... will do.
It was 3:30 and I figured the evening commute was just blasting off. The grocery trip was a lark and I was going to be busy for the next 5 hours. Not quite... but then, I didn't need it to be.
I took my rider from Pearland to downtown. 35 bucks. I was about to put my van into gear again when some guy rapped on the window and said, "If you can give me three minutes to smoke a cigarette, you can take me to Intercontinental."
SOLD!
Two Shell Plaza to Bush, 55 bucks after the tip. Then, just as I was putting my hand on the gearshift again, a very lovely and tired lady walked around the front of the van and ambled in.
"Can you take me to Clay Road and Highway 6... and then take me to work?"
Why, yes; of course I can.
32 miles and 85 bucks later, after tip of course, I'm sitting with my lease in my hands. Literally. The cash that I didn't give to the cashier earlier in the day? I was asked TWICE if I could break $100 dollar bills. So, between 1:45 that afternoon and 6:15... 200 dollars worth of business.
I ran back to the yard and paid my lease with an hour left in the cashier's day.
So, there we have it... from being two days late last week, to being on time this week. The experiment now is to work a more or less normal day tomorrow, then a hell day of sorts on Friday and see where that leaves me. Basically, if I already have my lease for next week paid by the end of the hell day Saturday morning, I'm taking the rest of Saturday off and Sunday as well. It'll then be up to Monday-half of Wednesday to make bill-paying money.
I am slowly coming off the schnide to where I can manage this into a 5 day work week and give myself my deserved free time. I'm not putting four kids through college, after all.
And, on a "WTF" note... I saw the same guy I saw 3 months ago, asleep in his cab, near where I live, with his bare feet hanging out the window. T-shirt... sandals presumably somewhere. His cab was filthy... Another reason why I might not have the money I'd otherwise might have had today was the fact that I insisted on getting the grime off my wagon after the horrendous storms and flooding we had on Saturday. Dude, I was a U-boat commander on Saturday.
I don't get why guys like that even get work. I walked by the poor lady who saw me drive by when I was on my way to grocery shop. I said, "Sorry, ma'am, I'm off duty. There's your cab."
"You're kidding me," she said.
"No, ma'am... even hack drivers got to grocery shop."
I came back out and saw her putting her groceries into this dude's dirt-wagon. I was tempted to give her a business card, but I got the feeling that she was just as mad at me for not "rescuing" her from this guy as she was at him for being a dirtball.
I went home with my baguette, block of cheese and 1 liter Coke and thought to myself, "even the Universe realizes it can't save me every day, and I can't save everyone who has a bad experience with a cab driver... even when I'm standing right next to them."
I think I'll sleep well tonight.
Cab driving in Houston is a funny critter. Work can trickle along in 6, 12, 4 and 7 dollar spurts... and then you get a couple of larger runs through the day and then it fizzles again. A lot of days Monday through Thursday are like that.
The key is coping and sticking with those days, I suppose.
Monday, for whatever reason, just did not turn out anywhere near what I expected. I started well, took the regular midday break (although I've been telling myself to just work a straight 12 and not break it up - which may be part of the issue). I then decided to run into the Bay Area to see what mischief I could get into.
I have this strange relationship with the Bay. I've had some of my biggest runs come from there and yet, sometimes, it falls on it's face earnings-wise... flatly.
Monday was definitely, flatly.
I got sent to the same bogus call at Baybrook Mall, twice. I got stood up at a sushi bar. However, I did score a 40 dollar trip into Hobby from a bar off of NASA Road 1. However, that was it... just enough to pay for dinner for that night and gas for tomorrow.
Tuesday creeped along and I got sick... mostly due to the fact that I was hemming and hawing about how late to stay up Monday. So, when I finally got up at noon on Tuesday, I made just enough to add something to what I'd already brought in from the weekend to say I "broke even."
So here it is, Wednesday. I need about 150 bucks to make my lease for the week (on time, anyway) and... I miss waking up on time. I hit the road at 7am, and bleech... make 30 bucks before I roll into the yard to give them my vouchers and credit card receipts from the week. Here, I encounter a surprise and find a $35 credit slip I forgot I made on Monday. Duh.
Still, for some reason, I hang onto my cash for not other reason than that little voice saying, "you'll need it." Also, it said, "go get something to eat... get those new shirts you wanted get your head right and roll into the Bay."
Bay Area?
You're kidding, right?
After Monday's debacle?
Fine.
I go to the Bay and tell myself, "OK, this is a leap of faith, here...but I'll go." I hit the Wal Mart on El Dorado and score my 3x golf shirts for 9 bucks a piece. Not too shabby. They're black, but the material is as thin as t-shirt material, which is what I want. Just enough to cover me, but not broil me in the coming heat.
I pick up my first trip of the afternoon, a grocery trip in Pearland that ends up being a 20 dollar hit because the rider is in a wheelchair and he needs me to lug his bags for him. So, it was really a 11.50 trip with a sizeable tip for my lumping work. Also, I managed to "save" the trip using my GPS. Garmin has a lovely feature that allows you to put in the name of the place you're looking for... which came in handy when the dispatcher gave me the wrong address. Only a mile and a half difference between where I was sent... an empty building... and the actual grocery store.
So anyway, I was actually grateful for the exercise. Christ on a stick, these people buy a lot of groceries!
Next, I pulled into a strip mall at Pearland Parkway and Broadway and waited...
... and waited...
...and freakin' waited.
Almost a full hour passed until the terminal beeped again.
"Business Center Drive"
OK... will do.
It was 3:30 and I figured the evening commute was just blasting off. The grocery trip was a lark and I was going to be busy for the next 5 hours. Not quite... but then, I didn't need it to be.
I took my rider from Pearland to downtown. 35 bucks. I was about to put my van into gear again when some guy rapped on the window and said, "If you can give me three minutes to smoke a cigarette, you can take me to Intercontinental."
SOLD!
Two Shell Plaza to Bush, 55 bucks after the tip. Then, just as I was putting my hand on the gearshift again, a very lovely and tired lady walked around the front of the van and ambled in.
"Can you take me to Clay Road and Highway 6... and then take me to work?"
Why, yes; of course I can.
32 miles and 85 bucks later, after tip of course, I'm sitting with my lease in my hands. Literally. The cash that I didn't give to the cashier earlier in the day? I was asked TWICE if I could break $100 dollar bills. So, between 1:45 that afternoon and 6:15... 200 dollars worth of business.
I ran back to the yard and paid my lease with an hour left in the cashier's day.
So, there we have it... from being two days late last week, to being on time this week. The experiment now is to work a more or less normal day tomorrow, then a hell day of sorts on Friday and see where that leaves me. Basically, if I already have my lease for next week paid by the end of the hell day Saturday morning, I'm taking the rest of Saturday off and Sunday as well. It'll then be up to Monday-half of Wednesday to make bill-paying money.
I am slowly coming off the schnide to where I can manage this into a 5 day work week and give myself my deserved free time. I'm not putting four kids through college, after all.
And, on a "WTF" note... I saw the same guy I saw 3 months ago, asleep in his cab, near where I live, with his bare feet hanging out the window. T-shirt... sandals presumably somewhere. His cab was filthy... Another reason why I might not have the money I'd otherwise might have had today was the fact that I insisted on getting the grime off my wagon after the horrendous storms and flooding we had on Saturday. Dude, I was a U-boat commander on Saturday.
I don't get why guys like that even get work. I walked by the poor lady who saw me drive by when I was on my way to grocery shop. I said, "Sorry, ma'am, I'm off duty. There's your cab."
"You're kidding me," she said.
"No, ma'am... even hack drivers got to grocery shop."
I came back out and saw her putting her groceries into this dude's dirt-wagon. I was tempted to give her a business card, but I got the feeling that she was just as mad at me for not "rescuing" her from this guy as she was at him for being a dirtball.
I went home with my baguette, block of cheese and 1 liter Coke and thought to myself, "even the Universe realizes it can't save me every day, and I can't save everyone who has a bad experience with a cab driver... even when I'm standing right next to them."
I think I'll sleep well tonight.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Smellin' like a rose...
So, this week was the first week (thanks to bills and what not) I actually didn't make my Wednesday deadline to have my cab lease fully paid... it was an interesting predicament, but one I found expressed best by this old saying from George Carlin.
"The whole revolution is about values: what you'll do for 10 dollars, what you'll do with 10 dollars and so on..."
So, my primary worry was how much the late fees were going to be. I remembered my days as a day lease driver (I know, it's kind of strange to be nostalgic about something as "far back" as 6 weeks ago) and the fact that late fees were assessed at a rate of 5 dollars per HOUR had me genuinely thinking "holy craparoley! I'm going to get hammered if I don't do something about making up the difference."
Thanks to the folks at AT&T, I had to spend about 140 bucks to get a pre-paid cel phone from Verizon. BTW - my review of the Blitz is actually pretty solid. It's a strong phone with some very interesting capabilities.
To that end, I rolled out for a night shift Wednesday night... and met some very interesting people.
1.) I took some drunk asshole to a cabaret where he was spending the entire trip talking sex crap on his cel phone to his supposed "date."
2.) Met my first call girl and took her to her client. And, get this, she asks ME if I need "company sometime." That kind of company, sister, I don't need. Ever. And, get this... she only paid the fare. You'd think if you were charging lonely dicks a hundred bucks an hour to fuck you, you'd break a little off for the guy who's taking you to work.
3.) Finally, as things progressed into the "taking folks to work" part of the day, I had a nice gentleman call me to take him on a 27 dollar ride to work... which he paid for entirely in QUARTERS. =) Now that was hilarious.
As the morning progressed, I needed to make somewhere in the neighborhood of 220 dollars to settle things up. I had 160 when the call came over the terminal.
Code 5, See Licensee.
Time to march in and face the music.
I shrugged, and hauled my butt in. It was all well and good. In reality, between 11 that night and 9 in the morning, I'd only made 125 bucks and had to put 20 of it back in the tank. It seems that nights in Houston, while potentially profitable, have this certain element of putting up with the kind of people who, for want of a better word, are irritating because they have a demonstrable level of insecurity and/or being unable to handle their own business.
Notable passenger #1, for example, wouldn't shut the fuck up about wanting a "discount" because he supposedly waited a long time and was helping me navigate to his destination. When I told him that I wasn't charging him the one dollar night time surcharge, that pretty much put the damper on that conversation.
In any case, I rolled into the yard and asked what the damages were.
"How much are you paying?"
"$160, what do I do to get you the rest?"
"The late charges are $5 a day until you're caught up."
Oh?
A day... wow. And here I thought I was going to get blasted. Seriously.
So, after my nice long day, I rolled into the rack and zonked out until 5. Since then, I've decided a few things.
1.) I don't plan on working much past 9pm on most nights, especially not on weekdays. The kind of people who are out after that time on a weekday just turn my crank the wrong way.
2.) I realize that trying to break the day up into "profitable zones" and "unprofitable zones" is my own damned vanity, and there's always work somewhere in this town if I'm willing to go find it.
3.) Since that's really the case, the best scenario is for me to roll out at about 4 in the morning every day and work until I meet a specified income goal or until I've been out till 8 at night and shut it down so I can get about 6 hours crash time every night. The goal here is to reclaim my weekends.
There's nothing that says I can't get 1200 bucks a week and still have Saturday and Sunday off. It's just a matter of maximizing what I do. One of the reasons why I'm letting myself get discombobulated (to put it nicely) is the fact that I'm trying to do things other than my job during the weekdays. I can work in things like auditions and my Taping For the Blind recording time. Hell, I'm talking about putting 12 hours worth of work into an 18 hour day, right? Bottom line is if I can do the 12o0 a week from M-F, then having the weekend to decompress and do my other things, like using Sundays to just WRITE, would be a boon.
There will probably be another blog entry sometime detailing how that goes.
G
***********************************
Running out my ass
Batshit crazy
Am I ambitious
Or just plain lazy?
People filing their taxes
Got my 1099s
Do I run with the masses
Or just lose my mind?
BANANA WAGON MAN
What is yer goddamn plan?
BANANA WAGON MAN
Are you gonna take a stand?
It's plain to see
It's just my luck
Today was meant
To clearly suck
Pull the horse in the barn
And put my feet up
And pour an ice cold coke
In my coffee cup
BANANA WAGON MAN
What is yer goddamn plan?
BANANA WAGON MAN
Are you gonna take a stand?
The day's too long
For not enough cash
But it's only one day
And sleep comes fast
Hit that street
Rock that road
Grab some more people
And take another load
BANANA WAGON MAN
What is yer goddamn plan?
BANANA WAGON MAN
Are you gonna take a stand?
"The whole revolution is about values: what you'll do for 10 dollars, what you'll do with 10 dollars and so on..."
So, my primary worry was how much the late fees were going to be. I remembered my days as a day lease driver (I know, it's kind of strange to be nostalgic about something as "far back" as 6 weeks ago) and the fact that late fees were assessed at a rate of 5 dollars per HOUR had me genuinely thinking "holy craparoley! I'm going to get hammered if I don't do something about making up the difference."
Thanks to the folks at AT&T, I had to spend about 140 bucks to get a pre-paid cel phone from Verizon. BTW - my review of the Blitz is actually pretty solid. It's a strong phone with some very interesting capabilities.
To that end, I rolled out for a night shift Wednesday night... and met some very interesting people.
1.) I took some drunk asshole to a cabaret where he was spending the entire trip talking sex crap on his cel phone to his supposed "date."
2.) Met my first call girl and took her to her client. And, get this, she asks ME if I need "company sometime." That kind of company, sister, I don't need. Ever. And, get this... she only paid the fare. You'd think if you were charging lonely dicks a hundred bucks an hour to fuck you, you'd break a little off for the guy who's taking you to work.
3.) Finally, as things progressed into the "taking folks to work" part of the day, I had a nice gentleman call me to take him on a 27 dollar ride to work... which he paid for entirely in QUARTERS. =) Now that was hilarious.
As the morning progressed, I needed to make somewhere in the neighborhood of 220 dollars to settle things up. I had 160 when the call came over the terminal.
Code 5, See Licensee.
Time to march in and face the music.
I shrugged, and hauled my butt in. It was all well and good. In reality, between 11 that night and 9 in the morning, I'd only made 125 bucks and had to put 20 of it back in the tank. It seems that nights in Houston, while potentially profitable, have this certain element of putting up with the kind of people who, for want of a better word, are irritating because they have a demonstrable level of insecurity and/or being unable to handle their own business.
Notable passenger #1, for example, wouldn't shut the fuck up about wanting a "discount" because he supposedly waited a long time and was helping me navigate to his destination. When I told him that I wasn't charging him the one dollar night time surcharge, that pretty much put the damper on that conversation.
In any case, I rolled into the yard and asked what the damages were.
"How much are you paying?"
"$160, what do I do to get you the rest?"
"The late charges are $5 a day until you're caught up."
Oh?
A day... wow. And here I thought I was going to get blasted. Seriously.
So, after my nice long day, I rolled into the rack and zonked out until 5. Since then, I've decided a few things.
1.) I don't plan on working much past 9pm on most nights, especially not on weekdays. The kind of people who are out after that time on a weekday just turn my crank the wrong way.
2.) I realize that trying to break the day up into "profitable zones" and "unprofitable zones" is my own damned vanity, and there's always work somewhere in this town if I'm willing to go find it.
3.) Since that's really the case, the best scenario is for me to roll out at about 4 in the morning every day and work until I meet a specified income goal or until I've been out till 8 at night and shut it down so I can get about 6 hours crash time every night. The goal here is to reclaim my weekends.
There's nothing that says I can't get 1200 bucks a week and still have Saturday and Sunday off. It's just a matter of maximizing what I do. One of the reasons why I'm letting myself get discombobulated (to put it nicely) is the fact that I'm trying to do things other than my job during the weekdays. I can work in things like auditions and my Taping For the Blind recording time. Hell, I'm talking about putting 12 hours worth of work into an 18 hour day, right? Bottom line is if I can do the 12o0 a week from M-F, then having the weekend to decompress and do my other things, like using Sundays to just WRITE, would be a boon.
There will probably be another blog entry sometime detailing how that goes.
G
***********************************
Running out my ass
Batshit crazy
Am I ambitious
Or just plain lazy?
People filing their taxes
Got my 1099s
Do I run with the masses
Or just lose my mind?
BANANA WAGON MAN
What is yer goddamn plan?
BANANA WAGON MAN
Are you gonna take a stand?
It's plain to see
It's just my luck
Today was meant
To clearly suck
Pull the horse in the barn
And put my feet up
And pour an ice cold coke
In my coffee cup
BANANA WAGON MAN
What is yer goddamn plan?
BANANA WAGON MAN
Are you gonna take a stand?
The day's too long
For not enough cash
But it's only one day
And sleep comes fast
Hit that street
Rock that road
Grab some more people
And take another load
BANANA WAGON MAN
What is yer goddamn plan?
BANANA WAGON MAN
Are you gonna take a stand?
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Ducking bullets...
ORIGINALLY POSTED MONDAY in Facebook Notes:
Might as well start with what worked, because that kind of led to the events of the night.
Recently, I'd grumbled about the time I'd lost due to a faulty alternator. However, this also led to the guys at the shop determining I needed to have my rack and pinion looked at. This was true of course, because I was occasionally getting some front end shimmy. The question, then, true believers: when?
I decided on yesterday.
I rolled into the shop as the doors opened to get that "first come, first served" treatment. However, I wasn't aware of what that truly was. While I was there, the guys at Yellow decided to do my air filter, transmission service, oil change (which I definitely knew I needed) and worked on my suspension. I had to bite my lip... a LOT. I knew, since I was in my 30 day bumper to bumper period, that I was getting all these parts and labor for FREE and getting them too much later was going to cost me. However, I lost all of Monday's profitable morning commute and mid-day activities where I'm usually cleaning up helping folks with MSP rides get around.
7a-3p, lost. Be that as it may, I'd done so well during the weekend that I was only 55 bucks short of making my lease for the week. So, as I'd done a time or two before, I rolled out of the rack at 6pm and asked the Universe for "a little gas money." Sure enough, the Universe came through again. From 8pm to 2 am, I generated about 135 bucks... for me, unheard of at nights. I had to spend a little extra gas money to get it, but I was doing quite well. But this is where Karma and Kismet aren't just sisters, but a pair of dominatrices, and you have to accept their gifts as a sign that you may be going with the flow or pushing too hard.
At around 0230, I heard a little voice in my head say "start working your way back to your part of town." I'd just finished a 60 dollar run up Baytown freeway to the East Sam and back to this lady's house, who basically couldn't hush about how messed up her side of town was. I was kind of rolling my eyes at the whole thing, but I thanked her for her business, she thanked me for being there, and I probably should have heeded her and Kismet, who'd offered me the opportunity to run home beforehand.
Here's what happened next.
I put in a bid for a trip and got it... not too far from where she was at.
I rolled up on a strip of apartments on a street surrounded by ditches. It's not unusual in Houston to see this, BTW. Lots of drainage to be seen in a town with a lot of flood plains and bayous. I slow down to find the entrance to the apartment complex, which my GPS had pegged as being on the opposite side of the street.
"Hey," I hear from a young man from inside the fenceline. I think, "Aha, my fare." However, one of my safety habits helped me come in to play. Before I unlock my doors, I always crack the driver and passenger's windows. This also helps me at night with figuring out where the addresses are on buildings. However, to my right, I hear this crunch of grass. I wheel my head to the right as I'm starting to notice the kid along the fence starting to walk sideways with one hand IN THE WAISTBAND of his shorts. To my right, another young man has materialized at the passenger's window, and I lock eyes with him long enough to hear him say, "Whazzup?" I look behind me and see MORE MOVEMENT from behind the cab.
Before he could get an answer, I was 200 yards down the road. And believe you me, today had been the perfect day to get my transmission serviced. I said no words. I made no looks. I understood the situation for what it was: either those young men were deliberately rehearsing a carjacking or they were trying to pull one off. I called Yellow and told them not to send anyone else to that neighborhood the rest of the night.
Also, I'd like to thank the folks at Garmin for their fine maps and navigational devices. Using my NUVI 200w, I was able to navigate out of the neighborhood without crossing paths with those Darwin award winners (and trust me, they would have been tire fodder if they tried to jump in front of the cab). And, since I'm naming off mythological entities, I might as well give my guardian angelship to either my mother, my grandpa Jim or maybe even Josh himself was watching my back on that one. And folks, if you don't know who Josh is, that's cool... but he's pretty legendary.
And still, I got put in the position to come back to my side of town and play the angel myself.
My last run of the morning involved one of the folks that will occasionally make me come out on a Monday night. Houston, as a rule, likes to party it's ass off on Monday nights. Maybe not to the degree that it does on the weekends, but there are enough folks with back to work blues that they hit the streets and party on Monday.
I took a young lady back to her vehicle after she'd spent the night (from what I could tell by the aroma) at some dude's house all crunked up on wine - and divesting herself of said vino. I let her smoke in the cab because I could tell that her last 5-6 hours had also been emotionally harrowing in some fashion. I don't know what the deal was with the guy, but he obviously had money and was footing the bill for the cab ride.
There was a certain comic irony in the name of the place where she'd parked - The Tasting Room.
Honey, there's "tasting," and then there's "slam the whole winery on a Monday knowing you have to go back to work on Tuesday." For that reason alone, the party karma of Monday night is a lot different than Saturday. The Monday partiers, other than the folks who have strange days off, are the ones who can't put the glass down once the weekend is over. It's a little scary, a little sick and kind of sad when you think about it. It reminds me a little of the appeal of the cab driving and the lesson I took from the Great Bird about being a traveler.
"As a traveler, it no longer crushes you that some might be greater or lesser than you are... you aren't here to judge, but to observe... you are given the opportunity to love, to cherish, to refuse to participate in ugliness." This is a paraphrase, to be sure, but they're still his words.
So anyway, here's to observing, reporting, not judging... and the power of a well-serviced transmission and suspension in the role of avoiding ugliness.
AND TODAY...
Had a great morning and rolled into the apartment for a well deserved break only to find another freakin' flat tire after I woke up. I nursed it to the Goodyear dealership 12 blocks down the road, and thank goodness, only needed to have the tire repaired.
At some point, I'd really to be able to make it through an entire week in this business and just say "hey, I did a solid 6 without some dumb shit going wrong." Maybe this week coming up is the week becasue this one has sure been with some doggoned pitfalls and a half. Goodness knows I'm running out of shit to break that hasn't already been serviced in some form or fashion (he says with his tongue in his cheek knowing he has 4 other tires).
On the plus side, I'm starting to fall into a routine that should keep myself healthier and my sleep schedule right. I'm not one of these guys who can just beat himself up like I used to. When I don't attend to keeping things right with my body, shit starts to fall apart on me faster than you can say Jack Robinson, the All-American Boy. That being said, it's tough to give up on the idea of working late on Fridays and Saturdays. I'll just have to play that by ear, I suppose.
G
Might as well start with what worked, because that kind of led to the events of the night.
Recently, I'd grumbled about the time I'd lost due to a faulty alternator. However, this also led to the guys at the shop determining I needed to have my rack and pinion looked at. This was true of course, because I was occasionally getting some front end shimmy. The question, then, true believers: when?
I decided on yesterday.
I rolled into the shop as the doors opened to get that "first come, first served" treatment. However, I wasn't aware of what that truly was. While I was there, the guys at Yellow decided to do my air filter, transmission service, oil change (which I definitely knew I needed) and worked on my suspension. I had to bite my lip... a LOT. I knew, since I was in my 30 day bumper to bumper period, that I was getting all these parts and labor for FREE and getting them too much later was going to cost me. However, I lost all of Monday's profitable morning commute and mid-day activities where I'm usually cleaning up helping folks with MSP rides get around.
7a-3p, lost. Be that as it may, I'd done so well during the weekend that I was only 55 bucks short of making my lease for the week. So, as I'd done a time or two before, I rolled out of the rack at 6pm and asked the Universe for "a little gas money." Sure enough, the Universe came through again. From 8pm to 2 am, I generated about 135 bucks... for me, unheard of at nights. I had to spend a little extra gas money to get it, but I was doing quite well. But this is where Karma and Kismet aren't just sisters, but a pair of dominatrices, and you have to accept their gifts as a sign that you may be going with the flow or pushing too hard.
At around 0230, I heard a little voice in my head say "start working your way back to your part of town." I'd just finished a 60 dollar run up Baytown freeway to the East Sam and back to this lady's house, who basically couldn't hush about how messed up her side of town was. I was kind of rolling my eyes at the whole thing, but I thanked her for her business, she thanked me for being there, and I probably should have heeded her and Kismet, who'd offered me the opportunity to run home beforehand.
Here's what happened next.
I put in a bid for a trip and got it... not too far from where she was at.
I rolled up on a strip of apartments on a street surrounded by ditches. It's not unusual in Houston to see this, BTW. Lots of drainage to be seen in a town with a lot of flood plains and bayous. I slow down to find the entrance to the apartment complex, which my GPS had pegged as being on the opposite side of the street.
"Hey," I hear from a young man from inside the fenceline. I think, "Aha, my fare." However, one of my safety habits helped me come in to play. Before I unlock my doors, I always crack the driver and passenger's windows. This also helps me at night with figuring out where the addresses are on buildings. However, to my right, I hear this crunch of grass. I wheel my head to the right as I'm starting to notice the kid along the fence starting to walk sideways with one hand IN THE WAISTBAND of his shorts. To my right, another young man has materialized at the passenger's window, and I lock eyes with him long enough to hear him say, "Whazzup?" I look behind me and see MORE MOVEMENT from behind the cab.
Before he could get an answer, I was 200 yards down the road. And believe you me, today had been the perfect day to get my transmission serviced. I said no words. I made no looks. I understood the situation for what it was: either those young men were deliberately rehearsing a carjacking or they were trying to pull one off. I called Yellow and told them not to send anyone else to that neighborhood the rest of the night.
Also, I'd like to thank the folks at Garmin for their fine maps and navigational devices. Using my NUVI 200w, I was able to navigate out of the neighborhood without crossing paths with those Darwin award winners (and trust me, they would have been tire fodder if they tried to jump in front of the cab). And, since I'm naming off mythological entities, I might as well give my guardian angelship to either my mother, my grandpa Jim or maybe even Josh himself was watching my back on that one. And folks, if you don't know who Josh is, that's cool... but he's pretty legendary.
And still, I got put in the position to come back to my side of town and play the angel myself.
My last run of the morning involved one of the folks that will occasionally make me come out on a Monday night. Houston, as a rule, likes to party it's ass off on Monday nights. Maybe not to the degree that it does on the weekends, but there are enough folks with back to work blues that they hit the streets and party on Monday.
I took a young lady back to her vehicle after she'd spent the night (from what I could tell by the aroma) at some dude's house all crunked up on wine - and divesting herself of said vino. I let her smoke in the cab because I could tell that her last 5-6 hours had also been emotionally harrowing in some fashion. I don't know what the deal was with the guy, but he obviously had money and was footing the bill for the cab ride.
There was a certain comic irony in the name of the place where she'd parked - The Tasting Room.
Honey, there's "tasting," and then there's "slam the whole winery on a Monday knowing you have to go back to work on Tuesday." For that reason alone, the party karma of Monday night is a lot different than Saturday. The Monday partiers, other than the folks who have strange days off, are the ones who can't put the glass down once the weekend is over. It's a little scary, a little sick and kind of sad when you think about it. It reminds me a little of the appeal of the cab driving and the lesson I took from the Great Bird about being a traveler.
"As a traveler, it no longer crushes you that some might be greater or lesser than you are... you aren't here to judge, but to observe... you are given the opportunity to love, to cherish, to refuse to participate in ugliness." This is a paraphrase, to be sure, but they're still his words.
So anyway, here's to observing, reporting, not judging... and the power of a well-serviced transmission and suspension in the role of avoiding ugliness.
AND TODAY...
Had a great morning and rolled into the apartment for a well deserved break only to find another freakin' flat tire after I woke up. I nursed it to the Goodyear dealership 12 blocks down the road, and thank goodness, only needed to have the tire repaired.
At some point, I'd really to be able to make it through an entire week in this business and just say "hey, I did a solid 6 without some dumb shit going wrong." Maybe this week coming up is the week becasue this one has sure been with some doggoned pitfalls and a half. Goodness knows I'm running out of shit to break that hasn't already been serviced in some form or fashion (he says with his tongue in his cheek knowing he has 4 other tires).
On the plus side, I'm starting to fall into a routine that should keep myself healthier and my sleep schedule right. I'm not one of these guys who can just beat himself up like I used to. When I don't attend to keeping things right with my body, shit starts to fall apart on me faster than you can say Jack Robinson, the All-American Boy. That being said, it's tough to give up on the idea of working late on Fridays and Saturdays. I'll just have to play that by ear, I suppose.
G
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
You Take The Good, You Take The Bad, You Take it All and There You Have...
...a strange, but fruitful day.
For the first time since I started driving for Houston Yellow, I was actually in danger of not making my lease. Part of this had to do with the fact that I let myself run out of my prescription arthritis medication. The other part was after Thursday came and went, I forced myself to work Friday in the Bay Area exclusively and I paid the price for being a little too arrogant about that. Namely, that I thought the work was going to show up. So, for those two days, I barely eked out 140 bucks. Spending about 20 bucks each of those days for gas made it an even hundred. Not that good. I tried to make up for it by running hard on Saturday.
As I mentioned before, the story about the couple who almost got hauled off to jail finishing my night with the miracle landing at the La Quinta, Saturday wasn't that profitable. 24 hours to make 280, minus the cost of gas... and, oh by the way, feeding myself... the margin just wasn't happening. Needless to say, after the 24 hour Saturday, Sunday was a write-off.
Monday got off to what was going to be a promising start. I got a call to run into Katy to take someone to Bush - a 77 dollar flat-rate trip. However, as I zoomed down Barker-Cypress. I think I already blogged about this, so it's sufficient to say that I had to get towed back to Yellow to get my alternator replaced. Cab no runny when it has no power. Hilarious... it didn't even have enough juice to get off the wrecker and into the shop.
Anyway, so I tried to make another one of those legendary Monday night shifts that I had a couple weeks ago. It didn't happen. 70 bucks, and I had to stick 20 back in the tank. Good news is that I helped some Metro Life people who weren't going to get a cab otherwise, so I at least considered it a good night in terms of karma. However, I spent probably the most profitable part of Tuesday crashed out because I thought I was going to potentially profit from this city's tendency to part its ass off on Monday nights... forgetting, perhaps, that we're a little partied out from 4 weeks of the Rodeo. And finally, I rolled out on Tuesday afternoon after an audition (what, an audition? Yeah, really!) and saw the night die off quickly and I said to myself...
"Self, you're working against all the good advice and experience you've been getting. Shut it the fuck down for the night and hit it fresh in the morning."
So, I did.
Today, I started 180 dollars away from making my lease. Normally, after bills and what not, I'd be maybe 40 or 50... this was the largest gap ever. So, I simply asked Providence for a little help. I crashed out and asked, as humbly as I could...
Folks, I need my head clear and receptive for tomorrow so we can make this work. Let's go make this money, get shit paid and move forward and get a full week's work in.
And, we did.
I started with a 60 dollar trip from Katy to the Medical Center (sound familiar?). And, from there, there was no let up. I had to have done 10 MSP trips, plus little bits of cash here and there. I needed 180, and I made 210 in 7 hours. When I let the karma flow freely, good things like that happen. When I force it, I make pocket change.
This was a good thing, because - lost in my requests for clarity from the Universe at large - I kind of forgot to take my arthritis medication this morning. This meant that as the day progressed, I got worse and worse and I was staggering worse than some of my MSP patients. I kept promising myself that I was going to go home and take some damn pills, but I was never quite comfortable with what I had on me until about 2 in the afternoon. At that point, I knew the shop was going to start code-5ing people who hadn't made their lease money by 3, and I hauled ass back to the shop.
And, as predicted, I got it all in - with 5 minutes, and 30 bucks to spare. I limped, literally, across the finish line. I drove through the Wendy's at the Pilot truck stop, scored a big chicken sandwich, came home, swallowed my pills and I'm waiting for them to work as we speak. It's been about 2 hours and I can already feel my left knee starting to loosen up. It's no surprise, given the migratory nature of my arthritis, that it's been settling in my left leg more and more because it's the one I don't use when I drive. The solution, which I hope to implement as early as tomorrow, is to give myself about an hour to just walk around every day like I did when I was doing security a couple of months back.
Looking back, there seems to be no particular day in which I can have a contiguous 12 hour adventure and make the right money - unless it happens to be a total miracle flip the script day like today where I actually made my money in less than 8 hours. The best times to work seem to be what was indicated by the folks at Yellow - morning commute with a midday break followed by evening commute. The midday break needs to be where I get my exercise, do my writing, and so on. That seems to be the formula.
Also, today is proof that I can do better at the money-generating part if I let certain things just FLOW. No pushing, no forcing things, just letting the cab tell me where to go and going there.
Interestingly, there were some other things that didn't go as planned - and I can laugh about them now that I have my traction under me again, so to speak.
Monday night, I got scooped bad for the first time. I got dispatched to another one of these jobs in Katy. Another cab, obviously a guy more familiar with the area and who knows of the customers, swoops in front of me, drives like a jackass and gets to the house before I do. The customer, not knowing any better (and who's probably familiar with the driver) gets in his cab and they go. I reported him and his cab number to the folks at customer service today. The only thing that could possibly save him is if he was double-dispatched to the same call, and either way, the company should reimburse me the full fare for what he took.
I like to think I have a more "zen" approach to this - the fact that I was able to tune out the BS and go make my money today is proof - but there is no excuse for scooping someone else's dispatch call. I drove all the way from Westheimer and the Beltway to get that call and I came up empty-handed.
Fuck you. scumbag, I hope your contract get cancelled. Go drive for a company that lets the scavengers in this business work. There... that's zen in action for you.
Also, on the list of people who need to be reported to their bosses is the guy who delivered the new cel phone for my business line today. I find the UPS slip on the door and he has the following boxes checked:
BACK DOOR
PORCH
PATIO
I have no patio or back door, and there's nothing on the porch. I hobble my busted leg over to the office and see if the driver delivered my package there. No dice. And suddenly, it dawns on me... I do have a second floor balcony on my split level loft. Sure enough, 10 feet up from the ground, there's my box from UPS with my LG Envision cel phone.
The dumb son of a bitch threw my cel phone TEN FEET IN THE FUCKING AIR and hoped it would have a soft landing on my balcony.
Good news is, I've charged it. It works. However, to say I'm pissed off about this is putting it mildly. What kind of ignorant ass just does that to a piece of electronic equipment like that? I know, I know... a UPS driver. Still, they're going to get an earful this morning as I press on. It'll be another 5am to whenever affair.
Needless to say, the good far outstripped the bad today, but I had to vent about the bad a little.
Hasta la pasta...
G
For the first time since I started driving for Houston Yellow, I was actually in danger of not making my lease. Part of this had to do with the fact that I let myself run out of my prescription arthritis medication. The other part was after Thursday came and went, I forced myself to work Friday in the Bay Area exclusively and I paid the price for being a little too arrogant about that. Namely, that I thought the work was going to show up. So, for those two days, I barely eked out 140 bucks. Spending about 20 bucks each of those days for gas made it an even hundred. Not that good. I tried to make up for it by running hard on Saturday.
As I mentioned before, the story about the couple who almost got hauled off to jail finishing my night with the miracle landing at the La Quinta, Saturday wasn't that profitable. 24 hours to make 280, minus the cost of gas... and, oh by the way, feeding myself... the margin just wasn't happening. Needless to say, after the 24 hour Saturday, Sunday was a write-off.
Monday got off to what was going to be a promising start. I got a call to run into Katy to take someone to Bush - a 77 dollar flat-rate trip. However, as I zoomed down Barker-Cypress. I think I already blogged about this, so it's sufficient to say that I had to get towed back to Yellow to get my alternator replaced. Cab no runny when it has no power. Hilarious... it didn't even have enough juice to get off the wrecker and into the shop.
Anyway, so I tried to make another one of those legendary Monday night shifts that I had a couple weeks ago. It didn't happen. 70 bucks, and I had to stick 20 back in the tank. Good news is that I helped some Metro Life people who weren't going to get a cab otherwise, so I at least considered it a good night in terms of karma. However, I spent probably the most profitable part of Tuesday crashed out because I thought I was going to potentially profit from this city's tendency to part its ass off on Monday nights... forgetting, perhaps, that we're a little partied out from 4 weeks of the Rodeo. And finally, I rolled out on Tuesday afternoon after an audition (what, an audition? Yeah, really!) and saw the night die off quickly and I said to myself...
"Self, you're working against all the good advice and experience you've been getting. Shut it the fuck down for the night and hit it fresh in the morning."
So, I did.
Today, I started 180 dollars away from making my lease. Normally, after bills and what not, I'd be maybe 40 or 50... this was the largest gap ever. So, I simply asked Providence for a little help. I crashed out and asked, as humbly as I could...
Folks, I need my head clear and receptive for tomorrow so we can make this work. Let's go make this money, get shit paid and move forward and get a full week's work in.
And, we did.
I started with a 60 dollar trip from Katy to the Medical Center (sound familiar?). And, from there, there was no let up. I had to have done 10 MSP trips, plus little bits of cash here and there. I needed 180, and I made 210 in 7 hours. When I let the karma flow freely, good things like that happen. When I force it, I make pocket change.
This was a good thing, because - lost in my requests for clarity from the Universe at large - I kind of forgot to take my arthritis medication this morning. This meant that as the day progressed, I got worse and worse and I was staggering worse than some of my MSP patients. I kept promising myself that I was going to go home and take some damn pills, but I was never quite comfortable with what I had on me until about 2 in the afternoon. At that point, I knew the shop was going to start code-5ing people who hadn't made their lease money by 3, and I hauled ass back to the shop.
And, as predicted, I got it all in - with 5 minutes, and 30 bucks to spare. I limped, literally, across the finish line. I drove through the Wendy's at the Pilot truck stop, scored a big chicken sandwich, came home, swallowed my pills and I'm waiting for them to work as we speak. It's been about 2 hours and I can already feel my left knee starting to loosen up. It's no surprise, given the migratory nature of my arthritis, that it's been settling in my left leg more and more because it's the one I don't use when I drive. The solution, which I hope to implement as early as tomorrow, is to give myself about an hour to just walk around every day like I did when I was doing security a couple of months back.
Looking back, there seems to be no particular day in which I can have a contiguous 12 hour adventure and make the right money - unless it happens to be a total miracle flip the script day like today where I actually made my money in less than 8 hours. The best times to work seem to be what was indicated by the folks at Yellow - morning commute with a midday break followed by evening commute. The midday break needs to be where I get my exercise, do my writing, and so on. That seems to be the formula.
Also, today is proof that I can do better at the money-generating part if I let certain things just FLOW. No pushing, no forcing things, just letting the cab tell me where to go and going there.
Interestingly, there were some other things that didn't go as planned - and I can laugh about them now that I have my traction under me again, so to speak.
Monday night, I got scooped bad for the first time. I got dispatched to another one of these jobs in Katy. Another cab, obviously a guy more familiar with the area and who knows of the customers, swoops in front of me, drives like a jackass and gets to the house before I do. The customer, not knowing any better (and who's probably familiar with the driver) gets in his cab and they go. I reported him and his cab number to the folks at customer service today. The only thing that could possibly save him is if he was double-dispatched to the same call, and either way, the company should reimburse me the full fare for what he took.
I like to think I have a more "zen" approach to this - the fact that I was able to tune out the BS and go make my money today is proof - but there is no excuse for scooping someone else's dispatch call. I drove all the way from Westheimer and the Beltway to get that call and I came up empty-handed.
Fuck you. scumbag, I hope your contract get cancelled. Go drive for a company that lets the scavengers in this business work. There... that's zen in action for you.
Also, on the list of people who need to be reported to their bosses is the guy who delivered the new cel phone for my business line today. I find the UPS slip on the door and he has the following boxes checked:
BACK DOOR
PORCH
PATIO
I have no patio or back door, and there's nothing on the porch. I hobble my busted leg over to the office and see if the driver delivered my package there. No dice. And suddenly, it dawns on me... I do have a second floor balcony on my split level loft. Sure enough, 10 feet up from the ground, there's my box from UPS with my LG Envision cel phone.
The dumb son of a bitch threw my cel phone TEN FEET IN THE FUCKING AIR and hoped it would have a soft landing on my balcony.
Good news is, I've charged it. It works. However, to say I'm pissed off about this is putting it mildly. What kind of ignorant ass just does that to a piece of electronic equipment like that? I know, I know... a UPS driver. Still, they're going to get an earful this morning as I press on. It'll be another 5am to whenever affair.
Needless to say, the good far outstripped the bad today, but I had to vent about the bad a little.
Hasta la pasta...
G
Monday, March 23, 2009
Another moment of cab driver ZEN
So... after getting my much needed rest yesterday, I started out and headed towards a "sure thing." My first run of the day was going to be a nice, sweet airport trip. 75 bucks. A third of a day's work for only an hour and a half of time invested.
NOTE: there are no "sure things" in this, or any business.
15 minutes on my way up Barker Cypress, the battery light comes on. Then the ABS light, the seat belt light and so on... then the lights in the cab start going dark and the trip computer shuts down. YAY and crappity crap... my alternator has died, and I have a handful of minutes to get off the road before the motor stops sparking. I find a Texaco, pull over, and tell the folks at communications they'll have to re-dispatch the trip. I get a tow, get it to the shop. They swap the alternator, charge the battery and find my alignment's off, so I'll take care of it tomorrow morning.
And, speaking of the morning, I believe I finally believe there was a higher purpose to my working that 24 on Saturday... to set myself up for working nights from now on. It fits my working style... running all over and chasing after folks who would otherwise still be stranded and otherwise catch the morning commute afterwards. I like a workday you can start and finish with a flourish, so I'm going to try it that way. There's another statement in this business, and it's especially true in Houston. "There's always work to be had."
Lastly, I'm getting another cel phone line just for the cab business with unlimited talk, text and messaging. It's been somewhat disquieting picking up my phone wondering if it's a family member or someone from the entertainment business, and instead it's some crunked up dude I drove around before looking for a cab ride from all the way across town. Anyway, the faster I have that changed over the better, I think. I should have it in about a a day or two.
Finally... the rodeo's over. The number of cabs back at the yard tells the story. The sunshine soldiers have crawled back into their hidey-holes and things are free and easy... or at least, manageable.
Yay, zen cab driving.
G
NOTE: there are no "sure things" in this, or any business.
15 minutes on my way up Barker Cypress, the battery light comes on. Then the ABS light, the seat belt light and so on... then the lights in the cab start going dark and the trip computer shuts down. YAY and crappity crap... my alternator has died, and I have a handful of minutes to get off the road before the motor stops sparking. I find a Texaco, pull over, and tell the folks at communications they'll have to re-dispatch the trip. I get a tow, get it to the shop. They swap the alternator, charge the battery and find my alignment's off, so I'll take care of it tomorrow morning.
And, speaking of the morning, I believe I finally believe there was a higher purpose to my working that 24 on Saturday... to set myself up for working nights from now on. It fits my working style... running all over and chasing after folks who would otherwise still be stranded and otherwise catch the morning commute afterwards. I like a workday you can start and finish with a flourish, so I'm going to try it that way. There's another statement in this business, and it's especially true in Houston. "There's always work to be had."
Lastly, I'm getting another cel phone line just for the cab business with unlimited talk, text and messaging. It's been somewhat disquieting picking up my phone wondering if it's a family member or someone from the entertainment business, and instead it's some crunked up dude I drove around before looking for a cab ride from all the way across town. Anyway, the faster I have that changed over the better, I think. I should have it in about a a day or two.
Finally... the rodeo's over. The number of cabs back at the yard tells the story. The sunshine soldiers have crawled back into their hidey-holes and things are free and easy... or at least, manageable.
Yay, zen cab driving.
G
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Cab Driving Zen #Whatever
6 Weeks...
I really should stop schedule experimenting. Thursday through Friday were damned crazy. Seriously. Thursday, my arthritis flared so bad that I had to get the back end of the day off while I waited for the drugs to work. Friday, I thought trying to work in the Bay Area during Spring Break week while everyone was in Galveston (you know, where I can't work?) was a great idea... bleech. Saturday, I tried making up for those days by working a double.
A double, by the way, is not entirely legal and damned long.
I spent today recovering. The good news was that I am, in fact, caught up financially. But... damn. I rested, I recovered and I ruminated.
Silliness aside, I'm going to stick to my original schedule. It seemed to have worked. It was a slight pain in the butt, but it definitely had the merit of actually working. As bad as yesterday was, I was happy to have this last story be part of the business.
Pick up at the Casa Ole on South Post Oak. A youngish couple, and for some reason, they'd been given the option of going to jail or calling a cab. Apparently, there was more involved than just drinking... although that was a big component of it. I bundle them up and start heading up 610 with the thought of heading west. However, the girl in the couple starts getting sick and we end up flying up 59 north looking for a serviceable exit with a parking lot (preferably without security guards or cameras) for her to upchuck in. We find it, I pull over, she finds some fence line to take care of business on.
So, while her BF and I are waiting for her to divest herself of margaritas #x - #z, he asks me if I know of any hotel rooms nearby. Not being that familiar I say, "not really, but the GPS is linked up and I can find one relatively closeby, I'm sure." I tap the screen a couple of times and get this:
La Quinta Inn - Greenway; distance, 36.6 feet, travel time 1 second.
I step out of the cab and walk around said fenceline and, sitting like the Emerald City just north of Pukeville, is the La Quinta Greenway. She finishes, I drive them the 40 feet, plus the distance to the breezeway, collect my fare and make sure they haven't left me anything. The cab is clear and I scoot... calling it a night.
Another interesting difficulty factor yesterday was the fact that my GPS kept getting unlinked from the satellite system all day. I double checked the NASA-SOHO website, and we've apparently been on the receiving end of what's left of the mid-week's coronal mass ejection. Either that, or the Garmin I just got is turning into a mountain of suck. However, when it worked yesterday, it was delivering quite nicely. I just hope that it's only related to the recent solar activity.
All for now... G
I really should stop schedule experimenting. Thursday through Friday were damned crazy. Seriously. Thursday, my arthritis flared so bad that I had to get the back end of the day off while I waited for the drugs to work. Friday, I thought trying to work in the Bay Area during Spring Break week while everyone was in Galveston (you know, where I can't work?) was a great idea... bleech. Saturday, I tried making up for those days by working a double.
A double, by the way, is not entirely legal and damned long.
I spent today recovering. The good news was that I am, in fact, caught up financially. But... damn. I rested, I recovered and I ruminated.
Silliness aside, I'm going to stick to my original schedule. It seemed to have worked. It was a slight pain in the butt, but it definitely had the merit of actually working. As bad as yesterday was, I was happy to have this last story be part of the business.
Pick up at the Casa Ole on South Post Oak. A youngish couple, and for some reason, they'd been given the option of going to jail or calling a cab. Apparently, there was more involved than just drinking... although that was a big component of it. I bundle them up and start heading up 610 with the thought of heading west. However, the girl in the couple starts getting sick and we end up flying up 59 north looking for a serviceable exit with a parking lot (preferably without security guards or cameras) for her to upchuck in. We find it, I pull over, she finds some fence line to take care of business on.
So, while her BF and I are waiting for her to divest herself of margaritas #x - #z, he asks me if I know of any hotel rooms nearby. Not being that familiar I say, "not really, but the GPS is linked up and I can find one relatively closeby, I'm sure." I tap the screen a couple of times and get this:
La Quinta Inn - Greenway; distance, 36.6 feet, travel time 1 second.
I step out of the cab and walk around said fenceline and, sitting like the Emerald City just north of Pukeville, is the La Quinta Greenway. She finishes, I drive them the 40 feet, plus the distance to the breezeway, collect my fare and make sure they haven't left me anything. The cab is clear and I scoot... calling it a night.
Another interesting difficulty factor yesterday was the fact that my GPS kept getting unlinked from the satellite system all day. I double checked the NASA-SOHO website, and we've apparently been on the receiving end of what's left of the mid-week's coronal mass ejection. Either that, or the Garmin I just got is turning into a mountain of suck. However, when it worked yesterday, it was delivering quite nicely. I just hope that it's only related to the recent solar activity.
All for now... G
Monday, March 16, 2009
A Clean Cab Is a Happy Cab... or Something
So... the weekend... was... rainy. As a result, the outside of the cab was frickin GRIMY. Two things I didn't want. Combine that with the fact that the Rodeo and the lousy weather actually took a chunk out of my income. Also, I wandered into the deep southeast (Pearland and the Bay Area) to see if the "mellower clientele" would make for a more interesting and less-stressful work night.
No such luck.
My second trip at 2pm was some drunken assed rich white guy who insisted on fucking touching me the whole damn time I was driving him to "the bars downtown." Yeah, it was nearly a 50 dollar trip; but holy fuck, I wanted to kill the guy when it was done.
Makes me wish I had a New York cab with the partition between me and my riders. Crap.
Rodeo should be over soon, and I'm hoping that drives the sunshine soldiers back into their hidey holes and gets business back to normal. The weekend had to be the least profitable of the 5 weeks I've been on the road because of all the part timers who thought they were going to have a lot of business this month.
I have a question to the general populace, BTW. You do know that when you answer your cel phone in the cab the driver is pretty much privy to all your damn business. don't you?
HINT: I hear you, and unfortunately, I am. I don't want to be, but I am. This is especially true when you're having a SCREAMING FUCKING FIT and making it HARD FOR ME TO DRIVE.
Idiots. Your lives do not revolve around your phones. Turn them off once in a while, especially if you have unnecessary drama in your life.
Anyway... I finally had what I would consider a decent Sunday. It helped me do what I wanted to do this week which was pay off my last ever payday loan. Working for the man was interesting, but wasn't quite getting me what I wanted. Frankly, if I'm behind it a little, I can always jump in the PHD and go make more.
BTW... PHD is "People Hauler Deluxe" =)
Anyway, as part of that feeling confident in making money anytime, I spent 60 bucks on getting it hand washed and the interior detailed.
Tomorrow... St. Patricks Day, and too many people using excuses to drink themselves into a stupor. YAY
No such luck.
My second trip at 2pm was some drunken assed rich white guy who insisted on fucking touching me the whole damn time I was driving him to "the bars downtown." Yeah, it was nearly a 50 dollar trip; but holy fuck, I wanted to kill the guy when it was done.
Makes me wish I had a New York cab with the partition between me and my riders. Crap.
Rodeo should be over soon, and I'm hoping that drives the sunshine soldiers back into their hidey holes and gets business back to normal. The weekend had to be the least profitable of the 5 weeks I've been on the road because of all the part timers who thought they were going to have a lot of business this month.
I have a question to the general populace, BTW. You do know that when you answer your cel phone in the cab the driver is pretty much privy to all your damn business. don't you?
HINT: I hear you, and unfortunately, I am. I don't want to be, but I am. This is especially true when you're having a SCREAMING FUCKING FIT and making it HARD FOR ME TO DRIVE.
Idiots. Your lives do not revolve around your phones. Turn them off once in a while, especially if you have unnecessary drama in your life.
Anyway... I finally had what I would consider a decent Sunday. It helped me do what I wanted to do this week which was pay off my last ever payday loan. Working for the man was interesting, but wasn't quite getting me what I wanted. Frankly, if I'm behind it a little, I can always jump in the PHD and go make more.
BTW... PHD is "People Hauler Deluxe" =)
Anyway, as part of that feeling confident in making money anytime, I spent 60 bucks on getting it hand washed and the interior detailed.
Tomorrow... St. Patricks Day, and too many people using excuses to drink themselves into a stupor. YAY
Monday, March 9, 2009
Another "Next Step"
As is often the case, things emerge that inspire one to think, "I can improve on this to make a little better money or work fewer hours." Whatever the case may be.
As it is, Houston has a lot of roads that are divided - sometimes in more than one spot. Another piece of advice I got was "just use your Key Map, you'll find it just fine."
Bullshit.
Today, I finally dropped the dime on a GPS receiver... the Garmin Nuvi 200W. They just dropped in price to $139.99 at Target, so it was time. I figure I've lost the equivalent of 3-6 trips during a 12 hour day due to being "lost" in some form or fashion. If this thing saves me time and money, then it should pay itself off in about a week.
So... how the rest of Saturday went. Feh... somehow, I managed to get stuck around MLK between Almeda-Genoa and Airport for two hours. Finally, I started working around Hobby airport and found my way back to my part of town in time to pick up a girl I'm going to call "Donna."
Donna was drunk, and ran at my cab in high heels... and let me tell you, people who run in high heels when they're plastered are damned funny. However, I still give her props for not wiping out on the tarmac. However, she would be my last trip of the night.
Apparently, it was a sign from above that I was pushing too hard or whatever, but I'd accepted another trip... and I started feeling my cab pulling to the right. I'd run over something at the club where I dropped Donna off at. I tried dropping the spare, only to find that the geniuses who configured my cab decided to mount a post where the nut that spools the spare tire down was. This stopped me from using the jack kit included in the cab. In the future, I'll have to use my portable power rachet and an appropriately sized square-shaped socket.
Bottom line... since I give myself Sundays off anyway, it was only a slightly premature end to the night. I still spent a little extra time today waiting for the flat to be fixed over at Yellow. I had it towed that morning. Apparently, the extra 5 bucks a week I pay in comprehensive coverage is going to cover it. Free tire! Woot!
Also, one more piece of the puzzle is completed. I decided, because of my cab being out of service all morning, that I would run over to the badging office at the Houston Airport System and I finally got my airport security badge. So now, I'm going to try - sometime soon -hanging out in the airport queue and seeing where that will take me. Again, the possibility of getting time to write while I wait, and then getting a big score going out of one of the airports is too interesting to ignore.
All for now... more as it comes.
G
As it is, Houston has a lot of roads that are divided - sometimes in more than one spot. Another piece of advice I got was "just use your Key Map, you'll find it just fine."
Bullshit.
Today, I finally dropped the dime on a GPS receiver... the Garmin Nuvi 200W. They just dropped in price to $139.99 at Target, so it was time. I figure I've lost the equivalent of 3-6 trips during a 12 hour day due to being "lost" in some form or fashion. If this thing saves me time and money, then it should pay itself off in about a week.
So... how the rest of Saturday went. Feh... somehow, I managed to get stuck around MLK between Almeda-Genoa and Airport for two hours. Finally, I started working around Hobby airport and found my way back to my part of town in time to pick up a girl I'm going to call "Donna."
Donna was drunk, and ran at my cab in high heels... and let me tell you, people who run in high heels when they're plastered are damned funny. However, I still give her props for not wiping out on the tarmac. However, she would be my last trip of the night.
Apparently, it was a sign from above that I was pushing too hard or whatever, but I'd accepted another trip... and I started feeling my cab pulling to the right. I'd run over something at the club where I dropped Donna off at. I tried dropping the spare, only to find that the geniuses who configured my cab decided to mount a post where the nut that spools the spare tire down was. This stopped me from using the jack kit included in the cab. In the future, I'll have to use my portable power rachet and an appropriately sized square-shaped socket.
Bottom line... since I give myself Sundays off anyway, it was only a slightly premature end to the night. I still spent a little extra time today waiting for the flat to be fixed over at Yellow. I had it towed that morning. Apparently, the extra 5 bucks a week I pay in comprehensive coverage is going to cover it. Free tire! Woot!
Also, one more piece of the puzzle is completed. I decided, because of my cab being out of service all morning, that I would run over to the badging office at the Houston Airport System and I finally got my airport security badge. So now, I'm going to try - sometime soon -hanging out in the airport queue and seeing where that will take me. Again, the possibility of getting time to write while I wait, and then getting a big score going out of one of the airports is too interesting to ignore.
All for now... more as it comes.
G
Saturday, March 7, 2009
It might be better to not curse myself...
However, I'll say it anyway.
Happiness is knowing you've already paid for your first week's lease on your new owner-operator cab with 8 hours left to work on Saturday night. That's pretty fuckin' slick, yo.
Also... here's another. The answer to the question, "how can you get back to back airport jobs in the same run?"
Simple, my dear Watson: have someone at the passenger drop off point leap into your cab as you're dropping someone off.
I was stood up in Webster (the Bay Area of Houston, basically). Then, I got a call to go get a guy at the Hooters on NASA Road 1. Yes, there's a Hooters near the Johnson Space Center. I take him to Hobby Airport (HOU) and, just as I'm getting ready to punch out of the line, someone bangs on my window and hands me a voucher and says, "Are you going to Bush? I need to get there in a hurry."
"I am now! Welcome aboard," was my reply.
Now, here's the thing. People are supposed to wait for cabs down at Ground Transportation at Houston's airports. Cabs line up for HOURS to get these trips, and a guy just throws himself at me just I'm getting ready to go. On top of that, Houston Airport System still hasn't issued me my badge, yet, so I wasn't supposed to take the trip. However, the overriding concern is that I'd be in even more trouble if I refused this gentleman transport. Hence, I went.
For the record, both of those trips added up to just under a hundred bucks in 90 minutes. I could only wish that every hour and a half of my cab driving life were that profitable. I'd be home after 8 hours every day and have complete weekends off. However, that's how Friday karma goes at times.
In any case, I'm catching a small break at home before I run out and face the Saturday night life.
And lastly, with all this crusading I'm doing, I'd probably be well-served to get a GPS to prevent some of the gas wasting I'm doing. I do a lot of doubling back because I don't have a pin-point fix on some of these locations I'm lighting on.
Anywho...
Happiness is knowing you've already paid for your first week's lease on your new owner-operator cab with 8 hours left to work on Saturday night. That's pretty fuckin' slick, yo.
Also... here's another. The answer to the question, "how can you get back to back airport jobs in the same run?"
Simple, my dear Watson: have someone at the passenger drop off point leap into your cab as you're dropping someone off.
I was stood up in Webster (the Bay Area of Houston, basically). Then, I got a call to go get a guy at the Hooters on NASA Road 1. Yes, there's a Hooters near the Johnson Space Center. I take him to Hobby Airport (HOU) and, just as I'm getting ready to punch out of the line, someone bangs on my window and hands me a voucher and says, "Are you going to Bush? I need to get there in a hurry."
"I am now! Welcome aboard," was my reply.
Now, here's the thing. People are supposed to wait for cabs down at Ground Transportation at Houston's airports. Cabs line up for HOURS to get these trips, and a guy just throws himself at me just I'm getting ready to go. On top of that, Houston Airport System still hasn't issued me my badge, yet, so I wasn't supposed to take the trip. However, the overriding concern is that I'd be in even more trouble if I refused this gentleman transport. Hence, I went.
For the record, both of those trips added up to just under a hundred bucks in 90 minutes. I could only wish that every hour and a half of my cab driving life were that profitable. I'd be home after 8 hours every day and have complete weekends off. However, that's how Friday karma goes at times.
In any case, I'm catching a small break at home before I run out and face the Saturday night life.
And lastly, with all this crusading I'm doing, I'd probably be well-served to get a GPS to prevent some of the gas wasting I'm doing. I do a lot of doubling back because I don't have a pin-point fix on some of these locations I'm lighting on.
Anywho...
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Pride Goeth Before The Fall
Apparently, not all overnight shifts are as profitable as Monday night's was. To put it mildly, last night was break-even. I managed to follow that up with 8 relatively profitable hours today with my first trip to Bush (Intercontinental Airport, Houston). Among some of the other bits of "advice" I've received, I'm currently re-thinking some of the griping that other drivers do about people who work (or try to work) the airport queues exclusively.
1.) If there really is such a horrid wait (2-6 hours) to get airport trips out of Bush or Hobby, but the potential payoffs are huge, maybe that's an opportunity for me to take a "paid break" of sorts to run to the airport, get in the queue, then do some writing on the laptop before my number gets called.
2.) It might be an interesting opportunity to book some of that "personal business" I keep hearing so much about.
Maybe jump in for one wait in the queue, get a trip out of the airport (or two if there's a short trip in there), and do some of my other business during the wait. Then, I can follow that up by doing some of my regular street-cabbie work and picking up MSP trips and what not.
Ponder ponder ponder...
1.) If there really is such a horrid wait (2-6 hours) to get airport trips out of Bush or Hobby, but the potential payoffs are huge, maybe that's an opportunity for me to take a "paid break" of sorts to run to the airport, get in the queue, then do some writing on the laptop before my number gets called.
2.) It might be an interesting opportunity to book some of that "personal business" I keep hearing so much about.
Maybe jump in for one wait in the queue, get a trip out of the airport (or two if there's a short trip in there), and do some of my other business during the wait. Then, I can follow that up by doing some of my regular street-cabbie work and picking up MSP trips and what not.
Ponder ponder ponder...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Long Haul...
First off... I want to express my deep sympathies to the families of Marquis Cooper, Corey Smith and William Bleakley. While the families remain optimistic and have started their own private searches, chances are that we have lost these fine young men. Marquis was a Raider, and that alone gets more attention from me than a lot of folks might. I had to lead off with this because I wanted to keep things in perspective on a day that is otherwise very positive and upbeat for me.
Today, I took the first step to what I'm calling The Long Haul: I bought my first cab. By becoming an owner-operator, I'm taking an ownership stake in what I do and the company that I'm representing. More importantly, I am working on long and short-term solutions to financial issues that have been dogging me ever since I got to town.
I can't really describe it, except to say that I've always tried to balance my desires to continue my acting education versus my ability to actually make money at it. I thought I was going to get certain opportunities here and there as certain doors opened. However, it appeared that those doors were opening behind others that were closing. While I was able to keep a roof over my head, and myself fed, the stress of never being able to get ahead was really pressing down on me. I started working hungry, so to speak (with that "I've gotta have this job" mentality), and that pretty much violates every dictate of doing good acting work in any town where you can find work.
It's no surprise that when I started writing adaptation, the live-action dubbing work that had been so profitable for me as an actor started drying up. Then, roughly 18 months ago, there were indications that my services as a writer - other than working on my own unsold properties - were going to be going out of demand. Some of the story I've already conveyed here: going back to security, trying corrections, going back to doing technical support for the clueless and the rude... they were all things I could do and do well, but they'd never feed the need to stay flexible enough to answer that call to run to auditions, go to classes, or set time aside to write. And of course, around January I spoke to a young man who looked rather pleased with himself as he was dropping off passengers at the apartment complex I was working security at.
"I gah to school, it's flexeebul, and de mohney ees good," he told me in a strong Nigerian accent.
I know... bad approximation of a Nigerian accent using the keyboard... but there you go.
So, the last three weeks of paying reduced lease prices while I got my feet wet and experimenting with the "advice" I was given has paid off. I honestly believe that any night I go out in that cab (and I do plan on working nights... roughly mid-evening to the morning commute), I can make money - the kind of money I need to make my lease, set money aside for maintenance, and moderate my life in a manner that allows me to have a social life again, sit down and enjoy my home, my cat and my friends.
But I'll tell you, the last three weeks has been a "catch as catch can" affair, to put it mildly. Experimenting with schedules and methods of handling business has taken a toll on my body. I've gained weight, which I plan on taking back off if the new steady schedule works the way it should. I finally had myself a good night's sleep last night... mostly because I wrote off working the night last night. However, karma and kismet were kind mistresses to me for that decision, letting me make 80 bucks in the 4 hours I worked this morning. Basically, for my purposes, any day where I average 15 bucks an hour or better in that cab or better than 200 for a day, it's an outstanding day. Personally, I think I still have things to learn. However, that amount will give me enough take home pay, working a 6 day work week, to keep things stable until I get better.
The short term economics of it is like this:
Weekly lease: $492 (280 goes to paying off the sale price of the vehicle)
Gas: $180 per week. Frankly, I haven't paid much more than 30 bucks a day at the current price of gas.
What I want for me, minimum: $500.
Now I haven't made this yet, but this is mostly due to my own experimenting, taking half-days off here and there to regroup and re-evaluate things. I feel a certain confidence, going forward, that these days will net me what I'm looking for. I start tonight with a goal of 200 bucks for the night.
BTW - I'm confident I can do this because of my work on Monday night. For the record, I made most of my 200 bucks that night before I'd finished 8 hours of work. So, it's just a matter of keeping my nose to the grindstone. Monday night was strange. I started out thinking that I'd just press a little into the night and see how it went. And then, I started using the computer to find what I called "orphaned" jobs, people who called for cabs and didn't have a car anywhere near them. That's where I made my money, by playing the angel and swooping in on these folks who were otherwise not going to get picked up. I even had one rider exclaim, "Lordy Jesus, thank God you're here!" after I apologized for the long wait. Another rider had waited nearly two hours and still gave me a hefty tip for driving him to a mom and pop store not less than a half mile from his house. The cab rider of the night is as interesting as the cab driver of the night, I guess.
All that aside, finding and putting to work the vehicle I wanted to buy turned out to be a challenge in and of itself.
I picked it out on Monday. Cab 623 - The Banana Boat, Mark I. It is a 2007 Dodge Caravan with 128800 miles on it with a 6 passenger capacity (maybe one or two more off the cuff). Unlike the Crunkmobile II, it has all of its 12 volt sockets working, which is a must for the computer, if I decide to use it again for navigation assistance. As I mentioned, it has all of its seats. I cannot count how many passengers complained... and complained bitterly, about the lack of a middle seat. Well, now you have one, kids. Enjoy. Also, like the Dodge Caravan I owned when I first came to town, it's actually better on gas mileage than my personal vehicle... my father's old Ford Ranger. This is the one I want to give to my kids.
However, picking out a cab and simply saying "I want it" is not enough. You see, this is the month that the folks at Yellow have their annual city inspections and medallion renewal to coincide with the beginning of the Rodeo. So, among the cacophony of cabbies trying to get inspected, this little minibus also had to go through inspections and get things fixed. The radio and computer were throwing "meter data invalid" errors. Fixed. We had to get things re-smogged. Fixed. To make the long story short, I spent an extra four hours over the last couple of days not making money at the yard to help nudge things along. However, at 11 this morning, we dotted the last I and crossed the last T and got it done.
Now, here's another advantage I've gained that should straighten my schedule out.
As a day-lease driver, I was required to burn my gas every day to go to the yard and pay my lease. Basically, this was a break in momentum for me. I'd give the folks at Yellow their money, go home and take a nap, and then go work the afternoon. Now, paying weekly, I'm saving that money and time to work, if I so choose. I'll still play with my schedule a little, but just not having to give that two hours to the business of doing business every day will be a little blessing in and of itself. I'll drive, take my breaks, drive some more and go home... except for Wednesdays when my lease is due.
So, the plan for tonight. Drive, make my goals. If I make substantially over those goals, I may take the BBI over to Colonial to get it hand washed and waxed or get the interior done. There's a lot of ground-in dirt on the upholstery. At least, there is in my opinion, and I'd like the ride to not just be comfortable, but clean as well. If all else fails, I may find myself hiring a carpet cleaning company to take care of business. I'm not a big fan of funk in my workplace. For now, I'm busting out the big can of spray and at least making things smell good in there.
Well, all for now.
GM
Today, I took the first step to what I'm calling The Long Haul: I bought my first cab. By becoming an owner-operator, I'm taking an ownership stake in what I do and the company that I'm representing. More importantly, I am working on long and short-term solutions to financial issues that have been dogging me ever since I got to town.
I can't really describe it, except to say that I've always tried to balance my desires to continue my acting education versus my ability to actually make money at it. I thought I was going to get certain opportunities here and there as certain doors opened. However, it appeared that those doors were opening behind others that were closing. While I was able to keep a roof over my head, and myself fed, the stress of never being able to get ahead was really pressing down on me. I started working hungry, so to speak (with that "I've gotta have this job" mentality), and that pretty much violates every dictate of doing good acting work in any town where you can find work.
It's no surprise that when I started writing adaptation, the live-action dubbing work that had been so profitable for me as an actor started drying up. Then, roughly 18 months ago, there were indications that my services as a writer - other than working on my own unsold properties - were going to be going out of demand. Some of the story I've already conveyed here: going back to security, trying corrections, going back to doing technical support for the clueless and the rude... they were all things I could do and do well, but they'd never feed the need to stay flexible enough to answer that call to run to auditions, go to classes, or set time aside to write. And of course, around January I spoke to a young man who looked rather pleased with himself as he was dropping off passengers at the apartment complex I was working security at.
"I gah to school, it's flexeebul, and de mohney ees good," he told me in a strong Nigerian accent.
I know... bad approximation of a Nigerian accent using the keyboard... but there you go.
So, the last three weeks of paying reduced lease prices while I got my feet wet and experimenting with the "advice" I was given has paid off. I honestly believe that any night I go out in that cab (and I do plan on working nights... roughly mid-evening to the morning commute), I can make money - the kind of money I need to make my lease, set money aside for maintenance, and moderate my life in a manner that allows me to have a social life again, sit down and enjoy my home, my cat and my friends.
But I'll tell you, the last three weeks has been a "catch as catch can" affair, to put it mildly. Experimenting with schedules and methods of handling business has taken a toll on my body. I've gained weight, which I plan on taking back off if the new steady schedule works the way it should. I finally had myself a good night's sleep last night... mostly because I wrote off working the night last night. However, karma and kismet were kind mistresses to me for that decision, letting me make 80 bucks in the 4 hours I worked this morning. Basically, for my purposes, any day where I average 15 bucks an hour or better in that cab or better than 200 for a day, it's an outstanding day. Personally, I think I still have things to learn. However, that amount will give me enough take home pay, working a 6 day work week, to keep things stable until I get better.
The short term economics of it is like this:
Weekly lease: $492 (280 goes to paying off the sale price of the vehicle)
Gas: $180 per week. Frankly, I haven't paid much more than 30 bucks a day at the current price of gas.
What I want for me, minimum: $500.
Now I haven't made this yet, but this is mostly due to my own experimenting, taking half-days off here and there to regroup and re-evaluate things. I feel a certain confidence, going forward, that these days will net me what I'm looking for. I start tonight with a goal of 200 bucks for the night.
BTW - I'm confident I can do this because of my work on Monday night. For the record, I made most of my 200 bucks that night before I'd finished 8 hours of work. So, it's just a matter of keeping my nose to the grindstone. Monday night was strange. I started out thinking that I'd just press a little into the night and see how it went. And then, I started using the computer to find what I called "orphaned" jobs, people who called for cabs and didn't have a car anywhere near them. That's where I made my money, by playing the angel and swooping in on these folks who were otherwise not going to get picked up. I even had one rider exclaim, "Lordy Jesus, thank God you're here!" after I apologized for the long wait. Another rider had waited nearly two hours and still gave me a hefty tip for driving him to a mom and pop store not less than a half mile from his house. The cab rider of the night is as interesting as the cab driver of the night, I guess.
All that aside, finding and putting to work the vehicle I wanted to buy turned out to be a challenge in and of itself.
I picked it out on Monday. Cab 623 - The Banana Boat, Mark I. It is a 2007 Dodge Caravan with 128800 miles on it with a 6 passenger capacity (maybe one or two more off the cuff). Unlike the Crunkmobile II, it has all of its 12 volt sockets working, which is a must for the computer, if I decide to use it again for navigation assistance. As I mentioned, it has all of its seats. I cannot count how many passengers complained... and complained bitterly, about the lack of a middle seat. Well, now you have one, kids. Enjoy. Also, like the Dodge Caravan I owned when I first came to town, it's actually better on gas mileage than my personal vehicle... my father's old Ford Ranger. This is the one I want to give to my kids.
However, picking out a cab and simply saying "I want it" is not enough. You see, this is the month that the folks at Yellow have their annual city inspections and medallion renewal to coincide with the beginning of the Rodeo. So, among the cacophony of cabbies trying to get inspected, this little minibus also had to go through inspections and get things fixed. The radio and computer were throwing "meter data invalid" errors. Fixed. We had to get things re-smogged. Fixed. To make the long story short, I spent an extra four hours over the last couple of days not making money at the yard to help nudge things along. However, at 11 this morning, we dotted the last I and crossed the last T and got it done.
Now, here's another advantage I've gained that should straighten my schedule out.
As a day-lease driver, I was required to burn my gas every day to go to the yard and pay my lease. Basically, this was a break in momentum for me. I'd give the folks at Yellow their money, go home and take a nap, and then go work the afternoon. Now, paying weekly, I'm saving that money and time to work, if I so choose. I'll still play with my schedule a little, but just not having to give that two hours to the business of doing business every day will be a little blessing in and of itself. I'll drive, take my breaks, drive some more and go home... except for Wednesdays when my lease is due.
So, the plan for tonight. Drive, make my goals. If I make substantially over those goals, I may take the BBI over to Colonial to get it hand washed and waxed or get the interior done. There's a lot of ground-in dirt on the upholstery. At least, there is in my opinion, and I'd like the ride to not just be comfortable, but clean as well. If all else fails, I may find myself hiring a carpet cleaning company to take care of business. I'm not a big fan of funk in my workplace. For now, I'm busting out the big can of spray and at least making things smell good in there.
Well, all for now.
GM
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Level Up, Player
So... as often happens during one of the days Monday thru Thursday, the morning was afflicted with SLOWNESS.
All of the people who had my business card and said they'd be calling for rides today decided they had better things to do. Better to not count on that business, and just be happy when it gets here.
Anywho, I'm on my last week of reduced leases. However, the leases have escalated in prices to where I'm paying the rough equivalent of what an owner-operator would. By the end of the week, I'll be paying what a day-lease driver would pay. Bottom line here is that I'm finding my earning equilibrium just in time for the next level of commitment.
Owner-operator.
I spoke to the gentleman in the Licensesee department today, and apparently I get the entire first week after signing the contract to earn my first week's lease (kind of like how they gave me a car before paying my first day's lease as a day-lease driver). Since we were able to take care of the headlight issue with Crunkmobile II (cab 1460), I may actually consider buying that one as my first O & O cab. It's a 2006 Dodge Caravan with 188,000 miles on it. It's been regularly maintained (and will continue to be on my watch) and it's my hope that I will pay off whatever price they're asking for it before too terribly long (and by that, I mean no more than 6 months).
You see, this may serve another purpose: getting my kids a car. Both my sons still live at home, and at least one of them needs a set of wheels so they can get around better. The plan, tentatively, is to drive my Ford Ranger cross-country to the SF Bay where they live and get the title transferred once I'm sure that I've got the new set of wheels well in hand and I can take about 4 days off to do the drive and fly back to Houston.
It's me, and one cat, I don't need to be a one-man, two-car family here in Houston.
Anyway, I should know by next week what I'm driving for sure...
And today... since I took the Crunker into the shop to get the headlight fixed (again), I only worked half a day and still made some pretty righteous cash. Nicely done, I say.
G
All of the people who had my business card and said they'd be calling for rides today decided they had better things to do. Better to not count on that business, and just be happy when it gets here.
Anywho, I'm on my last week of reduced leases. However, the leases have escalated in prices to where I'm paying the rough equivalent of what an owner-operator would. By the end of the week, I'll be paying what a day-lease driver would pay. Bottom line here is that I'm finding my earning equilibrium just in time for the next level of commitment.
Owner-operator.
I spoke to the gentleman in the Licensesee department today, and apparently I get the entire first week after signing the contract to earn my first week's lease (kind of like how they gave me a car before paying my first day's lease as a day-lease driver). Since we were able to take care of the headlight issue with Crunkmobile II (cab 1460), I may actually consider buying that one as my first O & O cab. It's a 2006 Dodge Caravan with 188,000 miles on it. It's been regularly maintained (and will continue to be on my watch) and it's my hope that I will pay off whatever price they're asking for it before too terribly long (and by that, I mean no more than 6 months).
You see, this may serve another purpose: getting my kids a car. Both my sons still live at home, and at least one of them needs a set of wheels so they can get around better. The plan, tentatively, is to drive my Ford Ranger cross-country to the SF Bay where they live and get the title transferred once I'm sure that I've got the new set of wheels well in hand and I can take about 4 days off to do the drive and fly back to Houston.
It's me, and one cat, I don't need to be a one-man, two-car family here in Houston.
Anyway, I should know by next week what I'm driving for sure...
And today... since I took the Crunker into the shop to get the headlight fixed (again), I only worked half a day and still made some pretty righteous cash. Nicely done, I say.
G
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Hot Buttered Brain Cells
For all intents and purposes, I pretty much took today off. However, the 24 hour period I leased my cab for doesn't expire until after the morning commute tomorrow. So, I'm hoping to earn a little cash off of that to at least offset the cost of the lease.
Even though I only drove the 12 hours I'm allowed to on Friday and Saturday, the workdays themselves wound up being 19 and 15 hours apiece, factoring in the breaktime in the middle of the day. I'm learning to manage that better, too.
But yeah, other than the part of Sunday that was Saturday night, it was pretty much a wash. I used the day to recover from the weekend. Now I know why day lease drivers get the option of having a "Sundays Free" program.
G
Even though I only drove the 12 hours I'm allowed to on Friday and Saturday, the workdays themselves wound up being 19 and 15 hours apiece, factoring in the breaktime in the middle of the day. I'm learning to manage that better, too.
But yeah, other than the part of Sunday that was Saturday night, it was pretty much a wash. I used the day to recover from the weekend. Now I know why day lease drivers get the option of having a "Sundays Free" program.
G
There'll be time enough for countin'... when the dealin's done.
So... I seemed to remember saying that if I could just roll into the rack having made another hundred bucks I could call this day a wash.
The three hours I took off in the middle of the day seemed to exorcise the demons that were with me during the first 4 hours of the afternoon. I made 45 bucks, got lost a fuckload of times and I got off the streets in the Southwest part of town, where I normally work, just in time for someone to get their ass shot at a soccer game.
Fuck me senseless, people. I've heard of soccer hooligans, but soccer homicidal maniacs? Christ on a stick.
Moving on to tonight.
For some reason, my "nose" said "west and north, just like you did when you got that work in Katy the other day." So, off I went down the feeder to I-10 west, and I got a call to roll up Eldridge Parkway past Clay. And, while I'm not normally one to smell dollar signs, I knew damn well this wasn't going to be a 5 dollar grocery store trip. I take a drunk guy home to his family in Missouri City safe and sound. 60 bucks.
Then, I get scooped at a Wal-Mart. BFD... you wanna scoop a 5 dollar shopping trip, pricks? Be my guest. I bid for a job off of the Beltway south of West Fuqua and get it. Another 35.
Time to go home, right? Wrong. The dispatch terminal yells at me and tells me to run deep down State Highway 288. I entertain a group of four leaving a house party on their way back to the Heights. After the tip, it's another 100. I spend 10 on gas and go run a couple of drunks from Washington street home.
BTW - and this is strictly for my last fare: Dude, if you're a douche and you gave up on your dreams just because your daddy and your little ditzy girlfriend and all the people you run with are rich, don't share your suck ass attitude with people who still believe in themselves. I am, first and foremost, a storyteller - and money and alcohol will never change that. I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for, because it sure aint at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
Of course, most people I tell the answer "I'm a storyteller by trade, actor and writer" to when they ask the question, "Why do you drive a cab?" are actually fascinated by the fact that even after these last 7 years, it's still something I pride myself on even though I've never been rich and/or famous.
Anyway, between yesterday and today, I am currently operating at a take-home margin of around 400 bucks for just this weekend without factoring in tomorrow, which I'm willing to take a little loss on. I actually had more, but I made a debit card deposit to pay a bill or two. I'm learning the fine art of "it takes money to make money," going out of my way by burning a little gas to get into position to bid on areas that have no cars, but people waiting to pick them up. Also, in my local working area, driving around instead of standing pat increases your chances of being tagged as the car that's closest to a call, regardless of your position in the queue. On a daily basis, I don't burn that much extra fuel... maybe 2-5 bucks, and the dividends seems to be self-evident.
Science and art are starting to meld in another arena for me, but the acid test is going to be when I go through Monday-Thursday. Friday and Saturday are going to be there, but I want to see how this applies to the regular week.
G
The three hours I took off in the middle of the day seemed to exorcise the demons that were with me during the first 4 hours of the afternoon. I made 45 bucks, got lost a fuckload of times and I got off the streets in the Southwest part of town, where I normally work, just in time for someone to get their ass shot at a soccer game.
Fuck me senseless, people. I've heard of soccer hooligans, but soccer homicidal maniacs? Christ on a stick.
Moving on to tonight.
For some reason, my "nose" said "west and north, just like you did when you got that work in Katy the other day." So, off I went down the feeder to I-10 west, and I got a call to roll up Eldridge Parkway past Clay. And, while I'm not normally one to smell dollar signs, I knew damn well this wasn't going to be a 5 dollar grocery store trip. I take a drunk guy home to his family in Missouri City safe and sound. 60 bucks.
Then, I get scooped at a Wal-Mart. BFD... you wanna scoop a 5 dollar shopping trip, pricks? Be my guest. I bid for a job off of the Beltway south of West Fuqua and get it. Another 35.
Time to go home, right? Wrong. The dispatch terminal yells at me and tells me to run deep down State Highway 288. I entertain a group of four leaving a house party on their way back to the Heights. After the tip, it's another 100. I spend 10 on gas and go run a couple of drunks from Washington street home.
BTW - and this is strictly for my last fare: Dude, if you're a douche and you gave up on your dreams just because your daddy and your little ditzy girlfriend and all the people you run with are rich, don't share your suck ass attitude with people who still believe in themselves. I am, first and foremost, a storyteller - and money and alcohol will never change that. I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for, because it sure aint at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
Of course, most people I tell the answer "I'm a storyteller by trade, actor and writer" to when they ask the question, "Why do you drive a cab?" are actually fascinated by the fact that even after these last 7 years, it's still something I pride myself on even though I've never been rich and/or famous.
Anyway, between yesterday and today, I am currently operating at a take-home margin of around 400 bucks for just this weekend without factoring in tomorrow, which I'm willing to take a little loss on. I actually had more, but I made a debit card deposit to pay a bill or two. I'm learning the fine art of "it takes money to make money," going out of my way by burning a little gas to get into position to bid on areas that have no cars, but people waiting to pick them up. Also, in my local working area, driving around instead of standing pat increases your chances of being tagged as the car that's closest to a call, regardless of your position in the queue. On a daily basis, I don't burn that much extra fuel... maybe 2-5 bucks, and the dividends seems to be self-evident.
Science and art are starting to meld in another arena for me, but the acid test is going to be when I go through Monday-Thursday. Friday and Saturday are going to be there, but I want to see how this applies to the regular week.
G
Saturday, February 21, 2009
World of Warcab, Anyone?
I think I understand the appeal of cab driving to people who otherwise might go back to other professions.
It's like the world's only real-life role playing game - a true-to-life Dungeons and Dragons adventure.
Get this... you go out on little quests and get prizes, in the form of vouchers, credit card receipts... and... wait for it... CASH MONEY!
Anyway, I needed another Friday like the one I had the week before and I got it last night. Today, like last Saturday, has been a little crunk. In any case, it's the proof I've been waiting for that things are consistent, if nothing else. I've come home with enough cash in my pocket to already pay for my gas and lease tomorrow. Somewhere in the middle of the early afternoon, I just started hurting. So, I got out from behind the wheel for a couple of hours and I'm getting ready to hit it fresh here in a minute. I'm going to try running from 8-3 and see how that goes. However, if I wind up with another hundred bucks in my pocket before 3, I just might rein it in for the rest of the night.
It's like the world's only real-life role playing game - a true-to-life Dungeons and Dragons adventure.
Get this... you go out on little quests and get prizes, in the form of vouchers, credit card receipts... and... wait for it... CASH MONEY!
Anyway, I needed another Friday like the one I had the week before and I got it last night. Today, like last Saturday, has been a little crunk. In any case, it's the proof I've been waiting for that things are consistent, if nothing else. I've come home with enough cash in my pocket to already pay for my gas and lease tomorrow. Somewhere in the middle of the early afternoon, I just started hurting. So, I got out from behind the wheel for a couple of hours and I'm getting ready to hit it fresh here in a minute. I'm going to try running from 8-3 and see how that goes. However, if I wind up with another hundred bucks in my pocket before 3, I just might rein it in for the rest of the night.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Well... Mama told me there'd be days like this...
It actually turned out to be a decent day in terms of keeping the bank un-broke. However, I had another one of those heartbreaking moments.
I was rolling back into Houston from Katy, a major suburb west of town along I-10. (No, Houstonians... not everyone knows where it is). I get another dispatch to go to Katy and I think, "Eh, what the hell. Why not?" I double back.
Plus in my favor, it's a timed pickup and I have 23 minutes to get my fare. It only takes 10 to get there. Second plus: he's coming back into town for at least a 15 dollar fare, based on mileage.
However, the dispatcher forgot a little something. Namely, that the customer was in a MOTORIZED WHEELCHAIR, and I can't take those in my van in the configuration that it's in. Namely, in the spot where a wheelchair ramp would be, I have a SEAT and no ramp.
I apologize profusely to the passenger and immediately get on the phone to dispatch to send the right kind of cab. I assure him that the right kind of vehicle is being dispatched. Honestly, I wanted to stay with him until it got there, but I was already past my bedtime (as originally projected) and I have this feeling that I abandoned that guy. I hate it when circumstances like that conspire to shit on someone who's dependent on someone else's vehicle to get him around town and back home. It's crap of the highest order, and I wish I could have someone's head on a bloody spike for it.
However, I would have just settled for having a wheelchair ramp in my vehicle and the training to go with it. There's another class for people who back up the Metro Lift system. However, taking that training would put me back on something I don't want, a strict schedule.
I just wish some of these issues would get handled with more accuracy.
Pbbbbbttt!
moar funny pictures
I was rolling back into Houston from Katy, a major suburb west of town along I-10. (No, Houstonians... not everyone knows where it is). I get another dispatch to go to Katy and I think, "Eh, what the hell. Why not?" I double back.
Plus in my favor, it's a timed pickup and I have 23 minutes to get my fare. It only takes 10 to get there. Second plus: he's coming back into town for at least a 15 dollar fare, based on mileage.
However, the dispatcher forgot a little something. Namely, that the customer was in a MOTORIZED WHEELCHAIR, and I can't take those in my van in the configuration that it's in. Namely, in the spot where a wheelchair ramp would be, I have a SEAT and no ramp.
I apologize profusely to the passenger and immediately get on the phone to dispatch to send the right kind of cab. I assure him that the right kind of vehicle is being dispatched. Honestly, I wanted to stay with him until it got there, but I was already past my bedtime (as originally projected) and I have this feeling that I abandoned that guy. I hate it when circumstances like that conspire to shit on someone who's dependent on someone else's vehicle to get him around town and back home. It's crap of the highest order, and I wish I could have someone's head on a bloody spike for it.
However, I would have just settled for having a wheelchair ramp in my vehicle and the training to go with it. There's another class for people who back up the Metro Lift system. However, taking that training would put me back on something I don't want, a strict schedule.
I just wish some of these issues would get handled with more accuracy.
Pbbbbbttt!
moar funny pictures
Sunday, February 15, 2009
OK... the rest of the weekend was a wash.
Saturday, for whatever reason, turned into a mountain of strangeness.
To the Saturday people: if you're not used to operating your vehicles in the dark... SLOW THE FUCK DOWN and don't use aggression to make up for your lack of familiarity. You're going to get somebody killed, and I don't want that somebody to be me. I'm too damn cool to die right now... wait until I'm in my adult diaper years to crack me with that shit. Come to think of it, I might be driving a cab then, too.
To the people who call cabs when they know they're close to being late to work: the cab driver is not responsible for getting you to work on time by violating the law. Buy a car and take your own risks... and no, I don't care if you get fired.
Anyway, the rest of the weekend was slightly better than break-even. I've decided on something for this second week: a steady schedule. Changing from my designated "want to work" times to something else to try and curry more work was a DAMN DUMB IDEA (tm) and I think I've learned my lesson. Other than 2am-4am on most days (and it's questionable on Friday and Saturday nights), there's plenty of work to be had for people who want to hustle for it.
As I sit here on Sunday night, I will be ready to wake up at 4:15 tomorrow and be back on my designated "want to work" hours. I have pasta on the way and I'm going to look at this experience as the "reset" going into this week. I know how hard I want to work, I know where to go find the work if I don't have any where I'm hanging out and I've learned that following my nose is probably the better way to 1.) get the fares and 2.) save my gas while I'm doing it.
Another thing, just about every piece of advice I got about "when to work" is crunk. You go find the work. Period. And you're dumb and/or lazy if you don't look for it or find it. The only thing that kept me from making the money I wanted to this weekend was screwing with my schedule and my sleep. The whole "mid days are slow" myth is just that... a myth.
I will go to work, I will work my hours and I will make my money. Period. It will work because I SAY it will work. Consistency will win this day more than playing silly ass games.
Word.
G
To the Saturday people: if you're not used to operating your vehicles in the dark... SLOW THE FUCK DOWN and don't use aggression to make up for your lack of familiarity. You're going to get somebody killed, and I don't want that somebody to be me. I'm too damn cool to die right now... wait until I'm in my adult diaper years to crack me with that shit. Come to think of it, I might be driving a cab then, too.
To the people who call cabs when they know they're close to being late to work: the cab driver is not responsible for getting you to work on time by violating the law. Buy a car and take your own risks... and no, I don't care if you get fired.
Anyway, the rest of the weekend was slightly better than break-even. I've decided on something for this second week: a steady schedule. Changing from my designated "want to work" times to something else to try and curry more work was a DAMN DUMB IDEA (tm) and I think I've learned my lesson. Other than 2am-4am on most days (and it's questionable on Friday and Saturday nights), there's plenty of work to be had for people who want to hustle for it.
As I sit here on Sunday night, I will be ready to wake up at 4:15 tomorrow and be back on my designated "want to work" hours. I have pasta on the way and I'm going to look at this experience as the "reset" going into this week. I know how hard I want to work, I know where to go find the work if I don't have any where I'm hanging out and I've learned that following my nose is probably the better way to 1.) get the fares and 2.) save my gas while I'm doing it.
Another thing, just about every piece of advice I got about "when to work" is crunk. You go find the work. Period. And you're dumb and/or lazy if you don't look for it or find it. The only thing that kept me from making the money I wanted to this weekend was screwing with my schedule and my sleep. The whole "mid days are slow" myth is just that... a myth.
I will go to work, I will work my hours and I will make my money. Period. It will work because I SAY it will work. Consistency will win this day more than playing silly ass games.
Word.
G
Friday, February 13, 2009
Follow Your Nose... or... There is NO Set Formula For Success in This Business
Basically, I rolled in doing a 300 dollar day. The details of this will be posted later this morning. For now, I has a sleep. A nice, long, glorious sleep since I know all my morning traffic of people going to work and what not will not be there Saturday morning. A lot of myths got dispelled today, and not just because it was Friday. Questions were asked of the most important people in this process... the customers.
OK... so it's later.
And, as you can tell from the preceding paragraph, I pretty much wore myself out by the time I got home. I can honestly say after yesterday, that if you follow your nose, and don't worry about the money, you'll make the money. My first two days, I tried too many "formulas." Yesterday was simpler: take a trip, book back in using the zone I dropped my trip off in and start driving back to my side of town and take whatever the trip computer gives me. And, if I make it back, start bidding to get back out of my side of town if I'm otherwise out of work.
And so it went. I logged in at 5 in the morning and had a couple of trips out and about. I started on my side of town and wound up in south central Houston working my way back to the Medical Center. I decided to actually turn down a trip from that area because of the traffic confusion with the light rail traffic. Medical Center is interesting and a lot like the airports. I'll never mind taking people there, but I'll let the downtown hustlers grab people from there. By then, I'd reached 9 o'clock and I decided to head to the yard to pay my lease.
I logged out, paid my lease, got gas and headed over to Taping For The Blind to finish recording this week's Sports Illustrated show. I've also been tagged to read the Houston Rodeo audio description promotional again. Apparently, for someone who's not a Texas native, I sound like a pretty natural shit kicker. I've actually scored an award for that.
After Taping, I decided to test the first myth... namely, that it's somehow "dead" for cabbies between 10am and 2pm. I logged in behind the Taping building, waited 15 minutes and then started driving back to my side of town. Well... I made it to about Hillcroft when I got flagged down by a young lady trying to get back home. She related a horror story to me of waiting for a cab for at least 45 minutes and about the guy who took her from home to work this morning.
Apparently, his meter was running and clicking off "chips," as I like to call them. Basically, other than the first $2.50 and any tips you receive, every 11th of a mile or 34 seconds of wait time clicks off in increments of 17 cents. He then stopped his meter and told her it was broken, and charged her 20 bucks for what is normally a 10 dollar ride for her. I took her home and it was 9 and a half, and I told her I'd only charge her 9. I ended up making the 10.
Object lesson learned: usually, if you pare DOWN your meter to an even dollar amount at the end of the ride, it's genuinely appreciated by your cab rider. I have never pared down and not gotten the amount back in at least a dollar's tip. So, in essence, I've never really undercharged for a ride.
Now, I've also put this together with my understanding of how people feel when the meter clicks of wait time chips. I had another fare shortly thereafter in a VERY crowded shopping center, and the only parking space I could pick her up in was surrounded by SUVs the size of Vesuvius... I shit you not. These were H2 Hummer sized or better. Technically, I'm supposed to pick up and drop off at the curbside, but traffic was flying around that area like crazy. It was safer to use a parking space. I put her in the cab, and she'd already been waiting for nearly a half hour. I apologized for the wait and I said, "Ma'am, because of the way we're parked, I'm not going to start the meter until we're properly on our way. I'm not going to charge you 17 cents every 34 seconds so I can back out of this mess safely... and to keep things safe, I'm going to be doing this slowly." She thanked me for being safe, and we backed slowly... giving way to 3 in a hurry meatheads who just had to have their Starbucks at lunch.
Twits.
In any case, I waited until the nose of my car was pointed at traffic before I hit the HIRED button on my meter - legally shaky since I'm supposed to have the meter running from the very MICROSECOND I have a butt in the seat and my car is in motion of any kind.
Crunk. Giving a customer their money's worth
However, the extra consideration turned into a three dollar tip. For me, being nice to someone is worth a 6 dollar an hour raise. The trip, including being notified, picking up and dropping off, was less than a half hour.
This led to another 15 minute wait after I drove another 10 minutes toward my side of town, and then I bid on another job. About halfway to Sugarland/Stafford, there was a gentleman and his granddaughter who'd already waited a half hour to get picked up to visit a relative at 610 and Ella. Who in their right mind works this area and doesn't take this trip, I don't know. I understood when I got there. That part of I-610 at that time of day was crazy full of traffic. Strangely, as a SF Bay Area native, I was used to it. I got them there... and that was a 42 dollar job. Then, the next 45 minutes were kind of light. A pick up at a grocery store to home. I voucher trip to a church. Then, a really heartbreaking story. The trip itself was somewhat uneventful and rather easy, but the story behind this is something to behold. I'm reconstructing this from what the rider told me and I'm putting it in chronological order for ease of reading... and head-shaking.
This gentleman, dependent on a wheelchair and in need of dialysis, was at a dialysis center on the northwest/centralish part of town. Nice guy, by the way. I emphasize that for a reason. He had arranged for Metro Lift, the part of the local transit authority that gives rides to the disabled, to pick him up at 2:30 in the afternoon. Yellow Cab of Houston also operates a back-up fleet of cabs with drivers who receive specific additional training and they drive specific routes to go get Metro Lift customers as well as the drivers with the larger vans who drive for the City.
Note of interest, by the time I got dispatched to him, it was 3:40pm.
By the time I got to him, a Metro Lift backup cab was there to pick up a different patient, and he was headed along his route instead of where this gentleman was going, so I was still committed to the trip. However, he was a little pushed out of shape and confused. At first, he was waiting for a white van from the City. They don't show up. Then one of my cab driving brethren shows up with a Metro Lift route and says, basically, that he's not going his way. Finally, I get there and I have a little of my own confusion going on.
However, I make a few heartfelt apologies - dude had obviously been through some shit - and we got him in the back of my sedan and his wheelchair properly folded into the trunk. And, we were on our way. On a trip like this, we have a person who works with the Metro Lift subsidy program who has already deduced the maximum fare based on this customer's intended destination - home. His home was off of Interstate 45 south near Hobby Airport. I started off at 4pm and got him home at 5.
I actually got him there under budget at 47 bucks. The trip calculator people said the maximum fare was $48.50. So, here's the math of the whole deal. A Metro Lift driver, who makes 14 bucks an hour and doesn't lease a vehicle, couldn't pick this guy up. Then, a Metro Lift cab driver wasn't able to take him because his destination wasn't on his route. The cabbie pays a reduced lease, and makes 22 bucks an hour for his time spent on his route; and he's expected to stay on it, so there's no fault there. So, as a result, the City of Houston ends up paying me nearly 50 bucks to take this gentleman home. But the saddest part of this isn't the economics of it.
Not eight blocks from where this guy lives is a place called "The Kidney Center of South Houston." I asked my fare, "Wow, a kidney center. Do they do dialysis there?"
"Only if you're rich," he answered.
To put it mildly, I was outraged by the whole thing. It took this poor guy however long to get to the dialysis center on the northwest side of town using MetroLift, plus the time on the dialysis machine, then the 2 and a half hours that I know of to get home because of the snafus in the transit system. I'm thinking to myself... couldn't the money that gets used to transport this guy be given to the "rich people's" dialysis center 8 blocks away from him?
Then, I got a wild hair up my butt to push further south, towards some old stomping grounds of mine. Again, about 15 minutes goes by... I stop into a little roadside mom and pop store on the side of state highway 3, grab some peanuts and a Sprite Zero and I'm not on the road another 5 minutes before the trip pops up.
Space Center Houston. I ran the Ham on Rye VR theatre at the Putt Putt on NASA Road 1 for nearly three years and I'd always been near the Space Center. Never went to it, though. Now was my chance.
It's another 25 minutes away and the folks who ordered the cab have been waiting, and will wait, an inordinately long amount of time.
I get there, and luckily they happen to be out of towners who've been using cabs to get everywhere in Houston. They're happy to see me and I get their destination... the Houstonian, off of I-610 near my part of town. I've never heard of it, but I know it's going to be Again, I tell them that I'm not going to start the meter until we're on the road-proper. I want to make sure I've properly exited the Space Center, which is now closed and may have any number of weird ways of directing me out. I don't charge people for my confusion. Also, I find out that the Houstonian... a place I've never been before, is actually off of NORTH Post Oak, and not just Post Oak... we actually have several Post Oaks in Houston, and knowing which one you're going to is a damn good idea.
We get there... and "opulent" doesn't describe it. The Houstonian isn't just a hotel, it's also a spa and resort. Good grief, it's gorgeous... nestled in trees and having valet and bellman service at every single building are just a few of the amenities. I didn't stick around to find out about the rest. After the fare and tip, it was 75 bucks. Between my two 40+ fares and all the small ones I had that day, I'd already made close to 300 bucks. Finally, just a few minutes later, I got what I decided was my last fare of the night.
A yupster calls me to take him to a destination indicated by some Yahoo map directions. I still verify it with my Key Map book just to be sure. He asks me if I can stop by a gas station to let him buy some beer and I said, "Fine, as long as none of the containers get cracked open while this vehicle is in motion. That's a big fine for me." He assures me it's for the party he's going to. I say "cool," and think to myself, "a fare and some wait time," and we start the trip. Shortly after he buys his beer, he gets a call and the plans have changed. I get an address I'm not terribly familiar with, but close to his original destination. However, since the Key Map isn't clear about where this block is - an address on Highway 59 (or specifically, the "Southwest Freeway, as it's called for addresses on the feeder roads next to the highway-proper) - I have to guestimate the exit. Also, I don't know which side of the highway the odd or even numbers are on.
Right on cue, I overshoot the exit and find I'm on the wrong side of the freeway. I tell my fare that I'm stopping the meter at 14 dollars because that's what it would have been if I'd stuck the landing right, so to speak. We double back and find a spot to check addresses and find the other side of the freeway and the spot... the Lupe Tortilla on the other feeder road. The meter actually read 20 dollars and a few cents, and as his way of thanking me, my fare gave me a 20 and told me not to sweat it when I started making change for him.
It was at that point I sensed the karma of the night starting to shift. People were taking more chances on the road, driving crazier and hugging each other's bumpers a little too closely. I'd made my 300 and that was enough. Technically, according to all the rumors, there were still another 6 and a half "hot hours" of the night left, but I really didn't care.
I called it a night at 8:15, took my dinner at Red Robin and crawled into bed at 10, allowing myself to sleep in today. Tonight, Saturday, I'm going to play close to the vest and somewhat by ear. I've already clobbered some bills and I may set a money limit for myself to balance burning gas, making money and working too late into a night where people might start getting dopey again.
All for now...
G
OK... so it's later.
And, as you can tell from the preceding paragraph, I pretty much wore myself out by the time I got home. I can honestly say after yesterday, that if you follow your nose, and don't worry about the money, you'll make the money. My first two days, I tried too many "formulas." Yesterday was simpler: take a trip, book back in using the zone I dropped my trip off in and start driving back to my side of town and take whatever the trip computer gives me. And, if I make it back, start bidding to get back out of my side of town if I'm otherwise out of work.
And so it went. I logged in at 5 in the morning and had a couple of trips out and about. I started on my side of town and wound up in south central Houston working my way back to the Medical Center. I decided to actually turn down a trip from that area because of the traffic confusion with the light rail traffic. Medical Center is interesting and a lot like the airports. I'll never mind taking people there, but I'll let the downtown hustlers grab people from there. By then, I'd reached 9 o'clock and I decided to head to the yard to pay my lease.
I logged out, paid my lease, got gas and headed over to Taping For The Blind to finish recording this week's Sports Illustrated show. I've also been tagged to read the Houston Rodeo audio description promotional again. Apparently, for someone who's not a Texas native, I sound like a pretty natural shit kicker. I've actually scored an award for that.
After Taping, I decided to test the first myth... namely, that it's somehow "dead" for cabbies between 10am and 2pm. I logged in behind the Taping building, waited 15 minutes and then started driving back to my side of town. Well... I made it to about Hillcroft when I got flagged down by a young lady trying to get back home. She related a horror story to me of waiting for a cab for at least 45 minutes and about the guy who took her from home to work this morning.
Apparently, his meter was running and clicking off "chips," as I like to call them. Basically, other than the first $2.50 and any tips you receive, every 11th of a mile or 34 seconds of wait time clicks off in increments of 17 cents. He then stopped his meter and told her it was broken, and charged her 20 bucks for what is normally a 10 dollar ride for her. I took her home and it was 9 and a half, and I told her I'd only charge her 9. I ended up making the 10.
Object lesson learned: usually, if you pare DOWN your meter to an even dollar amount at the end of the ride, it's genuinely appreciated by your cab rider. I have never pared down and not gotten the amount back in at least a dollar's tip. So, in essence, I've never really undercharged for a ride.
Now, I've also put this together with my understanding of how people feel when the meter clicks of wait time chips. I had another fare shortly thereafter in a VERY crowded shopping center, and the only parking space I could pick her up in was surrounded by SUVs the size of Vesuvius... I shit you not. These were H2 Hummer sized or better. Technically, I'm supposed to pick up and drop off at the curbside, but traffic was flying around that area like crazy. It was safer to use a parking space. I put her in the cab, and she'd already been waiting for nearly a half hour. I apologized for the wait and I said, "Ma'am, because of the way we're parked, I'm not going to start the meter until we're properly on our way. I'm not going to charge you 17 cents every 34 seconds so I can back out of this mess safely... and to keep things safe, I'm going to be doing this slowly." She thanked me for being safe, and we backed slowly... giving way to 3 in a hurry meatheads who just had to have their Starbucks at lunch.
Twits.
In any case, I waited until the nose of my car was pointed at traffic before I hit the HIRED button on my meter - legally shaky since I'm supposed to have the meter running from the very MICROSECOND I have a butt in the seat and my car is in motion of any kind.
Crunk. Giving a customer their money's worth
However, the extra consideration turned into a three dollar tip. For me, being nice to someone is worth a 6 dollar an hour raise. The trip, including being notified, picking up and dropping off, was less than a half hour.
This led to another 15 minute wait after I drove another 10 minutes toward my side of town, and then I bid on another job. About halfway to Sugarland/Stafford, there was a gentleman and his granddaughter who'd already waited a half hour to get picked up to visit a relative at 610 and Ella. Who in their right mind works this area and doesn't take this trip, I don't know. I understood when I got there. That part of I-610 at that time of day was crazy full of traffic. Strangely, as a SF Bay Area native, I was used to it. I got them there... and that was a 42 dollar job. Then, the next 45 minutes were kind of light. A pick up at a grocery store to home. I voucher trip to a church. Then, a really heartbreaking story. The trip itself was somewhat uneventful and rather easy, but the story behind this is something to behold. I'm reconstructing this from what the rider told me and I'm putting it in chronological order for ease of reading... and head-shaking.
This gentleman, dependent on a wheelchair and in need of dialysis, was at a dialysis center on the northwest/centralish part of town. Nice guy, by the way. I emphasize that for a reason. He had arranged for Metro Lift, the part of the local transit authority that gives rides to the disabled, to pick him up at 2:30 in the afternoon. Yellow Cab of Houston also operates a back-up fleet of cabs with drivers who receive specific additional training and they drive specific routes to go get Metro Lift customers as well as the drivers with the larger vans who drive for the City.
Note of interest, by the time I got dispatched to him, it was 3:40pm.
By the time I got to him, a Metro Lift backup cab was there to pick up a different patient, and he was headed along his route instead of where this gentleman was going, so I was still committed to the trip. However, he was a little pushed out of shape and confused. At first, he was waiting for a white van from the City. They don't show up. Then one of my cab driving brethren shows up with a Metro Lift route and says, basically, that he's not going his way. Finally, I get there and I have a little of my own confusion going on.
However, I make a few heartfelt apologies - dude had obviously been through some shit - and we got him in the back of my sedan and his wheelchair properly folded into the trunk. And, we were on our way. On a trip like this, we have a person who works with the Metro Lift subsidy program who has already deduced the maximum fare based on this customer's intended destination - home. His home was off of Interstate 45 south near Hobby Airport. I started off at 4pm and got him home at 5.
I actually got him there under budget at 47 bucks. The trip calculator people said the maximum fare was $48.50. So, here's the math of the whole deal. A Metro Lift driver, who makes 14 bucks an hour and doesn't lease a vehicle, couldn't pick this guy up. Then, a Metro Lift cab driver wasn't able to take him because his destination wasn't on his route. The cabbie pays a reduced lease, and makes 22 bucks an hour for his time spent on his route; and he's expected to stay on it, so there's no fault there. So, as a result, the City of Houston ends up paying me nearly 50 bucks to take this gentleman home. But the saddest part of this isn't the economics of it.
Not eight blocks from where this guy lives is a place called "The Kidney Center of South Houston." I asked my fare, "Wow, a kidney center. Do they do dialysis there?"
"Only if you're rich," he answered.
To put it mildly, I was outraged by the whole thing. It took this poor guy however long to get to the dialysis center on the northwest side of town using MetroLift, plus the time on the dialysis machine, then the 2 and a half hours that I know of to get home because of the snafus in the transit system. I'm thinking to myself... couldn't the money that gets used to transport this guy be given to the "rich people's" dialysis center 8 blocks away from him?
Then, I got a wild hair up my butt to push further south, towards some old stomping grounds of mine. Again, about 15 minutes goes by... I stop into a little roadside mom and pop store on the side of state highway 3, grab some peanuts and a Sprite Zero and I'm not on the road another 5 minutes before the trip pops up.
Space Center Houston. I ran the Ham on Rye VR theatre at the Putt Putt on NASA Road 1 for nearly three years and I'd always been near the Space Center. Never went to it, though. Now was my chance.
It's another 25 minutes away and the folks who ordered the cab have been waiting, and will wait, an inordinately long amount of time.
I get there, and luckily they happen to be out of towners who've been using cabs to get everywhere in Houston. They're happy to see me and I get their destination... the Houstonian, off of I-610 near my part of town. I've never heard of it, but I know it's going to be Again, I tell them that I'm not going to start the meter until we're on the road-proper. I want to make sure I've properly exited the Space Center, which is now closed and may have any number of weird ways of directing me out. I don't charge people for my confusion. Also, I find out that the Houstonian... a place I've never been before, is actually off of NORTH Post Oak, and not just Post Oak... we actually have several Post Oaks in Houston, and knowing which one you're going to is a damn good idea.
We get there... and "opulent" doesn't describe it. The Houstonian isn't just a hotel, it's also a spa and resort. Good grief, it's gorgeous... nestled in trees and having valet and bellman service at every single building are just a few of the amenities. I didn't stick around to find out about the rest. After the fare and tip, it was 75 bucks. Between my two 40+ fares and all the small ones I had that day, I'd already made close to 300 bucks. Finally, just a few minutes later, I got what I decided was my last fare of the night.
A yupster calls me to take him to a destination indicated by some Yahoo map directions. I still verify it with my Key Map book just to be sure. He asks me if I can stop by a gas station to let him buy some beer and I said, "Fine, as long as none of the containers get cracked open while this vehicle is in motion. That's a big fine for me." He assures me it's for the party he's going to. I say "cool," and think to myself, "a fare and some wait time," and we start the trip. Shortly after he buys his beer, he gets a call and the plans have changed. I get an address I'm not terribly familiar with, but close to his original destination. However, since the Key Map isn't clear about where this block is - an address on Highway 59 (or specifically, the "Southwest Freeway, as it's called for addresses on the feeder roads next to the highway-proper) - I have to guestimate the exit. Also, I don't know which side of the highway the odd or even numbers are on.
Right on cue, I overshoot the exit and find I'm on the wrong side of the freeway. I tell my fare that I'm stopping the meter at 14 dollars because that's what it would have been if I'd stuck the landing right, so to speak. We double back and find a spot to check addresses and find the other side of the freeway and the spot... the Lupe Tortilla on the other feeder road. The meter actually read 20 dollars and a few cents, and as his way of thanking me, my fare gave me a 20 and told me not to sweat it when I started making change for him.
It was at that point I sensed the karma of the night starting to shift. People were taking more chances on the road, driving crazier and hugging each other's bumpers a little too closely. I'd made my 300 and that was enough. Technically, according to all the rumors, there were still another 6 and a half "hot hours" of the night left, but I really didn't care.
I called it a night at 8:15, took my dinner at Red Robin and crawled into bed at 10, allowing myself to sleep in today. Tonight, Saturday, I'm going to play close to the vest and somewhat by ear. I've already clobbered some bills and I may set a money limit for myself to balance burning gas, making money and working too late into a night where people might start getting dopey again.
All for now...
G
Thursday, February 12, 2009
35 the easy way, 60 the hard way... still trying to find my way.
So, today I tried to follow someone else's advice on what the "perfect work day" is like here in Houston. Ideally, you get up at 4, hit the cab stands at hotels near where you live by 5 and stay booked in on the computer to get dispatches. ... then, at about 10 to 11, you take your rig home and sit out the dull part of the day. Then, around 2, you go back to work for another 7 hours. So, doing this math, the work day of the ideal Houston cab driver is 5am-9pm with a 3-4 hour lunch or nap-break, which comes in handy because you really don't get 8 hours to crash between that 9pm to 4am time frame, do you?
Anyway, the biggest part of the adjustment has been setting my sleep to turn around from the day sleeping I was doing before to crashing in the mid evening to getting up at 4. I can't go on less than 5 hours sleep and I think I finally got my minimum of 6 last night. Trying to roll into the rack at 11am for a 3 hour nap to extend my day just doesn't fuckin work and when I got up at 1, there was work waiting for me before 2 any damn way.
So, tomorrow, it's going to be a 12 hour day with a break in the middle to go to the yard, pay my lease and finish recording Sports Illustrated for the folks at Taping For The Blind. However, I'm only going to take that break long enough to do my "chores" instead of trying to catch some Zs.
Today broke down like this: 5a-9a, taxi; 9a-10, yard, carwash (free BTW, if you get it at the yard); 10a-1045a, partial recording at Taping; 1130-1300, attempted NAP... BUHLEETED!!! 1400-1730, taxi. So, in all that bullshit, there was really only about 7 and a half hours of work. In spite of the dorkyness of the day, it was as close to a full day as I've generated in a while. Tomorrow, I intend to keep the mission tighter and not sweat someone's "recommendations" about when I should take my breaks. As it is, on only 7+ hours of driving, I still generated better than a hundred bucks. Take away the lease and the gas cost of the day (including a wild goose chase that cost me an hour of drive time, 5 bucks in tolls and no fucking fare), I managed to pocket 60 bucks. I can only imagine what my profit will be when I find that "right" 12 hours to drive every day.
Now, in all fairness to the guy who gave me the advice, the dude is a guy who hustles downtown big time. He knows when all the people who fill the glass towers go to work, walk to lunch, and then what time things heat up downtown again. However, there's something about that routine that seems too "mechanical" to me... and I had a fare this afternoon that proved it's not all about the money.
This was my "60 the hard way." But first, the easyt
Basically, the easy fare of the day was this morning. I got a call from an apartment complex near my house and got there lickety split. 5am, I picked her up and she told me about an accident on the Sam Houston Tollway that would slow us down and that we'd have to use the feeder road to get to Highway 290 to get her to work. I got her there 3 minutes late in spite of the fact that the cops had really routed us out of the way. It was a half hour trip that bagged me 33 bucks. If every half hour of the day was that profitable, I'd be buying myself a Lincoln Navigator and turning it into a taxi cab like that other guy I hear about... dude must be a legend with a big base of personal customers. I shit you not.
My first job after my "midday break" was a fucking ghost chase and a lesson in patience. Actually, it was the first half of my lesson in patience. One the ways a smart Houston cabbie can curry more work for himself is by using the zone information display on his dispatch terminal (or computer, for want of a better terminology). By checking the zone display, he can find out where people have called for cabs in areas where there may not be any sedans or vans. This is smart, but you have to be somewhat familiar with how the zones are laid out by their GPS zone numbers.
This is where I made my mistake... by bidding on something that was 25 minutes drive time away. I did this because no new dispatches were coming through the four to six GPS zones that were in my immediate area. OOPS
By the time I got there, not only was my fare not in the leasing office like he said he would be, but when I knocked on his apartment door I got a response from what was presumably a roommate like I was a cop trying to muff dive his meth lab or something.
"Who is it?!"
"Did you call a taxi, sir?" I asked the voice from behind the drawn blinds.
"Naw! He left awwready!"
"OK. Sorry to trouble you." And I went on my merry way.
Now, another lesson I learned in patience (I guess this would be the second quarter of the first half of my lesson) was that when you use the computer to tell the dispatcher that your fare bailed out on you, the dispatcher throws you a bone and puts you back into your previous position in the queue for your primary zone.
Problem: I did this while I was still 25 minutes drive time away from my former primary zone. And guess what, the guy ahead of me had a trip he got dispatched to, so.......
My computer yells at me, "You've got a trip, BOZO!"
Deftly donning my clown shoes and rubber nose (figuratively, of course), I drove back, paying the same tolls in the reverse direction. Luckily, I was against the commute this time, so it only took 18 minutes to get there. I apologized profusely to the little old lady and her caretaker who was accompanying her on the trip.
Side note: this is an issue because all of Houston's Yellow Cab fleet is GPS dispatched. Therefore, if you call for a cab, the dispatcher knows which vehicles are in which queue to go to a certain area. However, because of the "throwing of the bone" I mentioned before, I was automatically shuffled to the front of the line in a zone I was no longer in. Normally, when I'm booked into the right zone (which happens automatically, except in this case), I'm never less than 3-5 minutes from a fare (two of which is me looking up their address using either Yahoo Maps on my computer or my Key Map, travel time is hardly an issue in the GPS zones I operate in).
So, this is where I learned patience again... or rather, exercised it with a grin on my face. This little old lady had some banking business at not one, but two, banks. However, she wasn't content to tell me what her destinations were and let me determine how to get there in advance, she insisted on giving me the route on the fly. There was something about it, probably her accent, that gave this whole trip the whole "New York Hack" feel. She didn't want to know my name, and insisted on calling me "driver," which I actually thought was a hoot. There was more than one time when I would try to look up the street she was directing me to on my Key Map and she insisted on verbally reining me like a horse with a bowler-fedora on his head (that's the hat I wear when I drive). Funny thing is, I didn't really get irritated with it. Here I was, in a situation that in many another profession, I would probably be blowing my stack and telling this person to get off her high horse with me. But I was like, "Hell, as long as she's paying the freight, it's HER frickin car. I'll just point it where she wants it to go."
Mind you, this is an exception I made for a woman obviously in her eighties (if not her nineties) and was operating at differing levels of coherency from moment to moment. I figured, at the very least, between two banks she'd be able to scare up the cab fare. Kids in their teens and twenties sporting looks of being up to no good would not even have a sliver of a chance in hell of pulling that crap on me.
Anywho... I took granny sweetcakes (I knew her first name, but I'm withholding it here. On a trip like this, you're better off with "Ma'am" anyway) to her first bank and waited. It was my first trip clicking off "wait time," which in Houston is metered at 20 dollars an hour, and more specifically, 17 cents every 34 seconds. I had already driven 21 dollars worth of fare, and clicked off another ten while she waited to be waited on in the first bank. It was here that I noticed how quickly I'd made that first 33 dollars of the day, and how slowly this 31 had taken. Wait time is nothing to sneeze at, mind you, but I started to understand where some people who do this for a living really have their attitudes fail them. In a place like New York, I get it. They pay roughly the same leases, get roughly the same wait time, plus they only get to keep their cars for 12 hours and are stuck with those 12 hours to make or break their bank so to speak and the cost of living there is outrageous by comparison. We get our cars for 24 hours, get to pick which 12 hours make us the best money and aren't picking and snapping at flaggers nearly as much. In fact, the flagger is pretty much only a downtown phenomenon. But I digress.
Next, after the first bank was the drive to the second bank and her getting "lobby" treatment at the drive-thru window. In spite of the fact that the lobby wasn't open, a clerk still walked out to us at the drive-thru and helped her with her banking, because there was apparently some issue with conducting part of the transaction just using the window. I think they've dealt with her before and just know what's more expedient. It was cool in a way. Here I was, grinning my way through most of this, and all these other folks at these banks buzzing about her like she was a queen bee. Literally, it was like I had a makeshift dignitary in my cab.
Then, the drive home. She still insisted on asking which turns I was taking and why, even though we'd driven the way there and I was actually taking a shorter way back (my legal obligation, by the way). My explanations were greeted with terse "OKs" and an understanding that I probably couldn't botch the return trip. And lest we forget that she's operating at differing levels of awareness at any given time, she still didn't forget to ask for her senior citizen discount. Literally, two and a half hours of work that came to 60 bucks. That aint too shabby. And frankly, if I could multiply that into my 12 hour workday, making about $275-300 a day wouldn't hurt my feelings any even if part of that was the slow "wait rate." I figure at $106 a day when my lease goes up to the full rate still would give me 150+ per day. Spread that out over a week, and that's where I want my income to be.
However, not every trip is/was like that. Other than the 33 dollar job to start the day, and the 60 dollar job to almost finish it, there was the smattering of short trips and frankly, too many "no trips" where some bozo calls a cab and then decides to hoof it, hit the bus stop or otherwise not be there when the cab shows up. However, I could have also given myself a 17 hour day today to try and get those other 4 hours I didn't drive today.
The other thing is that I'm trying to find the right 8 hours to sleep. Specifically, the right block of time to get the 6 hard hours of sleep along with the dozing that invariably is part of nodding off beforehand and doing my little meditations. Doing the 17 is not my idea of getting that set correctly. If I hit the rack when I want to tonight, I'll have 16 to fit my 12 plus my recording and yard time in, plus a little play with the kitty time. And right now, that's all I really need.
On the whole, I'm enjoying this little adventure, and I'm thankful that Houston Yellow has this reduced lease program in place instead of throwing me to the wolves right away. If I had to give them a hundred bucks a day to start out, I would have said, "Yo, homes, smell ya later." Easing into this has really been far more preferable.
In fact, I hadn't even thought about blogging today until I ran aground on my banking granny today. Seriously, you don't make up stories like that. You live them.
And, of course... my daily LOLcat
moar funny pictures
-ManMan
Anyway, the biggest part of the adjustment has been setting my sleep to turn around from the day sleeping I was doing before to crashing in the mid evening to getting up at 4. I can't go on less than 5 hours sleep and I think I finally got my minimum of 6 last night. Trying to roll into the rack at 11am for a 3 hour nap to extend my day just doesn't fuckin work and when I got up at 1, there was work waiting for me before 2 any damn way.
So, tomorrow, it's going to be a 12 hour day with a break in the middle to go to the yard, pay my lease and finish recording Sports Illustrated for the folks at Taping For The Blind. However, I'm only going to take that break long enough to do my "chores" instead of trying to catch some Zs.
Today broke down like this: 5a-9a, taxi; 9a-10, yard, carwash (free BTW, if you get it at the yard); 10a-1045a, partial recording at Taping; 1130-1300, attempted NAP... BUHLEETED!!! 1400-1730, taxi. So, in all that bullshit, there was really only about 7 and a half hours of work. In spite of the dorkyness of the day, it was as close to a full day as I've generated in a while. Tomorrow, I intend to keep the mission tighter and not sweat someone's "recommendations" about when I should take my breaks. As it is, on only 7+ hours of driving, I still generated better than a hundred bucks. Take away the lease and the gas cost of the day (including a wild goose chase that cost me an hour of drive time, 5 bucks in tolls and no fucking fare), I managed to pocket 60 bucks. I can only imagine what my profit will be when I find that "right" 12 hours to drive every day.
Now, in all fairness to the guy who gave me the advice, the dude is a guy who hustles downtown big time. He knows when all the people who fill the glass towers go to work, walk to lunch, and then what time things heat up downtown again. However, there's something about that routine that seems too "mechanical" to me... and I had a fare this afternoon that proved it's not all about the money.
This was my "60 the hard way." But first, the easyt
Basically, the easy fare of the day was this morning. I got a call from an apartment complex near my house and got there lickety split. 5am, I picked her up and she told me about an accident on the Sam Houston Tollway that would slow us down and that we'd have to use the feeder road to get to Highway 290 to get her to work. I got her there 3 minutes late in spite of the fact that the cops had really routed us out of the way. It was a half hour trip that bagged me 33 bucks. If every half hour of the day was that profitable, I'd be buying myself a Lincoln Navigator and turning it into a taxi cab like that other guy I hear about... dude must be a legend with a big base of personal customers. I shit you not.
My first job after my "midday break" was a fucking ghost chase and a lesson in patience. Actually, it was the first half of my lesson in patience. One the ways a smart Houston cabbie can curry more work for himself is by using the zone information display on his dispatch terminal (or computer, for want of a better terminology). By checking the zone display, he can find out where people have called for cabs in areas where there may not be any sedans or vans. This is smart, but you have to be somewhat familiar with how the zones are laid out by their GPS zone numbers.
This is where I made my mistake... by bidding on something that was 25 minutes drive time away. I did this because no new dispatches were coming through the four to six GPS zones that were in my immediate area. OOPS
By the time I got there, not only was my fare not in the leasing office like he said he would be, but when I knocked on his apartment door I got a response from what was presumably a roommate like I was a cop trying to muff dive his meth lab or something.
"Who is it?!"
"Did you call a taxi, sir?" I asked the voice from behind the drawn blinds.
"Naw! He left awwready!"
"OK. Sorry to trouble you." And I went on my merry way.
Now, another lesson I learned in patience (I guess this would be the second quarter of the first half of my lesson) was that when you use the computer to tell the dispatcher that your fare bailed out on you, the dispatcher throws you a bone and puts you back into your previous position in the queue for your primary zone.
Problem: I did this while I was still 25 minutes drive time away from my former primary zone. And guess what, the guy ahead of me had a trip he got dispatched to, so.......
My computer yells at me, "You've got a trip, BOZO!"
Deftly donning my clown shoes and rubber nose (figuratively, of course), I drove back, paying the same tolls in the reverse direction. Luckily, I was against the commute this time, so it only took 18 minutes to get there. I apologized profusely to the little old lady and her caretaker who was accompanying her on the trip.
Side note: this is an issue because all of Houston's Yellow Cab fleet is GPS dispatched. Therefore, if you call for a cab, the dispatcher knows which vehicles are in which queue to go to a certain area. However, because of the "throwing of the bone" I mentioned before, I was automatically shuffled to the front of the line in a zone I was no longer in. Normally, when I'm booked into the right zone (which happens automatically, except in this case), I'm never less than 3-5 minutes from a fare (two of which is me looking up their address using either Yahoo Maps on my computer or my Key Map, travel time is hardly an issue in the GPS zones I operate in).
So, this is where I learned patience again... or rather, exercised it with a grin on my face. This little old lady had some banking business at not one, but two, banks. However, she wasn't content to tell me what her destinations were and let me determine how to get there in advance, she insisted on giving me the route on the fly. There was something about it, probably her accent, that gave this whole trip the whole "New York Hack" feel. She didn't want to know my name, and insisted on calling me "driver," which I actually thought was a hoot. There was more than one time when I would try to look up the street she was directing me to on my Key Map and she insisted on verbally reining me like a horse with a bowler-fedora on his head (that's the hat I wear when I drive). Funny thing is, I didn't really get irritated with it. Here I was, in a situation that in many another profession, I would probably be blowing my stack and telling this person to get off her high horse with me. But I was like, "Hell, as long as she's paying the freight, it's HER frickin car. I'll just point it where she wants it to go."
Mind you, this is an exception I made for a woman obviously in her eighties (if not her nineties) and was operating at differing levels of coherency from moment to moment. I figured, at the very least, between two banks she'd be able to scare up the cab fare. Kids in their teens and twenties sporting looks of being up to no good would not even have a sliver of a chance in hell of pulling that crap on me.
Anywho... I took granny sweetcakes (I knew her first name, but I'm withholding it here. On a trip like this, you're better off with "Ma'am" anyway) to her first bank and waited. It was my first trip clicking off "wait time," which in Houston is metered at 20 dollars an hour, and more specifically, 17 cents every 34 seconds. I had already driven 21 dollars worth of fare, and clicked off another ten while she waited to be waited on in the first bank. It was here that I noticed how quickly I'd made that first 33 dollars of the day, and how slowly this 31 had taken. Wait time is nothing to sneeze at, mind you, but I started to understand where some people who do this for a living really have their attitudes fail them. In a place like New York, I get it. They pay roughly the same leases, get roughly the same wait time, plus they only get to keep their cars for 12 hours and are stuck with those 12 hours to make or break their bank so to speak and the cost of living there is outrageous by comparison. We get our cars for 24 hours, get to pick which 12 hours make us the best money and aren't picking and snapping at flaggers nearly as much. In fact, the flagger is pretty much only a downtown phenomenon. But I digress.
Next, after the first bank was the drive to the second bank and her getting "lobby" treatment at the drive-thru window. In spite of the fact that the lobby wasn't open, a clerk still walked out to us at the drive-thru and helped her with her banking, because there was apparently some issue with conducting part of the transaction just using the window. I think they've dealt with her before and just know what's more expedient. It was cool in a way. Here I was, grinning my way through most of this, and all these other folks at these banks buzzing about her like she was a queen bee. Literally, it was like I had a makeshift dignitary in my cab.
Then, the drive home. She still insisted on asking which turns I was taking and why, even though we'd driven the way there and I was actually taking a shorter way back (my legal obligation, by the way). My explanations were greeted with terse "OKs" and an understanding that I probably couldn't botch the return trip. And lest we forget that she's operating at differing levels of awareness at any given time, she still didn't forget to ask for her senior citizen discount. Literally, two and a half hours of work that came to 60 bucks. That aint too shabby. And frankly, if I could multiply that into my 12 hour workday, making about $275-300 a day wouldn't hurt my feelings any even if part of that was the slow "wait rate." I figure at $106 a day when my lease goes up to the full rate still would give me 150+ per day. Spread that out over a week, and that's where I want my income to be.
However, not every trip is/was like that. Other than the 33 dollar job to start the day, and the 60 dollar job to almost finish it, there was the smattering of short trips and frankly, too many "no trips" where some bozo calls a cab and then decides to hoof it, hit the bus stop or otherwise not be there when the cab shows up. However, I could have also given myself a 17 hour day today to try and get those other 4 hours I didn't drive today.
The other thing is that I'm trying to find the right 8 hours to sleep. Specifically, the right block of time to get the 6 hard hours of sleep along with the dozing that invariably is part of nodding off beforehand and doing my little meditations. Doing the 17 is not my idea of getting that set correctly. If I hit the rack when I want to tonight, I'll have 16 to fit my 12 plus my recording and yard time in, plus a little play with the kitty time. And right now, that's all I really need.
On the whole, I'm enjoying this little adventure, and I'm thankful that Houston Yellow has this reduced lease program in place instead of throwing me to the wolves right away. If I had to give them a hundred bucks a day to start out, I would have said, "Yo, homes, smell ya later." Easing into this has really been far more preferable.
In fact, I hadn't even thought about blogging today until I ran aground on my banking granny today. Seriously, you don't make up stories like that. You live them.
And, of course... my daily LOLcat
moar funny pictures
-ManMan
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