Shift #23
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3 -- Westin-St. Francis on Union Square to the Marquis Marriott, barely four blocks, barely two minutes -- $4
FIRST RIDE OF THE DAY. First ride of the month.
She is from Chile, which four days ago (while I was skiing in the Sierras with my daughter) was ripped by an 8.8 earthquake.
"My family is fine," she tells me. "Everyone is fine."
Nonetheless, she seems very touched by my very small, very inexpensive gesture.
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Monday, March 1, 2010
INTERNET JIHADISTS
Shift #24
FRIDAY, MARCH 5 -- 101 California to Levi Plaza -- $6.70
I AWAKE AT 3:30 with an icepick headache centered behind my right eye. Three days in a row now. Coffee and aspirin have knocked it back each day, but, dammit, there it is again. A large vanilla-hazelnut latte from Peet’s and three aspirin take a pretty good whack at it, and two early $40 airports also help. Each of the airport passengers had come to San Francisco for a computer security conference held at Moscone (featured speaker: FBI Director Robert Mueller) and each of them tells me America is in grave peril due to hacker threats originating mainly from Russia and China but also from hordes of rabidly committed, freelance internet jihadists.
The second one tells me, “There are people out there trying to dynamite our financial system, and the public really hasn’t caught on yet. Imagine waking up one morning and going to the ATM or going online and finding your bank account has a zero balance. Imagine no gas, imagine no food in the grocery stores for three weeks, no way to pay for it. Imagine the civil unrest in the streets. The media have done some reporting on this, but no one really wants to think about it. It’s just like before 9/11 -- there were plenty of warnings but no one took them seriously enough. Everyone thought someone else would take care of it. But every day, right now, there are jihadists out there trying to destroy the whole Internet. What’s coming is going to make 9/11 seem like the good old days. The Russians want our credit card numbers and the Chinese want our military secrets, but these jihadists are doing everything they can -- every day, right now -- to try to blow up the Internet and bring the whole system crashing down. Oh, yeah -- we are going to wish for 9/11 again...”
After this, I need another large cup of coffee plus a Noah’s bagel just to get myself back to even. Well, not exactly even -- truth is, by 8:16 a.m., the needle on my personal buzzometer is jumping around in the red zone, and that's when I see my free ride for the day flagging me from the spot in front of 101 California where people with Levi Strauss employee badges can catch a free shuttle bus over to Levi Plaza. Right off she asks about the procedure for finding something left in a cab: “Late last night I took a cab to BART and when we got there someone standing on the curb wanted the cab so I kind of rushed and I thought I heard something fall but it was dark and I didn’t see anything and so I talked myself out of it and just paid the driver and went to catch my train. And that’s when I found that I had dropped my BART pass in the cab and also my employee ID.”
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FRIDAY, MARCH 5 -- 101 California to Levi Plaza -- $6.70
I AWAKE AT 3:30 with an icepick headache centered behind my right eye. Three days in a row now. Coffee and aspirin have knocked it back each day, but, dammit, there it is again. A large vanilla-hazelnut latte from Peet’s and three aspirin take a pretty good whack at it, and two early $40 airports also help. Each of the airport passengers had come to San Francisco for a computer security conference held at Moscone (featured speaker: FBI Director Robert Mueller) and each of them tells me America is in grave peril due to hacker threats originating mainly from Russia and China but also from hordes of rabidly committed, freelance internet jihadists.
The second one tells me, “There are people out there trying to dynamite our financial system, and the public really hasn’t caught on yet. Imagine waking up one morning and going to the ATM or going online and finding your bank account has a zero balance. Imagine no gas, imagine no food in the grocery stores for three weeks, no way to pay for it. Imagine the civil unrest in the streets. The media have done some reporting on this, but no one really wants to think about it. It’s just like before 9/11 -- there were plenty of warnings but no one took them seriously enough. Everyone thought someone else would take care of it. But every day, right now, there are jihadists out there trying to destroy the whole Internet. What’s coming is going to make 9/11 seem like the good old days. The Russians want our credit card numbers and the Chinese want our military secrets, but these jihadists are doing everything they can -- every day, right now -- to try to blow up the Internet and bring the whole system crashing down. Oh, yeah -- we are going to wish for 9/11 again...”
After this, I need another large cup of coffee plus a Noah’s bagel just to get myself back to even. Well, not exactly even -- truth is, by 8:16 a.m., the needle on my personal buzzometer is jumping around in the red zone, and that's when I see my free ride for the day flagging me from the spot in front of 101 California where people with Levi Strauss employee badges can catch a free shuttle bus over to Levi Plaza. Right off she asks about the procedure for finding something left in a cab: “Late last night I took a cab to BART and when we got there someone standing on the curb wanted the cab so I kind of rushed and I thought I heard something fall but it was dark and I didn’t see anything and so I talked myself out of it and just paid the driver and went to catch my train. And that’s when I found that I had dropped my BART pass in the cab and also my employee ID.”
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“It was better before...”
Shift #25
SUNDAY, MARCH 7 -- From a gas station out near Hunters Point to 13th/Folsom -- $10.30
“I HAVE THREE JOBS at three gas stations -- seventy hours a week -- I work twenty hours at a gas station out by the airport, twenty hours at another one in Daly City, and thirty hours where you just picked me up... They don’t let you work forty hours or else you are full-time -- they want to keep you part-time...
“Monday is my triple shift -- I work three shifts back to back… I would be manager at this station but I don’t have a green card yet. Almost. One more step to go, one more form -- just some papers... It is hard to get a green card. I have been working on it for six years. They want to make sure my marriage is for real. They come to your house at three o’clock in the morning to check... No kidding!
“I grew up in Mexico. Michoacan. I came here when I was fourteen. Student visa... and then I just stayed. Three kids -- ten and four, and one who’s just six months -- I started early, Latino style... My wife grew up here. Her mother came from El Salvador in the Sixties, so my wife was born here. I’m twenty-six, my wife is seven years older than me... When I get a green card I can get a good job and spend more time with my kids -- tow truck driver or maybe security guard -- people tell me those are good money... This gas station pays eleven dollars an hour, but in San Mateo County they pay only minimum wage, like nine dollars an hour...
“I could not go back to Mexico -- too crazy now. The government wants to fight the drug cartels. I suppose that is a good thing, but lots of innocent people are getting killed. Before, when they let the drug cartels alone, no one was getting killed... It was better before… people were safer before…”
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SUNDAY, MARCH 7 -- From a gas station out near Hunters Point to 13th/Folsom -- $10.30
“I HAVE THREE JOBS at three gas stations -- seventy hours a week -- I work twenty hours at a gas station out by the airport, twenty hours at another one in Daly City, and thirty hours where you just picked me up... They don’t let you work forty hours or else you are full-time -- they want to keep you part-time...
“Monday is my triple shift -- I work three shifts back to back… I would be manager at this station but I don’t have a green card yet. Almost. One more step to go, one more form -- just some papers... It is hard to get a green card. I have been working on it for six years. They want to make sure my marriage is for real. They come to your house at three o’clock in the morning to check... No kidding!
“I grew up in Mexico. Michoacan. I came here when I was fourteen. Student visa... and then I just stayed. Three kids -- ten and four, and one who’s just six months -- I started early, Latino style... My wife grew up here. Her mother came from El Salvador in the Sixties, so my wife was born here. I’m twenty-six, my wife is seven years older than me... When I get a green card I can get a good job and spend more time with my kids -- tow truck driver or maybe security guard -- people tell me those are good money... This gas station pays eleven dollars an hour, but in San Mateo County they pay only minimum wage, like nine dollars an hour...
“I could not go back to Mexico -- too crazy now. The government wants to fight the drug cartels. I suppose that is a good thing, but lots of innocent people are getting killed. Before, when they let the drug cartels alone, no one was getting killed... It was better before… people were safer before…”
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“SOMETHING’S FISHY”
Shift #26
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 – Hotel W to UCSF Medical Center -- $13.00
SHE IS AN OFFICE MANAGER in a hospital department that deals with AIDS patients. She woke up this morning in the North Bay and caught a “casual carpool” ride to Second and Howard. At 7:17 AM she jumps into my cab and says, “I’m running late. I need to open the department at 7:30. Do you think we can do that…?
“Hey, is this a Prius? I don’t buy what they’re saying about Toyotas. This morning before I left home they played the 9-1-1 tape of that guy in LA who said he was in his Prius and the accelerator was stuck and he was going 90 miles an hour on the freeway. I’m sorry -- that was fake! Did you hear it? He tells the operator, ‘My car is going 90 miles an hour!’ and the first thing she says to him is, ‘Is it a Prius?’ Now that was a setup. Sounded so phony -- why would she say that, first thing? No, I’m sorry – uh-uh, that ain’t right. Something’s fishy there…”
I tell her that we drivers at Green Cab are pretty mystified, too: “We’ve been driving these Toyotas -- Priuses mostly -- for three years now, and we’ve been singing their praises. These are great cars. But ever since January, when Toyota started getting all the bad publicity, we’ve all been standing around the cab lot scratching our heads and asking each other, ‘Have you ever had any problem?’ "Nope -- have you? And none of us ever have."
I tell her that a couple of weeks ago I borrowed a neighbor’s camcorder and filmed five of my Green Cab colleagues (youtube link below) driving their Priuses single file down Lombard Street, the “crookedest street in the world.” I sent it to Toyota and told them they were missing a great opportunity -- they should send a film crew to interview the grizzled, veteran cab drivers of San Francisco, and use the city as a sexy backdrop while we gave our heartfelt testimonies about how much we love our Prius cabs.
“That’s right,” my fare tells me. “Everybody knows that something’s fishy on this. It ain’t right. In the end, you’ll see. Something’s fishy.”
My fare likes 1) that we reach UCSF at 7:28, and 2) that there is a surprise little twist at ride’s end.
YOUTUBE link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DazIe4QXqjY
NOTE: You can skip the first 1:40 or so.
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 – Hotel W to UCSF Medical Center -- $13.00
SHE IS AN OFFICE MANAGER in a hospital department that deals with AIDS patients. She woke up this morning in the North Bay and caught a “casual carpool” ride to Second and Howard. At 7:17 AM she jumps into my cab and says, “I’m running late. I need to open the department at 7:30. Do you think we can do that…?
“Hey, is this a Prius? I don’t buy what they’re saying about Toyotas. This morning before I left home they played the 9-1-1 tape of that guy in LA who said he was in his Prius and the accelerator was stuck and he was going 90 miles an hour on the freeway. I’m sorry -- that was fake! Did you hear it? He tells the operator, ‘My car is going 90 miles an hour!’ and the first thing she says to him is, ‘Is it a Prius?’ Now that was a setup. Sounded so phony -- why would she say that, first thing? No, I’m sorry – uh-uh, that ain’t right. Something’s fishy there…”
I tell her that we drivers at Green Cab are pretty mystified, too: “We’ve been driving these Toyotas -- Priuses mostly -- for three years now, and we’ve been singing their praises. These are great cars. But ever since January, when Toyota started getting all the bad publicity, we’ve all been standing around the cab lot scratching our heads and asking each other, ‘Have you ever had any problem?’ "Nope -- have you? And none of us ever have."
I tell her that a couple of weeks ago I borrowed a neighbor’s camcorder and filmed five of my Green Cab colleagues (youtube link below) driving their Priuses single file down Lombard Street, the “crookedest street in the world.” I sent it to Toyota and told them they were missing a great opportunity -- they should send a film crew to interview the grizzled, veteran cab drivers of San Francisco, and use the city as a sexy backdrop while we gave our heartfelt testimonies about how much we love our Prius cabs.
“That’s right,” my fare tells me. “Everybody knows that something’s fishy on this. It ain’t right. In the end, you’ll see. Something’s fishy.”
My fare likes 1) that we reach UCSF at 7:28, and 2) that there is a surprise little twist at ride’s end.
YOUTUBE link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DazIe4QXqjY
NOTE: You can skip the first 1:40 or so.
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The Imaginary Foundation
Shift #27
FRIDAY, MARCH 12 – 26th and South Van Ness to 22nd and Tennessee -- $7:15
IF WE GET ANOTHER THREE INCHES OF RAIN THIS WINTER San Francisco will have had its first “normal” rains in four years (average rainfall is around 23 inches). It’s been drumming down steadily all morning, and the young man and woman who have called for my cab are waiting under the eaves of their apartment building deep in the Mission District.
“Citywide is so great,” the woman tells me. (Citywide Dispatch has ten smaller cab companies under its umbrella, including Green Cab.) “We used to always call (one of San Francisco’s bigger cab companies), but our favorite driver there quit and came to Citywide, so now we call you guys. A lot of times (that bigger cab company) says they’ll be there in ten minutes, but then they never come. You guys always come right away.”
Me: “I think we’re the best kept secret in the cab industry.” [Citywide doesn't get as much business as the larger comanies do, but my fear is that if Citywide ever advertised (it doesn’t) we would be flooded with calls -- (415) 920-0700 -- and would wind up giving the same lousy service as most of the other companies. But as it is, the people who know about us are pretty darned happy.]
The man: “Even though it’s raining, I don’t think we were waiting even four minutes.”
The woman: “It makes so much difference having a live dispatcher instead of a computer. And your dispatchers aren’t rude!”
I’m already leaning free ride, but then we get talking about the place where they have both been working for about a year now -- the Imaginary Foundation. “It’s a tee-shirt company,” the woman says, “but it’s really much more than that. The founder is a ‘genius’ and an incredible artist. Sometimes I have to look at his designs for about six months before I see everything that’s going on in them.” (From the company website: “The Imaginary Foundation is a think tank from Switzerland that does experimental research on new ways of thinking and the power of the imagination… The small clandestine team is headed up by the mysterious ‘Director,’ a 70-something über-intellectual whose father founded the Dadaist movement. Avoiding direct publicity, the team has sought clothing as an unlikely vehicle for bringing their ideas beyond the academic realm and into popular culture.”)
We get absorbed in our discussion and at ride’s end the man gives me two five-dollar bills, and it’s only as I watch my two fares disappear into their building that I remember free ride. Well, too late now...
The street where I’ve dropped them dead-ends into an industrial park, so I do a U-turn, and as I’m again passing by their building, I see my two passengers re-emerge through the front door, stop, and huddle together against the wind to light cigarettes. I think of pulling over and explaining to them about my free ride, but might that not confuse them, might that not just be embarrassing all the way around? So I just pass right on by.
But sitting at the stop sign at the next corner, I hear Body squawking: Who says?
I do another U-turn, stop, give a beckoning wave. The woman -- she’s the closer of the two -- walks over to my passenger window; the man stays back, out of the rain. “Every day I give away one free ride,” I tell her, “and I’d like yours to be my free ride today. Can you please give these back to your friend?” I hold out the two five-dollar bills. She takes them. “That’s cool,” she says.
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FRIDAY, MARCH 12 – 26th and South Van Ness to 22nd and Tennessee -- $7:15
IF WE GET ANOTHER THREE INCHES OF RAIN THIS WINTER San Francisco will have had its first “normal” rains in four years (average rainfall is around 23 inches). It’s been drumming down steadily all morning, and the young man and woman who have called for my cab are waiting under the eaves of their apartment building deep in the Mission District.
“Citywide is so great,” the woman tells me. (Citywide Dispatch has ten smaller cab companies under its umbrella, including Green Cab.) “We used to always call (one of San Francisco’s bigger cab companies), but our favorite driver there quit and came to Citywide, so now we call you guys. A lot of times (that bigger cab company) says they’ll be there in ten minutes, but then they never come. You guys always come right away.”
Me: “I think we’re the best kept secret in the cab industry.” [Citywide doesn't get as much business as the larger comanies do, but my fear is that if Citywide ever advertised (it doesn’t) we would be flooded with calls -- (415) 920-0700 -- and would wind up giving the same lousy service as most of the other companies. But as it is, the people who know about us are pretty darned happy.]
The man: “Even though it’s raining, I don’t think we were waiting even four minutes.”
The woman: “It makes so much difference having a live dispatcher instead of a computer. And your dispatchers aren’t rude!”
I’m already leaning free ride, but then we get talking about the place where they have both been working for about a year now -- the Imaginary Foundation. “It’s a tee-shirt company,” the woman says, “but it’s really much more than that. The founder is a ‘genius’ and an incredible artist. Sometimes I have to look at his designs for about six months before I see everything that’s going on in them.” (From the company website: “The Imaginary Foundation is a think tank from Switzerland that does experimental research on new ways of thinking and the power of the imagination… The small clandestine team is headed up by the mysterious ‘Director,’ a 70-something über-intellectual whose father founded the Dadaist movement. Avoiding direct publicity, the team has sought clothing as an unlikely vehicle for bringing their ideas beyond the academic realm and into popular culture.”)
We get absorbed in our discussion and at ride’s end the man gives me two five-dollar bills, and it’s only as I watch my two fares disappear into their building that I remember free ride. Well, too late now...
The street where I’ve dropped them dead-ends into an industrial park, so I do a U-turn, and as I’m again passing by their building, I see my two passengers re-emerge through the front door, stop, and huddle together against the wind to light cigarettes. I think of pulling over and explaining to them about my free ride, but might that not confuse them, might that not just be embarrassing all the way around? So I just pass right on by.
But sitting at the stop sign at the next corner, I hear Body squawking: Who says?
I do another U-turn, stop, give a beckoning wave. The woman -- she’s the closer of the two -- walks over to my passenger window; the man stays back, out of the rain. “Every day I give away one free ride,” I tell her, “and I’d like yours to be my free ride today. Can you please give these back to your friend?” I hold out the two five-dollar bills. She takes them. “That’s cool,” she says.
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DOUBLE THE FUN
Shift #28
SUNDAY, MARCH 14 -- Fillmore and Chestnut to Fillmore and Union -- $3.55
NO CAB DRIVER COULD HELP NOTICING these two anxious-looking young women -- they are pulling wheeled suitcases behind them, their hair looks as wild as if they’ve leapt from bed two minutes ago, and they both have tense, need-to-get-to-the-airport expressions on their faces. But they are not looking for a cab. While I’m watching them, they stop in a bus stop shelter, prop their suitcases upright, and begin searching Fillmore Street for a bus.
I glide past them, down the business stretch of Chestnut Street. This enclave of shops and restaurants is absolutely level, zero grade, and my Prius can roll from one end of it to the other and back on electricity alone, without the gasoline engine ever switching on. I drive past all my personal landmarks -- past Noah’s Bagels, past Allstar Donuts, past the Apple store, past Starbucks, past Peet’s -- all the way to United Liquor and Deli at the corner of Chestnut and Divisadero, where I make a U-turn. Four blocks later I see the two women still standing at the bus stop, but the four minutes they've just spent waiting for a bus have infused their facial expressions with a frantic quality, and now they are both waving at me in a rather well-lathered panic.
“The nearest BART station,” one of them says.
I ask, “What time is your flight?”
Fare #1: “Eleven-fifteen.”
Fare #2: “What time is it now?”
Before I can answer, Fare #1 says: “Ten after ten.”
If it really were 10:10, there is almost no way they’d make an 11:15 flight. I say, “It’s actually 9:10.”
One of them: “Really?”
“My dispatcher’s been reminding us on the radio all morning.”
It's quiet in the cab. I lift my cell phone over the backseat so they can read the 9:15 glowing on its face. No one argues with a cell phone.
Fare # 2: “Oh, man… I must have set the clock two hours ahead!”
Fare #1: “I thought you did!”
Fare #2: “I need coffee!”
Fare #1: “Can you just let us out at that coffee shop?” The Union Street Coffee Roastery is dead ahead. They’ve been in the cab four short blocks, maybe 200 yards.
I drop them off, wish them luck.
My next fare goes to the airport for $45.
LATER… 1:30 pm. SFO to South San Francisco -- $14.55
A YOUNG WOMAN WITH CURLY RED HAIR. She settles in, says she’s heading to a nearby bio-tech company, where she parked her car, and then her phone rings and she talks non-stop for the duration of the six-minute ride:
“Oh, Dad -- what a nightmare! No -- I’m back home now… A nightmare! A day and a half of travel, and I didn’t even get to New York… I only got four hours of sleep on Friday night because I had to be at the airport at 4 AM. When we left San Francisco there wasn’t even a storm warning for New York -- nothing! -- but then they had these high winds and they shut the airport and diverted us to Pittsburgh. After a full day of traveling I spent the night in the airport in Pittsburgh, and it just didn't make any sense to go on to New York, and of course all the flights were full anyway...
"Then when I woke up this morning I forgot this is the day we turn the clocks back -- right, ahead -- and I nearly panicked when I realized and I had to scramble and I almost missed my flight back here! The ticket cost me six hundred dollars, and (the airline) says they’re not responsible for weather or mechanical, so no refund. I suppose I could write a letter, but it would probably just be a further waste of my time...”
Body is cheering Free Ride!, but I try to be rational: You already gave a free ride to those two women this morning… You just now waited an hour at the airport, you deserve something … Your shift is nearly over and so far you’ve only got $40 to take home… You can’t give away every ride…
My fare continues: “And if I talk to one more ticket agent I’ll probably be... inappropriate. It’s not their fault, but it’s so frustrating. I have to fly to San Deigo this week, but I don’t even want to see an airplane for at least a month. I’m going home and all I want to do is take a nap, but I’ve got a cat sitter coming sometime this afternoon -- and I’ve already paid for that…”
Body: “Heh, heh, heh…”
I double-check: “Really?”
Body: “Have some fun, bro…”
At the end of the ride, I say, “Just to make your day even more interesting…” and then I tell her.
As I’m pulling away, I look back. She’s loading her suitcase into the trunk of her car and she’s smiling so hard I think her cheeks might just crack open.
My next ride goes from the airport to Half Moon Bay for $60.
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SUNDAY, MARCH 14 -- Fillmore and Chestnut to Fillmore and Union -- $3.55
NO CAB DRIVER COULD HELP NOTICING these two anxious-looking young women -- they are pulling wheeled suitcases behind them, their hair looks as wild as if they’ve leapt from bed two minutes ago, and they both have tense, need-to-get-to-the-airport expressions on their faces. But they are not looking for a cab. While I’m watching them, they stop in a bus stop shelter, prop their suitcases upright, and begin searching Fillmore Street for a bus.
I glide past them, down the business stretch of Chestnut Street. This enclave of shops and restaurants is absolutely level, zero grade, and my Prius can roll from one end of it to the other and back on electricity alone, without the gasoline engine ever switching on. I drive past all my personal landmarks -- past Noah’s Bagels, past Allstar Donuts, past the Apple store, past Starbucks, past Peet’s -- all the way to United Liquor and Deli at the corner of Chestnut and Divisadero, where I make a U-turn. Four blocks later I see the two women still standing at the bus stop, but the four minutes they've just spent waiting for a bus have infused their facial expressions with a frantic quality, and now they are both waving at me in a rather well-lathered panic.
“The nearest BART station,” one of them says.
I ask, “What time is your flight?”
Fare #1: “Eleven-fifteen.”
Fare #2: “What time is it now?”
Before I can answer, Fare #1 says: “Ten after ten.”
If it really were 10:10, there is almost no way they’d make an 11:15 flight. I say, “It’s actually 9:10.”
One of them: “Really?”
“My dispatcher’s been reminding us on the radio all morning.”
It's quiet in the cab. I lift my cell phone over the backseat so they can read the 9:15 glowing on its face. No one argues with a cell phone.
Fare # 2: “Oh, man… I must have set the clock two hours ahead!”
Fare #1: “I thought you did!”
Fare #2: “I need coffee!”
Fare #1: “Can you just let us out at that coffee shop?” The Union Street Coffee Roastery is dead ahead. They’ve been in the cab four short blocks, maybe 200 yards.
I drop them off, wish them luck.
My next fare goes to the airport for $45.
LATER… 1:30 pm. SFO to South San Francisco -- $14.55
A YOUNG WOMAN WITH CURLY RED HAIR. She settles in, says she’s heading to a nearby bio-tech company, where she parked her car, and then her phone rings and she talks non-stop for the duration of the six-minute ride:
“Oh, Dad -- what a nightmare! No -- I’m back home now… A nightmare! A day and a half of travel, and I didn’t even get to New York… I only got four hours of sleep on Friday night because I had to be at the airport at 4 AM. When we left San Francisco there wasn’t even a storm warning for New York -- nothing! -- but then they had these high winds and they shut the airport and diverted us to Pittsburgh. After a full day of traveling I spent the night in the airport in Pittsburgh, and it just didn't make any sense to go on to New York, and of course all the flights were full anyway...
"Then when I woke up this morning I forgot this is the day we turn the clocks back -- right, ahead -- and I nearly panicked when I realized and I had to scramble and I almost missed my flight back here! The ticket cost me six hundred dollars, and (the airline) says they’re not responsible for weather or mechanical, so no refund. I suppose I could write a letter, but it would probably just be a further waste of my time...”
Body is cheering Free Ride!, but I try to be rational: You already gave a free ride to those two women this morning… You just now waited an hour at the airport, you deserve something … Your shift is nearly over and so far you’ve only got $40 to take home… You can’t give away every ride…
My fare continues: “And if I talk to one more ticket agent I’ll probably be... inappropriate. It’s not their fault, but it’s so frustrating. I have to fly to San Deigo this week, but I don’t even want to see an airplane for at least a month. I’m going home and all I want to do is take a nap, but I’ve got a cat sitter coming sometime this afternoon -- and I’ve already paid for that…”
Body: “Heh, heh, heh…”
I double-check: “Really?”
Body: “Have some fun, bro…”
At the end of the ride, I say, “Just to make your day even more interesting…” and then I tell her.
As I’m pulling away, I look back. She’s loading her suitcase into the trunk of her car and she’s smiling so hard I think her cheeks might just crack open.
My next ride goes from the airport to Half Moon Bay for $60.
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Toyota wants me!
Shift #29
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17 -- Hotel W to Eight and Market -- $7.15
THERE ARE MANY REASONS why I like working the Hotel W: the staff is cool about letting cab drivers use the lobby bathroom; in the morning, maybe half the rides are $40 airport fares; the doormen don’t squeeze you for tips like the jackals at some of the other nearby, supposedly classy, hotels (yes, unbelievable!); the other drivers who tend to work the W are mostly Brazilians, a happy bunch of guys, always laughing about something, always friendly toward me -- if I come back in another life, I won’t mind if I’m Brazilian. Also, the W’s clientele is usually interesting: Beyonce, the entire Dallas Mavericks squad; the drummer from Green Day (I’ve never had these folks in my cab, but the doorman tells me who’s staying, if I ask). And whether they’re celebrities or not, the W’s folks are almost always very personable.
For the past several months I have been picking up individual members of a team of Chicago-based consultants who each morning travel from the W to an office building at Eighth and Market, where they are working on a long-term contract. They stay at the W during the week, fly home to Chicago each weekend, and then fly back to San Francisco again. This morning I pick up a young woman who looks like her ancestry might be...Tibetan? Chinese? Peruvian? Her accent gives no clues -- it is as mainstream American as my own. I’ve had her in my cab a couple of times before, but it’s been a few weeks now.
“Are there still four of you on this job?” I ask.
“No, just two of us now.”
“Is it like Survivor? Will one of you get voted off the island soon?”
She laughs. “You never know… Maybe!”
I often use the people in the back of my cab the same way I use my therapist: to share the things going on in my life. “I’m kind of excited,” I tell her. “Toyota is sending a film crew to our cab lot today to do a ‘test shoot’ for a possible commercial, and they want me and my Prius.”
“That’s great...” she says, with enthusiasm, and that’s all the opening I need. I barge ahead and spill all the rest of the details -- three trucks full of film gear, advertising honchos, free sandwiches... Hers is not a long ride, and I hog all the airspace during the last few blocks, at the end of which I tell her about my free ride. She seems to appreciate all of it. “Good luck with the commercial,” she says on the way to her day.
Cheaper than talking to my therapist, for sure.
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17 -- Hotel W to Eight and Market -- $7.15
THERE ARE MANY REASONS why I like working the Hotel W: the staff is cool about letting cab drivers use the lobby bathroom; in the morning, maybe half the rides are $40 airport fares; the doormen don’t squeeze you for tips like the jackals at some of the other nearby, supposedly classy, hotels (yes, unbelievable!); the other drivers who tend to work the W are mostly Brazilians, a happy bunch of guys, always laughing about something, always friendly toward me -- if I come back in another life, I won’t mind if I’m Brazilian. Also, the W’s clientele is usually interesting: Beyonce, the entire Dallas Mavericks squad; the drummer from Green Day (I’ve never had these folks in my cab, but the doorman tells me who’s staying, if I ask). And whether they’re celebrities or not, the W’s folks are almost always very personable.
For the past several months I have been picking up individual members of a team of Chicago-based consultants who each morning travel from the W to an office building at Eighth and Market, where they are working on a long-term contract. They stay at the W during the week, fly home to Chicago each weekend, and then fly back to San Francisco again. This morning I pick up a young woman who looks like her ancestry might be...Tibetan? Chinese? Peruvian? Her accent gives no clues -- it is as mainstream American as my own. I’ve had her in my cab a couple of times before, but it’s been a few weeks now.
“Are there still four of you on this job?” I ask.
“No, just two of us now.”
“Is it like Survivor? Will one of you get voted off the island soon?”
She laughs. “You never know… Maybe!”
I often use the people in the back of my cab the same way I use my therapist: to share the things going on in my life. “I’m kind of excited,” I tell her. “Toyota is sending a film crew to our cab lot today to do a ‘test shoot’ for a possible commercial, and they want me and my Prius.”
“That’s great...” she says, with enthusiasm, and that’s all the opening I need. I barge ahead and spill all the rest of the details -- three trucks full of film gear, advertising honchos, free sandwiches... Hers is not a long ride, and I hog all the airspace during the last few blocks, at the end of which I tell her about my free ride. She seems to appreciate all of it. “Good luck with the commercial,” she says on the way to her day.
Cheaper than talking to my therapist, for sure.
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