Clayton Makes The Blog III: Dude, You Are Killin’ Me

Posted: 4th December 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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Damn, man… this is starting to become a TRADITION now, dude… are we gonna do this every Halloween?

Clayton called the weekend before Halloween, asking if I can pick up him and his new wife Clara and take them to a bar. I said of course I can, and I headed over to his place immediately. I don’t see Clayton and Clara as much anymore, not so much because that they are married now, but because they are getting serious and building a business together, and they don’t go out as much… you know, becoming grown-ups. And they seem to be off to a pretty good start, from what I can gather. They are generally in the marketing field, and my old career and their new business are peripherally related but don’t quite intersect, but we can “see each other over the fence”, as it were, and we speak a lot of the same language. And from everything they have told me, I expect nothing less from their new enterprise than modest success, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they built a very successful and lucrative business in three or five or ten years. While my first post about him might make him sound like a drunken clown in a zombie costume, Clayton is really smart, as is Clara, and they seem to know their craft pretty well.

I will all but put someone out of my car to go take care of this guy. Clayton has earned a lot of goodwill with me, just by virtue of being an excellent customer for right around two years. I still remember the first night I met Clayton, and that is remarkable, because thousands of people have been in my car that I would never remember if shown a photograph. I got a call one night back when I first joined my current company and I was hungry for work… there might have been six or seven of us working back then, in the entire company. Clayton calls and said he called two different taxi companies tonight, and no one will pick him up, he’s been waiting two hours, and he’s willing to pay extra if someone can pick him and his girlfriend up in the next thirty minutes.

I told him that I would be there in ten minutes, and he says, “Does that mean less than thirty minutes?”

I said, “That means less than twelve,” and I pulled up at his house in eight. I took them to their destination and he gave me twenty bucks on a ten or eleven dollar fare. He called at the end of the night and I picked him up quickly and took them home, and Clayton has called me ever since. Clayton is an excellent tipper; a crappy tip from Clayton is 50 percent, and a lot of times, he tips 100 percent or more. This is the way to endear yourself to a taxi driver with a kid.

And Clayton rarely keeps me waiting. This is a big deal to me. I would wager that if you surveyed one thousand taxi drivers and asked them, “What one thing would you tell passengers to do to make your job better?”, the overwhelming response would be,

“Be ready to go when I arrive.”

I don’t know who coined the phrase “time is money”, but I would bet it was a taxi driver. I have a finite amount of time before the bars close, and the more customers I can serve in that limited time, the more money I will make. But so many people have this attitude like, Hey, guys… the taxi is here, so kill off your drinks, find your purse, finish your cigarettes, close the garage door, somebody get the cat in, change your shirt, go take a dump, fix your mascara, take one more bong hit, help me find my contact lens, and tell the cabbie we will be right out, in two or three more minutes…

Keeping me waiting is a sure-fire way to find yourself calling another taxi. I am really itchy to go after three minutes, and I am almost always gone after five, unless I know this ride is going somewhere good. On a busy Saturday night, if twelve people make me wait five minutes, that is an hour of time that could have been extremely profitable for me. But this is a concept you simply can not make these people understand, in this moment, even if you spelled it out to them. Sometimes my irritation shows on my face, and they always seem to say something like, “What…? We are paying for this… we’re gonna take care of you…”

And I WANT to say to them,

“No, I’M paying for this… you have wasted a significant amount of my time already, so if you can’t get the rest of your people in the car in the next sixty seconds or so, I am going to leave. In the time that I have been waiting for you boneheads to get your proverbial poop in a group, I could have already driven to the Driftwood Hotel, where a taxi driver of my skill and acumen could find a $50 or $75 or $100 fare, instead of pulling his dick with you moronic dipshits and your $7 ride to Lester’s Dive Bar! Forty-five seconds, Sugartits! Let’s go! Load ’em or leave ’em!”

But of course, I never say that… well, almost never…

And Clayton is one of about five or eight of my regulars whose credit is good with me, even though he always has money and it would probably never occur to him to even ask for such a thing. Occasionally, people will propose that if I will give them a fifteen dollar ride tonight, I can come back to their house tomorrow and they will pay me double. I always pass on these sorts of proposals. You don’t have fifteen dollars, or a credit or debit card that will sustain that charge? Thanks, but no thanks. This goes back to time being money… every minute spent chasing down money owed is a minute not spent actually earning money.

On the other hand, I drive a bartender named Ricardo two or three or four times a week, and I have driven him for almost as long as I have been a taxi driver. He always gives me a twenty for his ten dollar fare, every single time. Ricardo is also someone whose credit is good with me. If Ricardo somehow didn’t have any money tonight, I know he’s good for it, and he’ll settle up next week, and probably give me five or ten extra bucks for my trouble.

Likewise, if Clara called me tonight and said she had an emergency and needed to go on a 150 mile ride, right fuggin’ now, and couldn’t pay me till next week, I’m already on the way. Clara is gonna get to wherever she needs to go, and we can square this bill later.

Taxi drivers hear all sorts of fantastic and outlandish stories, and it is not inconceivable that I could show up to a call and a guy would say to me, “We are having a family emergency and it is too much to explain, but this is my twelve year old cousin, and she doesn’t speak any English, but she needs to be at the Orlando International Airport to board a flight to Estonia no later than 6 AM. I need you to drive her there, park your car, and walk her to the gate and turn her over to airline personnel as an unaccompanied minor. I know this is going to be expensive, and I don’t have any money right now, but if you come back Tuesday, I will take care of you.”

If this is me, this guy is just outta gas. I am not going to accept this ride. But if Clayton were to give me this crazy spiel, I would just shrug and say, “Consider it done. Little Ludmilla here is in good hands. I’ll text you Tuesday afternoon.”

So Clayton and Clara get in, and they are going to two early Halloween parties, so I am dropping them off at a bar, then Clayton will call me in an hour or two to go to the second party, which is being held at a business afterhours. They are dressed like hillbillies, with Clayton wearing bib overalls and a goofy straw hat and carrying a fake gun, and these hillbilly costumes are for the benefit of someone they are meeting at the second party. I never really got what the connection between the hillbilly costumes and the second party was, but they were going there on business, and Clayton is confident that he is going to nail down a couple of new projects for their budding business tonight.

I dropped Clayton and Clara off at the first party, and he gave me thirty-five dollars on a twenty dollar fare. He called two hours later, and they are already loaded. It seems that coincidentally, there was a private birthday party at this bar for a guy he went to high school with, and his friend’s mother recognized Clayton and called him over, and he and Clara have been drinking for free for the last two hours, and they both have a good buzz on.

Now we are on the way to the second party, and Clayton is kind of loud and braggadocious… this is weird, because Clayton never acts like this. Even when really wasted, Clayton isn’t loud and obnoxious, but he is in the back seat yelling to his wife about how he is gonna kick ass tonight, how these guys are never going to know what hit ’em, how he is gonna slamdunk these people and own their business for years to come. Maybe this is just how he psyches himself up for a business meeting, but I’m concerned that he might be drunker than he thinks he is, and his party/business meeting might go poorly. I dropped them off, and Clayton gave me fifty dollars for a thirty dollar fare.

Three hours later, Clayton calls again, and I go to pick them up. I called him on arrival, and he tells me they will be right out. I wait five or seven more minutes, and then he calls again, telling me to be patient, they will be right out. Five more minutes pass, and still no Clayton. Clayton calls again, saying that Clara has lost her purse, and they will be right out. Another five minutes pass.

I don’t wait fifteen or twenty minutes for anyone, and if this was anybody but Clayton, I would be long gone. But like I said, Clayton has earned a lot of slack from me. Clayton finally comes out, holds up one finger to me, then goes back inside. Another five minutes pass. Finally, they both came out, and now they are looking around the outside tables and chairs for the missing purse. Finally, Clayton finds her little clutch purse… and where was it?

In the voluminous back pocket of his Goodwill high-water bib overalls.

Clayton looked a little sheepish as they got in, and Clara apologized for Clayton’s boneheadedness. They are both trashed, and Clayton is yelling about how he did indeed kick some ass tonight. He’s bellowing, “Forget the gawddamn purse, did you see that? Did you see your man tonight, babe? Your man knocked it outta the park tonight! I killed it! I fuggin’ KILLED IT! Those guys are gonna be paying our bills for TWO YEARS!”

I am convinced that Clayton is subject to carsickness, especially when he’s had some drinks, because after just a mile or two, he looks a little green. He’s groaning in between ranting about how he kicked ass tonight, and he leans forward with his forearms on his knees and his forehead against the seat in front of him, and this is the precise position he was in last Halloween, right before he heaved. I said, “Are you OK, brother? You gonna puke?”

Clayton says, “I think so… better pull over…”

At this moment, I am in a chaotic construction zone, doing 45 or 50 MPH with cars all around me, and the road is lined with barricades and barrels intentionally placed there to keep people off the shoulder. There is simply no place to pull over here. Clara remembers last Halloween, and shouts at her husband, “Clayton, climb over into the front seat so you can puke out the window!”

I yelled, “No!” Clayton is a big guy, tall and lanky, at least 6-3 or 6-4, and the last thing I need at this moment is this big, lumbering, 220 pound wasted guy trying to clamber over the seat into the front. I said, “Hang on, dude… just 45 more seconds, and I can pull over and get you The Bucket Of Shame! Hold it… hold it…”

I finally get to a place where I can pull over, and I dashed to the back of my car to get my bucket. I hear Clayton yell, “Dude, you gotta open this door… open this door… right now, man…”

I bolted to the passenger door and opened it, and Clayton barrels out, takes three or four steps, then bends over at the waist and starts puking on the grass. After retching for thirty or forty-five seconds, he turns around and faces Clara and I, staggering around in high-water bib overalls with his ankles showing and vomit on his chin, and resumes bellowing about how he kicked ass tonight.

Ever see the movie Training Day with Denzel Washington? The scene at the end where he is screaming in the street about, “King Kong ain’t got shit on me”…? For some reason, that’s what I was immediately reminded of…

Clayton is standing on the grass, weaving a little and screaming, “Did you see me babe? Did you see your man tonight? I fuggin’ KILLED it! Those guys are going to be calling us every damn week! I own their asses now! Those guys are going to be paying our bills FOR YEARS! I am THE MAN! Did you see your man tonight, baby? I showed them what’s what!”

I said, “Dude, you are fuggin’ killin’ me… you are standing on the side of the road in a puddle of your own vomit! If you are done puking, can you please wipe off your shoes on the grass and get back in the car?”

Again, if this was anyone but Clayton, I wouldn’t be putting him back in my car, I would be pulling Clara out. Between the wait time and this little vomit stop, this ride should have been over by now, and I should be on to my next passenger, but instead I am standing on the side of the road with cars whizzing past us, trying to push this big drunk guy with vomit on his chin back into my car while he bellows about how he kicked ass tonight.

So we are on the way again, and Clayton heaves loudly into my bucket for the rest of the ride. He says, “Dude, I am so sorry… uuuuurrrggghhh… but I just went to Home Depot last week and I have a brand-new five gallon bucket for you in my garage… rrrolllfffff… I ruined your bucket, so you gotta let me give you a new one… blllllecccchhh…”

I said, “No, my bucket is fine… a five gallon is too big. My three gallon bucket is just the right size. It’s OK, man, really… this is why I carry it. You didn’t ruin anything.”

So Clayton retches and groans into the bucket for the rest of the way home, and Clara, even though she’s pretty wasted too, has an expression of mild exasperation and disapproval on her face as she watches this little spectacle. I got them home, and I don’t recall what the meter said, but this would have been around a $45 ride. Clayton gave me $80 and apologized again, but I told him no worries… I had already picked out one of his neighbor’s houses with a poorly-aimed lawn sprinkler, and I stopped for a moment, rinsed out my bucket in the sprinkler, sprayed it with Lysol, wiped it out with a paper towel, and I was finally back to work.

So you see, while I wouldn’t have tolerated one tenth of this bullshit from a new, first-time passenger, I really am perfectly fine with dealing with this from Clayton, because Clayton puts a lot of money in my pocket. On this night alone, he was worth $165, and while he wasted a little of my time, he tipped me well for it and he didn’t befoul my car, and like I said previously, he has EARNED some slack from me.

I have championed the use of a bucket since my first puker, and I tell other drivers all the time that they too should carry one, but as far as I know, I am the only taxi driver with the good sense to do this. Several of the drivers I know carry plastic grocery bags for potential pukers, but those bags can have holes in them, and they are a hard target for some wasted idiot to hit. The rigid, basketball-sized aperature of my bucket is a far superior target for someone with severely impaired motor function. As I came back online, I put out on the company communications system, “I have said it before and I will say it again… you are simply not a pro if you do not carry a bucket… my bucket just saved me from being down for the rest of the night.”

One of the guys in my company is a long-time taxi driver, and sensing the opportunity to razz me a little for having a puker, he replied, “You aren’t a pro if you DO carry a bucket. I haven’t had a puker in my car for a very long time.”

Well, maybe Jay shouldn’t be such a boastful person… “Pride goeth before a fall…” isn’t that the verse? Not an hour later, Jay had a delightful passenger in the back seat of his very plush Lincoln…

Jay

The next day, I woke up to find a text message from Clayton on my phone…

“My greatest apologies.”

I texted back that he had nothing to apologize for… and he didn’t, as he didn’t trash my car, he paid me well for my time, and gave me some new fodder for the blog. I bet Jay didn’t get an apology text message for having to clean his carpet and leather seats…

Yes, Uber Sucks, And Let Me Explain Why

Posted: 5th November 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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People ask me a couple of times per week about Uber, and if I think they will someday significantly impact my business, and my answer is always a confident “no”. I have heard several high-profile people, including Mary Katharine Ham at HotAir.com and even Senator Marco Rubio praise Uber as a “new tech company that is changing an antiquated industry”, and the only reason that taxi companies object to Uber is because Uber will cut into their business.

In reality, Uber is not a tech company at all, they are a franchise taxi company with a decent phone app that shifts the bulk of their costs and liabilities to the individual drivers. But they SAY that they are a “tech” company, and therefore should not be subject to the any of the laws regulating taxi companies. This is nonsensical at best; the most generous evaluation of their business model is that their phone app replaces the traditional dispatch system, but they are still sending you a car for hire.

When people bring this up in my car, I say, “What if I opened a new, unique concept in dining out, where you use a phone app to place your order, and when you arrive at the restaurant, your food is waiting for you at the table, eliminating the traditional waitress? Since I have eliminated the waitress with my app and there is no tipping, your dinner costs 40% less. But then I tell the local Health Department that I am a “tech” business, not a “restaurant” business, and I should not be subject to their inspections, regulation, or oversight that other restaurants have to undergo… is that OK with you?”

People invariably respond with something like, “Well, no, that isn’t right… an unregulated restaurant could be infested with vermin, or give people food poisoning. You could be cookin’ up cats, or some shit like that… you could kill someone. That is a business that MUST be regulated.”

And I reply, “You are correct. I agree, 100 percent. Now, answer me this… how many people died in car crashes in this town last month, and how many people died of food poisoning? Which industry do you think requires more scrupulous regulation?”

If you have read my blog, you know that I am pretty conservative and not enamored with gigantic, bloated Federal government. I believe that state government, and ultimately local government should be the entity from which nearly all laws and regulations that govern my business and my conduct should flow. One of the founders of my company is a Canadian and an unabashed socialist, and he seems to think this attitude is somehow indicative that I am some sort of batshit-crazy anarchist, but the truth is, I’m really a law-and-order kinda guy. I don’t rob, rape, or murder people, and I think people that DO should be dealt with harshly, up to and including the use of bullets, if necessary. I want my streets to be safe, I want my roads to be free of drunks, and I want my local officials to make sure that at bare minimum, my local restaurants and taxis can be trusted.

Where I work, the process of getting a license to drive a taxi is about as strenuous as getting a Concealed Weapons Permit… you must be photographed, fingerprinted, subjected to a FBI background check, no felonies, no DUI’s for a loooong time, and your driving record has to be really clean. Your car should be in excellent working order at all times (I carry a spare headlamp bulb), and a yearly inspection sticker must be affixed to the rear of your car. This is all about public safety, which is an issue I happen to care about.

And let me also add that I am someone that you can trust to be alone with your five month old infant, your five year old daughter, your fifteen year old sister, your girlfriend of five years, or your wife of fifty years. I can’t speak to the character or behavior of other taxi drivers in this town, but I am someone you can trust to get your loved ones safely home, and I will light the way up to the door and see them get safely inside, even if that means getting out of my car and walking them up to the door myself. And I feel pretty confident saying the same holds true for the other drivers in my company, and most of the taxi drivers I know by name. At least part of that can be attributed to the background checks we undergo, and good hiring practices by the companies I have worked for. But Uber has no background checks, in spite of what they say on their website. They seem more concerned about the age of your car, and so we get stories in the news about girls driven around for hours and getting their tits groped.

Before I became a hack, I might have taken three or four taxi rides in my entire life, so I never really thought about it, but think about this… A girl gets dressed up all sexy on a Saturday evening, gets shithammered at the bar, and at the end of the night, she tumbles into a car driven by a total stranger… what could go wrong?

I have a small stable of twelve or fifteen girls that call me directly all the time, simply because they don’t want to get in a random taxi that might be disgusting, or worse yet, might be driven by some creepy driver that hits on them or otherwise makes them uncomfortable. My girls know that I am married, I am safe, I am not going to make a pass at them, my car won’t smell like vomit, cigarettes, and dirty socks, and I will make sure they get in their door safely before I leave.

The other big problem is insurance. Uber requires the minimum legal insurance for passenger cars in whatever locality they operate, but should the driver have an at-fault accident, the second his insurance company gets wind that he is an Uber driver, they will deny any claims because the driver was operating the car as a commercial vehicle, and that means that you, as a passenger, are totally fucked. Sorry about your amputated leg and your glass eye, but if your 22 year old stoner Uber driver doesn’t have some serious assets you can sue for civilly, you are just outta gas. On the other hand, if I cause a crash and you get hurt, you are covered for at least a million or two, if I am correct about the coverage of the COMMERCIAL insurance my company pays for at a very handsome rate, given that we are all professional drivers that collectively haven’t had an at-fault accident in years.

Here’s a video about Uber that explains these issues in detail… ten minutes long, but worth watching if you care about things like public safety, or more correctly, your own personal safety.

Now that I have explained why Uber sucks for passengers, let me explain why Uber sucks for the drivers. Put simply, there’s no money in this. Yes, I have seen the stories about Uber drivers making 80 grand a year, and it sounds like horseshit to me. Maybe this works in San Francisco or New York, but it isn’t going to work here. I talked to an Uber driver a while back, and he showed me a summary report of his last weeks’ work on his phone, and after doing some quick math, I determined that he is lucky to earn 25 or 30 cents per mile. This is an important metric for a taxi driver, ESPECIALLY if you own the car. It’s one thing if you are leasing a car and the taxi company is paying for repairs and maintenance, but if YOU own the car, you will never last at this rate of pay. Let me explain with some more inside baseball of the taxi business.

There are two types of taxi drivers: those who view this as a job, and those who view this as a business. Metrics and statistics matter, especially if you own your car. Some drivers think in terms of getting 100,000 miles out of their car; I think in terms of getting 100,000 DOLLARS out of my car. That difference between your cheaper Uber fare and my fare is still being paid, my friend, but it is YOU that is paying that difference, with wear and tear on your car.

There is a discussion forum called UberPeople.net for Uber and Lyft drivers, and I saw a post there by a new driver in Tampa that was attempting to do the math… I don’t work in Tampa, but this post by Uber driver FLToddy illustrates the numbers really well.


You’re right Tony, once you consider all your costs it’s not a great deal without the bonuses. If they ever start charging the $10 per week for the phone, it’s a no-brainer m0ney-drainer for me. Here’s my earnings from this past weekend:

Hours: 9:30 p.m. Saturday night until 3:00 a.m. Sunday (5.5 hours not counting travel to and from service area)
Area: Stayed in the red/hot zone the entire time

# of trips: 8
Fares: $117.97
$5 trip bonus: $40
-Uber commission: $23.60
Net: $134.37

Fuel expense: $26.34 (at 18.1 MPG and $3.50 per gallon)
Miles driven: 136.2
Wear and tear rate: $0.3394 per mile
(calculated at http://www.ehow.com/how_8259697_calculate-wear-tear.html)

Net earnings: $61.80 (Net minus fuel minus $46.23 wear and tear)
Hourly wage: $11.23

Net earnings without $5 bonus: $21.80
Hourly wage: $3.96

Obviously, if gas prices plummet or I get a super hybrid the numbers would change, but even assuming gas drops by 50% to $1.75 per gallon and I pick up a 38MPG gas sipper, my net without the bonus would be $41.87 with an hourly wage of $7.61, below the minimum wage.

It was a fairly busy night, I average a trip about every 45 minutes and each trip took about 15 minutes before I was back online again. The one exception was my last trip, which was a 40 minute ride that I had to deadhead back as it was all interstate over water.

Hate to be Debbie downer, I’m a numbers guy and I use data like this to help me make decisions. Hopefully there is a huge glaring error in my calculations and I’m actually making $100 per hour. If so, please let me know so I can update my numbers.

No, FLToddy, those numbers are correct, and you aren’t making any mistakes, this is how Uber works. But you did not calculate one very important metric, that being dollars per mile, and in your case, that is $61.80/136= $.45 per mile. That’s actually pretty good, for an Uber driver… well done.

I got into my files and pulled my paperwork from the very same night FLToddy is describing, in a different area of Florida… not a particularly great night for me, but let me post my stats from that very same night, following his formula…


Hours: 4:30 p.m. Saturday night until 3:15 a.m. Sunday (10.75 hours)

# of trips: 16
Fares: $280.50
$5 trip bonus Tips: $88.50 plus a $24 spiff from a tittie bar that pays taxi drivers to bring them patrons = $112.50
– Uber commission Vig to my company: $35.00
Net: $358.00

Fuel expense: $44.00 (at 15.2 MPG and $3.27 per gallon)
Miles driven: 204
Wear and tear rate: $0.3394 per mile
(calculated at http://www.ehow.com/how_8259697_calculate-wear-tear.html)

Net earnings: $244.77 (Net minus fuel minus $69.23 wear and tear)
Hourly wage: $22.76
Dollars per mile: $1.19

And like I said, this was not a great Saturday night for me… I am used to my dollars/hour and dollars/mile numbers being much better, but July in Florida is really slow. Last Sunday, my dollars/mile was $1.80. What FLToddy and most Uber drivers don’t understand is that being a taxi is a very hard life for a car. I can easily drive a thousand miles in a week. In fact, I don’t get an oil change every four thousand miles, I just get one at the beginning of every month… easier to keep track of. The first time an Uber driver has to drop $1,000 for a transmission rebuild, he is going to realize how bad this payscale sucks. I have an envelope stashed in my house with $2,000 in cash inside, at the ready for the next time I have to replace an engine or I need a new transmission or four new tires. I just dropped $360 to get my power door fixed after a drunk broke it. You Uber drivers aren’t calculating the cost of 250 pairs of dirty shoes on your carpets every week, and those four fat mutherfuggers that are destroying your shocks. Your new Kia Soul is sustaining hundreds of dollars of damage per week, even if you can’t see it, and you aren’t making enough money to fix it. All those leftist morons and Occutards that decry capitalism and the “slave wages” of Wal-Mart should be up in arms for you Uber drivers… you are being fucked, by a giant faceless multi-billion dollar global mega-corporation that you can’t even call on the phone.

Here’s the other reason that I am not worried about Uber… this will never work after dark. Read my blog. This might work in the sunlight, but still, I doubt it. The Law Of Averages being what it is, you will eventually encounter a wasted, obnoxious, belligerent douchebag, and if you tell him what you really think of him, he can give you a one-star rating on his Uber app… and if you get more than three or four one-star ratings, you will get suspended for a week or two by Uber. Get a few more, and you won’t get any calls at all. So unless you are willing to eat a couple of double-decker shit sandwiches every damned night and smile while you do it, you aren’t going to last very long.

I am a firm believer in free enterprise, free markets, and competition. If Uber drivers want to pay for a hack license, undergo the background check, get commercial insurance, and pay for their vehicle inspections, I welcome them to try to compete with me, but they are severely handicapped by their low fares and rating system. Once they understand the math and understand what kind of jackasses they have to drive around for that meager pay, they will quit, typically in a month or less.

So, bottom line… if I quit this job tonight in a stuttering rage, something that is a distinct possibility on any given night, I wouldn’t call Uber for a ride, and I wouldn’t allow my wife or child to ride with them, and I certainly wouldn’t sign up as a driver for them… I understand the math, and I can’t take the pay cut.

splatter

*Updated 10 November, 2014

I neglected to mention that Uber’s surge pricing is also something that really sucks for the passenger, but this might be the only way the drivers can make adequate money. When they start getting busy, like when the bars are closing, their rates get jacked through the roof. I’m conflicted on this… part of me thinks that this is evil piracy, and another part of me thinks this is the very flower of free-market capitalism… supply and demand. If you want the ride, you have to pay, and here is the price… do you wish to engage my services or not? Honestly, I do surge pricing as well, but not very often. When I do, it goes something like this…

St Patrick’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, and it has been 50 minutes since the bars closed. There are people literally laying in the gutter, and there are cops, ambulances, and sirens and flashing lights everywhere. The sidewalks are slick with beer, blood, and vomit, and there are hundreds of zombies wearing beads and stupid hats, lurching around in the streets and waving at taxis that are already loaded and leaving this disaster area. One taxi swerves around dozens of zombies and pulls up next to a gentleman in a suit and his very well-dressed female companion. They look like they went to a very nice private party tonight somewhere, but made the mistake of going out into the street and getting sucked into this shit show. The taxi driver yells out the passenger window, “Where are you going?”

The man says they need to go to the Regency Waterside Hotel in a neighboring town. This is a $60 ride to a nice hotel, so a tip of $10 would be expected, and a $20 tip would not be surprising in the least. The taxi driver says, “One hundred bucks.”

The man hesitates a moment, and the taxi driver says, “Look at all these people… do you want this taxi or not?” The man pushes his girl into the car, throws the driver a Benjamin, and they are thankfully whisked away from this McZombie Apocalypse, and after realizing that their driver turns out to be a friendly and interesting gentleman with an amusing anecdote or two to tell, he gives him another twenty when they arrive at their hotel.

On the other hand, Uber’s surge pricing seems extremely predatory to me… gouging drunks strikes me like charging triple for food or gas right before a hurricane hits. That’s right, Uber is requiring those same wasted douchebags I warned you about to do complex math right at bar close while they are shithammered, and to push the “Accept” button to buttfuck their debit card for double or triple or quadruple my fare. Remember what I said about this not working after dark? Who wouldn’t delete this shit off their phone the second they realized that they got utterly fucked on a $25 taxi fare they paid $362 bucks for? How many hungover people have to look at their online banking the next morning and say, “You gotta be shitting me!” before this crap collapses? I would say “Caveat Emptor“, but in my experience, very few drunks speak Latin.

Hat-tip to HotAir.com commenter Newtie And The Beauty for bringing that story to my attention… I know getting a shout-out at this dump isn’t as prestigious as one from say, “Special Report with Bret Baier”, but hey… you’re my favorite bartender, and we do share that ONE PARTICULAR BAR we have in common, but the less said about that, the better, amirite? Anyway, nice find, babe… well done.

My First Attempt At Political Heckling

Posted: 21st October 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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Never before has it happened that a post here gets both the Politics and Douchebags tags, but here we are. I was sitting in one of my favorite spots downtown several days ago, when a silver SUV pulled up a few parking spaces away, and a fashionable guy in a tie got out and went into a restaurant. Moments later, he came back out to the SUV, and out steps none other than Florida Democrat candidate for Governor, Charlie Crist. I actually met Charlie years ago before he was Governor, back in the good ole days when he at least appeared to have some principles, and supported gun rights, traditional marriage, and limited abortion. But after watching his shameful opportunism and flip-flopping on matters of principle solely for the advancement of his own political career, I utterly detest this douchebag. When it was clear he couldn’t win his Senate run as a Republican, he ran as an Independent and split the Democrat vote. If Democrats had a shred of integrity at all, they should all despise this clown for what he did to Kendrick Meeks. Changing his affiliation yet again to Democrat and tongue-kissing the Worst President In History was the last straw for me… the only job this jackass cares about is his own. In my view, a man so morally rudderless and bereft of personal convictions should be permanently disqualified for public office under any party’s banner.

So here is Charlie, glad-handing and posing for cellphone photos with people on the street, and slinging his oversized bumper stickers, right in front of me. I texted my wife

Charlie Fuggin’ Crist is standing right in front of my car.

And my wife texted back

Don’t hit him LOL

I got a call a moment later and went on a short ten or fifteen minute fare. I returned to my spot, and the silver SUV is still there, and his two metrosexual handlers (or is the term “fluffers”?) are on the sidewalk outside. A few minutes later, Charlie walked out of the restaurant and walks straight out to the street, twelve or fifteen feet from my window. He looked directly at me and gave me a “thumbs up” and hesitated, as though he was about to walk up to my window and give me a sticker. One of his fashionable handlers yells, “This way!”

I stuck my head out the window and gave him a thumbs up, and yelled, “Marco Rubio 2016!”

Charlie looked at me a little blankly for a second, and then his thumb turns toward his car, and he says, “I need to go this way…” and he turned away from me and walked quickly to the SUV.

I hope that moment haunts him, but I doubt it will; you need character to be bothered by something like that. Not that Marco Rubio would be my first choice In 2016, but he has to be better than the Chicago crime syndicate running our country today. And don’t think I’m thrilled to pull the lever for Rick Scott… I’m really getting tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. It is still voting for evil, and it pisses me off. America needs a lot fewer crooks and career politicians, and a few more statesmen.

Vignette: A Thought On God And The Fairer Sex

Posted: 18th October 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting, and sometimes an object. -Wikipedia

Girls, skip this post. Really. Move on…

No, really. Move on. Nothing to see here.

OK, guys, quick and dirty… literally. No thoughtful editing, just slapping it up there. Apologies in advance, but I am still laughing about this guy, four hours later.

A guy in his middle twenties gets in my car tonite that has had a few drinks, and he wants to go to this area of the beach where there is a cluster of bars. He’s a little fucked up, but not too bad. After we have driven a few blocks, he says he has changed his mind and wants to go to a specific beach bar that is another ten minutes up the road. There’s some hot bitches at that place… he’s got some friends there already, and they texted him saying that there are hot chicks everywhere, and they say he needs to get his ass out there. He stands a good chance of getting laid, or at least getting a blowjob from some drunk slutty beach chick.

Then a moment or two later, he says, “Ya know what…? Fuck that, just take me home… 444 Starfish Lane…”

I said, “You’re sure? That’s the third change of destination in four minutes…”

He says, “Yeah, fuck it… I’m drunk enough, and I’m just going to get in more trouble at the bar. My wife is gonna have my ass in the morning anyway…”

I laughed, and he said, “What?”

I said, “You reminded me of an old joke… a naked woman in a bed calls out, “Honey, turn off the TV and come to bed!” And a man picks up a remote control and clicks off the TV and says, “Might as well… I’m going to catch hell when I get home anyway…”

The guy laughed, and said, “You know why God created yeast infections?”

“Why?”

“So women would also know what it is like to live with an irritating cunt.”

Laughing. So. Hard.

And I said, “Dude, you just made my blog.”

Vignette: Tonsil Stones

Posted: 20th September 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting, and sometimes an object. -Wikipedia

I’ve been away, I know… busy, busy, busy… but I have a quick one from the other night. I’m not sure if this is too “ya had to be there” for me to put in writing, but lemme tell ya, it was DAMNED funny in the car…

I get a call to pick up 2 couples at a nice house, and two really pretty identical twins walk out, long brunette hair, maybe twenty-eight or so, and their two very decent looking guys. One twin lives in Texas and is visiting her sister here in Florida, and they are going to a club downtown. We hit the road, and they have already had a few drinks and maybe a little smoke, and they are pretty loosened up already. The Texas Twin says, “Fuck, I forgot my deodorant!”

Her sister says, “I got some.” It seems that the cute twins inherited something from Mom, the trait of excessive perspiration, and both these girls carry tiny bottles of deodorant with them all the time. They are really pretty, but apparently very sweaty girls.

Texas Guy says, “Apply liberally…” and everybody laughs.

I said, “So you girls chose to live in Florida and Texas? Maybe you might consider a cooler climate?” Everybody laughs, and the girls talk about the TWO terrible things they inherited from Mom, sweating and tonsil stones.

I had never heard of that, and I said, “What? Tonsil stones?”

Florida Guy in the back makes a retching sound, and says, “Fucking disgusting…”

They all start laughing and jabbering, and Florida Twin tries to drunkenly explain that this is some sort of mineral buildup in the folds of your tonsils. I said, “You’re bullshitting me… I read a lot, and I have been reading a lot for forty years, and I am pretty sure I would have heard about this somewhere before. I have heard of gall stones and kidney stones, but I have never heard of this before. I have my tonsils, and I have never had any “stones”, and I have never heard of anyone else with this condition… this is bullshit…”

They all start laughing and Texas Guy says, “Dude, it is fucking disgusting. She’s in the bathroom hocking up these fucking nodules, and if you squeeze them, they crush in your fingers and stink like hell…”

Everyone is laughing and screaming and the girls protest that it isn’t their fault, its genetics. I am starting to laugh too, because apparently, this is fucking hilarious to everybody else in the car, and I pull up to a traffic light and stop. Suddenly, Florida Twin reaches up from behind me with her phone in her hand, and this picture being displayed:

Tonsil stones

I’m on the high side of fifty now, and really need reading glasses to see something like this clearly. I said, “Is that you?”

The car explodes in laughter, and Florida Twin screams, “NO! I JUST GOOGLED THAT UP!”

I started laughing and said, “Oh, I’m sorry… I thought maybe you took a selfie in the bathroom and kept it on your phone…” and all four of them are squealing with laughter as she shows the picture around to the others. I said, “I was gonna say that if things don’t work out with Mr. Wonderful back there, if you slap that picture up on your Match.com profile, I bet you’ll get some inquiries…”

All four of them are on the verge of tears as I dropped them off at the club, and Texas Guy gave me a twenty for an eight dollar taxi fare. I yelled out the window, “You know I’m gonna go home and Google this shit up, right?” and they walked up to the club laughing their asses off.

Seal Team Six Taxi Driving

Posted: 14th July 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags:
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I picked up a guy a week or two ago who was in his mid 30s that looked a little scruffy, covered in tats and a very wild and woolly beard. He wanted to go to a low-budget, no-name, mom-and-pop motel a few miles away. He looked a little sketchy, but I noticed that he had the eagle and anchor Marine Corps emblem tattooed on his forearm, and I said, “Marine Corps, huh?”

He said, “Yes Sir, two tours in Afghanistan.”

As I have said before, I always thank a member of our military whenever I encounter them, and I said, “Thank you for your service. I think you should hear that every damn day for the rest of your life, and your first beer should be free anywhere you go.” He said he really liked that idea.

So we are chatting on the way, and it turns out he is on an interesting bucket-list sojourn. He is a huge baseball fan, and has decided to spend the summer traveling the country, and he is going to see a game in every MLB stadium in America. While I am not a big baseball fan, that does sound like a really awesome thing to do. So after talking to him for a few minutes, I decided that this scruffy looking guy was actually pretty cool. He told me that he just decided one day to stop shaving and go on this adventure in baseball, and that explained his wild, unkempt beard.

So we were driving to his destination, and he used a bit of taxi driver lingo that surprised me. He asked me if I was “making a good book”. That is taxidriver speak for “are you making good money”.

I said, “Oh, you have driven a taxi before…”

He replied, Yes Sir… six years as a hack…”

I said, “The Marine Corps AND taxi driving? You must be a serious glutton for punishment… what the hell is wrong with you?”

He laughed and said, “I don’t know, man…” I asked what he thought was crazier, taxi driving or Afghanistan, and he said, “That’s a tough call… this is one fucked up way to make a living…”

I said, “Finally, someone who can relate to this job! I tell people all the time how crazy this gig is but they just don’t really get it. I was never in the military, but I would bet that one similarity between the military and driving a taxi is that you can listen to your Uncle Joe tell you stories about Vietnam, but unless you have been down in the mud and the crud and the blood, you really don’t understand…”

He laughed, and said that was a very astute observation. “And the later it gets, the more whacked out the people get.”

I replied, “You got that right… but I get crazies at all times of the day… it just blows my mind. Back when I started this job, I thought my dispatcher was intentionally steering me the freaks to see if the new guy could cut it… but then I realized that the people I pick up in front of bars are just as freaky as the people he was sending me to get. And this town isn’t some huge metropolis… I can’t imagine doing this job in Vegas or Miami or New York or LA… what kinda shit show must that be…?”

The guy is laughing, and I asked, “Where did you drive?”

He looked at me and said flatly, “New Orleans.”

I busted out laughing and said, “Dude! Holy shit! That’s like Seal Team Six taxi driving! I’m not qualified… I’m in the presence of greatness… Your stories have to blow mine away…”

He laughed, and I regret that we don’t have time for him to tell me some of his stories, as we are at his destination. He gave me twenty bucks on an eleven dollar fare, and I gave him a card for my blog and told him to post up a comment so I would know he had visited, but I haven’t seen him yet.

Dude, if you read this, post up a comment… I’d be thrilled to post some of your stories here, if you would like to write them down…

Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Strafe The Border

Posted: 8th July 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags:
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In my post The Pig Trap, I posited that our current situation is not a left/right or liberal/conservative or Democrat/Republican issue, but an “us against them” issue… “we the people” versus the political class, and our current immigration mess illustrates that perfectly. The truth is that the political class of both parties are perfectly OK with the current chaos at the border, because they both benefit from it. The establishment Democrats want millions of new voters, and the establishment Republicans want cheap labor for their business donors… it really is that simple. They don’t care that these immigrants strain budgets, cause increased crime and poverty, burden our schools, prisons, hospitals, and law enforcement agencies, and hurt the job prospects of Americans and legal immigrants… like I said, they don’t give a fuck about you or how this shit affects you, they only care about how it benefits themselves and their cronies.

Let me say up front that I am 100% for legal immigration… come one, come all. Sell all your shit, gather up your kids, leave the shithole you were born in, and come to America… but SIGN THE FUCKING GUESTBOOK! Obey the law! America has very generous immigration law, and while it is not fast, it is worth the wait and the work, and in spite of Obama, America still beats where you came from.

I admit that I am a simple man, and so I simply don’t understand the perceived difficulty in sorting out this immigration problem… I swear, 535 taxi drivers and plumbers and nurses and bartenders and pizza delivery guys motivated by love of country rather than political benefit could fix this in a week, as opposed to most of the elite morons that currently inhabit our Congress, who have been pulling our dicks on this matter for decades. So right here and now, I am going to solve the immigration problem, single-handedly, in three simple steps. You read it here first.

First, we are going to operate from the premise that immigration is GOOD, if that immigration is lawful and the people we are admitting are here to contribute to America, not become a burden on her. And since our teacher’s unions are fire-proof and are churning out illiterates that don’t know shit and can’t tell you what any two Amendments of the Bill of Rights are and don’t give a fuck about anything besides Facebook, smoking weed, and the next season of the Kardashians, we are gonna need us some Indians, Japanese, and other educated immigrants if we are to have any hope of surviving as a nation.

Second, we are also going to operate from the premise that border security is GOOD, because serious people want to kill us. If you have picked up a newspaper in the last ten or twenty years, you have to know that there are some brown people out there whose only purpose in life is to kill Americans and destroy the USA, and we are conveniently letting thousands of brown people cross our southern border every damned day. If George Bush and Barack Obama have been telling us the truth and there is indeed a Global War On Terror™, why wasn’t the border sealed up as watertight as a frog’s ass on September 12th, 2001, long before the TSA started banning nail clippers, bottled water, and shampoo, and started groping our children’s crotches and strip-searching little old white ladies from Topeka in wheelchairs?

So, accepting those two premises, here is how we solve the immigration problem in America:

Step One: Strafe The Border

We don’t need walls or fences, we don’t need hundreds or thousands of new border agents, all we need is air power. My original thought was to pull some old Vietnam-era Hueys out of mothballs, but I realized that isn’t necessary. We have military bases out there along the border with Apaches and Blackhawks, and the pilots and personnel need training and practice, and we have our Nintendo drone jockeys that need training as well. Warm up the night-vision and FLIR gear, load the Ma Deuce, and fly the border. When a group of immigrants is seen approaching the border, lay down some fifty caliber fire 10 yards in front of them, and turn them back. I would wager that after 30 days of this policy, illegal border crossings would become exceedingly rare.

Now, if you are some liberal idiot, you might be thinking, “But… but… but… what if we KILLED someone?”

Well, that would indeed be unfortunate, but that person was BREAKING THE LAW. What part of “illegal immigrant” do you not understand? I have no more sympathy for that person than I have for a bank robber that pulls a gun on a cop, a crackhead that gets shot in a robbery, or a burglar that gets his head blown off breaking into the home of an armed, law-abiding citizen. And it does not matter that he was only trying to give his family a better life; he could have given his family a better life without breaking the law. No one gets shot at the immigration office in Tijuana… the line forms to the right, take a number, have a seat in our air-conditioned lobby, fill out this form, and we will get to you on a first-come, first-served basis.

Step Two: Remove All Incentives

No illegal immigrant gets a job or any taxpayer or governmental benefit by being here. Jail business owners that are found employing illegal immigrants, and even offer incentives and tax breaks to employers that hire only legal immigrants. No driver’s licenses, no food stamps, no Section 8 housing, no welfare, no school enrollment, nothing. Reduce illegal immigrants to the lifestyle of Sterno bums living under an overpass, and they will stop coming. In fact, hunger alone will compel them to “self-deport”, as Mitt famously stated… that, or get their paperwork in order.

Step Three: Deport Them All

People say all the time, “Well, you can’t deport 10 or 15 million people,” and I say, “Why the fuck not?” It took decades to get where we are today, and it may well take decades to make things right. Think of this as a long-term jobs program to stimulate Obama’s crappy economy, with hundreds of Class-B licensed bus drivers and pilots added to the job rolls across the nation. If an illegal immigrant has an encounter of any sort with a police officer or other government official anywhere in the United States, they will be detained and put on a bus to a new outbound immigration facility in Arizona, where they are given the choice to walk south, get jailed, or get shot. If an illegal immigrant is arrested for criminal activity, they will serve their term, then be put on the bus. If you are arrested with MS-13 or Zetas tattoos or affiliations, well, you will earn VIP seating status and will bump a poor tomato-picker out of his seat on the next bus to the border. The Mexican government let you in, so you are now their problem.

And no, I really don’t give a rat’s hairy ass if Mexico objects… fuggum. They have been facilitating this for decades, and I don’t believe for a second that 9 year olds from Guatemala and Honduras are traversing Mexico without government help. Meanwhile, they are holding a US Marine in hellish conditions, simply for making a wrong turn into Mexico, and refusing to turn him over to US officials or release him outright. And just what are they going to do, declare war on the United States? We could destroy all their infrastructure and military capacity in 72 hours, “Shock and Awe” style… this situation might even inspire them to get serious about sorting out their own corruption, crime, and domestic problems, especially with thousands of new Spanish speaking people flooding into their country every day for the next decade or two.

Again, if you are a liberal idiot, you might say, “But… but… but… what about THE CHILDREN???”

Well, with only one four year old child myself, I may be something of a novice at the whole “parenting” thing… but even with my limited experience at being a Dad, I am pretty sure I would not try to circumvent the immigration law of another country and sneak into Mexico or Canada or Norway or Iran or China or Russia or Bolivia or Pakistan or Tanzania or Croatia, thereby risking arrest, prison, and deportation, and leaving the disposition of my cute lil Punkin’ at the whim of some political bureaucrat in a place like, oh, I dunno… Pyongyang or Manila or Istanbul…

Mi amigo, if you are in cuffs and on your way to Tijuana, crying about your babies, I got no sympathy for ya… you fucked up, and you have no one to blame for your child’s predicament but yourself. Own it, Papi…

Now if you were born in this country to illegal immigrants, the current (but incorrect) interpretation of the law says you are indeed an American (if you can provide documentation of that), but Mom and Dad have to go. And if you are a minor, that means you go to the custody of another family member that is a US citizen, or at least an immigrant that is following the law and has legal documentation, or you become a ward of the state until you are of age. Yes, that sucks… but blame your foolish parents, and not the laws they violated. You do have the option to return south of the border with your parents, if that is what they want, and if Mexico accepts your American passport.

Again, if you are a liberal idiot, you might say, “But… but… but… America is a nation of immigrants!”

Yes, that is very true. But to paraphrase an old song from the sixties, “the times, they have a-changed…” The Pilgrims that came here in the beginning of our history got no government assistance. The British colonists didn’t get food stamps. The French immigrants didn’t get welfare. The Irish and Italian immigrants streaming through Ellis Island didn’t get Section 8 housing, nor did the Dutch or the Germans. The Chinese that flooded the west in the late 1800’s didn’t get EBT cards. The Jews fleeing Europe in the early 20th century didn’t get dick from the government. The Koreans and Vietnamese and Cambodians and Laotians didn’t get squat. All they got was FREEDOM and LIBERTY… and that was enough. They made their own way, worked hard, learned English, assimilated, and became Americans. But these millions of Mexicans are here only for the freebies and demanding that I press *1 for English, soaking up an ever-increasing amount of ever-decreasing taxpayer dollars, and frankly, we simply can’t afford it.

America is a country based on WORK, not immigrants. Get legal, get your paperwork in order, learn English, get a job, or get the fuck out. Problem solved.

The Inside Baseball Of Driving A Taxi

Posted: 28th June 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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passengerid

One of my fellow hacks in my company has told me on more than one occasion that I should write more about the business aspects of driving a taxi. I asked him why, and he says that he gets asked about it all the time, that people are interested in the minutiae of taxi driving, and people like hearing about the actual business itself. Personally, I never get that… people that get in my car just want to hear funny stories about the drunken idiots I drive around. I suspect that HE is more interested in that than the typical passenger. But it is true that there is a lot more to driving a taxi than meets the eye… people think that you just stand on a corner, wave at a taxi, you get in, and he takes you home… how complicated is that? But there is so much more happening in that interaction than you may realize.

Imagine that you walk out of a bar, see me parked out front, and you walk up to my car and pull the door handle, but it is locked. You bend down and look in the passenger window, and I roll the glass down and say cheerfully, “Hey there… where do you need to go?” You reply that you want to go home to a nice neighborhood on the west side of town, and I say, “Sounds great… hop in,” and you hear the power locks open, you get in, and we are on our way.

Now, you may not understand what just happened there, but that was an interview. You were applying to get in my car. I want to look in your eyes, I want to hear you speak, I want to like your destination, and I want to be confident that you have money for this ride. I was profiling you by sobriety, by attire, by demeanor, by destination, and by attitude, and if I have any doubts about whether or not payment might be an issue, I might ask if this ride will be cash or charge… and how you answer that question may well determine whether or not I even bother to start the car. If you look sketchy or really buzzed or you want to go a long way, I might ask to see some money up front. I don’t do that often, but if you want to go on a fifty mile ride and you look like your card might be declined, we are gonna stop by a nearby ATM within a block or two for some cash before we hit the road in earnest.

This is just protecting myself… I have only had a few non-payment issues in the entire time I have driven a taxi, and that’s because I take great pains to avoid them entirely. I would rather turn down a $60 ride that smells fishy than drive some wasted girl to some one hundred-acre meth-lab mobile-home park out in the middle of nowhere, where she promises me that her ex-boyfriend will pay me for this ride and give me a great tip… if we can ever find his trailer…

Back when I worked for Jack’s Taxi, there was a noob there that picked up a well-dressed couple one night, and took them on an incredible four-hour long, cross-country adventure across several counties that ended up being $350 or $375 on the meter. And upon arrival at their final destination, none of their seven credit or debit cards will approve this charge. He put another ten or twenty bucks on the meter taking them to an ATM that doesn’t give them any money, and in the end, he accepted $40 in cash and a check made out to Jack’s Taxi from them, a check that included a generous tip, and a check that promptly bounced two days later. Management was not pleased, to say the least. The lesson here is to not put yourself in a position where this can happen, and definitely do not accept checks. When in doubt, ask for some money up front, or head directly to an ATM and park in a position where you can see the money being extracted. If they object to that procedure or the ATM produces no fruit, put them out and move on to someone who DOES have money.

So, here is a story from last weekend that illustrates some of the “inside baseball”, behind the scenes maneuvers and machinations that taxi drivers go through all the time in order to get you drunken boneheads home. One of our drivers is a great guy named Khalil… he is from northern Africa, but he looks more Middle-Eastern, but he doesn’t really look “Arab”, either… just an indeterminate, swarthy, cafe con leche brown complexioned guy with a very thick but indeterminate accent… he might be mistaken for Brazilian or Greek or Guatemalan. Don’t get me wrong; not being racial here… this guy speaks 4 or 5 languages, he’s hilarious to talk to, and I really like this guy… but if you don’t recognize his heavy accent, you wouldn’t have a clue where he is from.

One nite, a girl that sounded really drunk called and asked if I could tell her if one of our drivers in particular was working tonight. I asked which driver, and she said, “I can’t remember his name… Karneesh, maybe…? I think he was Mexican…”

Between guffaws of laughter, I told this wasted girl that Karneesh is not working tonight, and I would be happy to come get her… but she said, “No, that’s OK… I’ll get another ride,” and she hung up, which made me wonder what service Khalil could provide that I could not… hmmmmmmm….

So I have had a lot of fun for a while on the company communications system… saying that some girl called looking for the Mexican we hired named Karneesh, how young wasted white gurls are calling for him only, and that he must be doing something untoward with his passengers, telling the owners that they gotta stop hiring Mexicans, that Karneesh the Mexican may not even have the requisite paperwork to even work in this country… One night, he came in to work an hour or two later than normal, and I said, “Fuggin’ Mexicans… always late…“, and he “LOL‘ed” me back…

And a night or two later, I made some “Karneesh the Mexican” joke at the end of the evening when most of the nite shift was going home, and he replied, “11 hours, $660.00, mi amigo.”

I had a great night, and he beat me by more than two hundred bucks… that’s the kinda hack Khalil is…

So last Saturday, I got a call around 8 pm from Khalil, the ex-New York City hack with a black belt in taxi driving that makes really good money, and when he calls with a ride he can’t cover, it is usually a really good fare. He tells me that he has a group of 13 people that need to be picked up at a posh club downtown 30 minutes before bar close, going a long way into the next county to Woodland Oaks, an exclusive gated community. He can’t work the call himself because he drives a five-passenger Lincoln Continental, so we need my 6-passenger van, plus Darren, who has the only seven-passenger van in our fleet. Khalil has quoted them a flat rate of $70 per van, plus a gratuity, and he texted me the customer’s phone number.

Now before we go on, let me say that I do not get the idea behind “flat rates”. In my experience, people shopping for flat rates are cheap bastards that usually aren’t great tippers, and I don’t do flat rates except on very rare occasions, and on those occasions, my “flat rate” gets me an adequate fare with a gratuity built in. Why the hell do you think I bought a taxi meter? I paid good money for a sophisticated digital taxi meter to assure that YOU don’t get ripped off, and that I don’t get ripped off either. The fare is whatever my meter says it is. When people ask if I will give them a flat rate somewhere, I say, “Let me ask you this… do you walk into a grocery store and offer the check-out clerk $3 for a $4 gallon of milk? Do you ask a waiter in a restaurant if he will give you a flat-rate dinner, no matter what you order?” If someone wants a flat rate, I come up with a padded calculation on the fare, add at least a 20% gratuity, and get paid up front. If they don’t like my number, they can go niggle with another taxi driver… I don’t have time to deal with this bullshit.

So after I hung up with Khalil, I thought this $70 flat rate was a little scant… I called Darren and told him about the order, and he thought that the $70 quote was a little light as well, especially 30 minutes before bar close. He told me to call the customer, get the specific address, and run it through my GPS to get the actual fare. So I did just that, and after doing the calculations, the customer’s destination came out to about a $90 or $95 fare. I tell the customer that we can’t do this ride for the rate that was quoted, and he sounds really pissed off. He says that our staff gave him a quote, and we need to honor it. I replied that our staffer did not have all the necessary information to make an accurate quote, and the customer offered to compromise, and he says he will accept $75 per car.

I told the customer that this all hinges on Darren, the guy with the 7-passenger car. If he doesn’t like the job, he won’t do it, and we can’t force him to accept the job. If he won’t do it, we will need a third taxi, which the customer obviously wants to avoid. So I called Darren, and he is underwhelmed, which is not surprising. The customer wants him to to go on a solid half-hour drive and a solid half-hour drive back for $75, right when the bars are closing, when he might be able to do four or five or six $20 or $25 rides at bar close, right when everyone in the bar district wants a taxi.

Darren isn’t interested, and I don’t blame him one bit. But now I am the middleman on the phone, trying to assuage the customer and apologize for not being able to serve him and his group, and I refer him to Jack’s Taxi, who has a much larger fleet and can probably serve him better. But this guy just can not take “no” for an answer, and he is beating my ass on the phone, telling me that our staff quoted a rate, and that we had an obligation to honor that rate, that this was going to hurt our business, that he is a very important person, that he would tell everyone he knows to avoid our company (35 miles away in another county), and he won’t stop calling me… my phone log shows 15 or 16 calls from this guy, and I stopped answering him after 9 or 10. Finally, he texted me with a “final offer” of $170 for both cars… I called Darren with it and he said no, because at this point, the customer is pissed off, and pissed off people don’t tip.

So an hour or so later, I saw Khalil outside a bar, and I pulled up along side him, and said, “Dude, can you GPS this shit before you quote someone? This jackass has been blowing up my phone for two solid hours!” Khalil replied that he asked the guy how many miles it was, and based the quote on the distance he was given. I replied, “Hell, man, I don’t even know how many miles that is, and I drive people around for a living… you can’t trust these drunks to give you accurate mileage… you know that.”

Khalil says that what he does is he runs the meter, and if it is significantly higher than his quote, he appeals to the customer’s sense of fairness and tells the passenger that we need to adjust this fare, as his mileage estimate that the rate was based on was low. Maybe Khalil gets more reasonable people than I do, but I know from experience that this tactic is just an invitation to an argument, a pissed off passenger, and again, no tip. I headed back to work, and I said to Khalil, “I hope Jack’s Taxi gets these people… it would be just my luck that Jack’s fucks this up and these people flag me down at bar close…”

And whaddaya know, about a half hour before bar close, an attractive but very drunk girl flags me down and asks if I can take her and her friends home… I asked where she needs to go, and she says, “Woodland Oaks”, and my heart sank.

Fuck! The pissed off people that were calling me for two hours are getting in my car!

I yell at the girl that they have to hurry up and get their people together, and a guy standing by her gives me $20.00 and tells me to relax… I tell him that he has to get them rounded up in 60 seconds or I have to move, because I am blocking traffic. Then I see a driver from Jack’s, out of his car and asking people milling around outside the club if they are the people that called for two taxis, so he isn’t having any more luck with these zombies than I am. The guy that gave me the twenty starts pushing people in, slams the door, and as he gets in the front seat, I see that he has a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka in his hand that he is trying to discreetly smuggle into my car, hidden behind his thigh and then wedged in between the door and the seat. I said, “Hey, let me see that bottle… it has to have a cap, or you have to get rid of it.”

He drunkenly replies, “What bottle?”

I said, “Dude, you are way too fucked up to be stealthy. It is against the law to have an open container in the car, and I can put you out for that alone, but my real concern is that it doesn’t get dumped in my car. Show me the bottle, or you have to get out.” He grudgingly complies, and it does indeed have a cap, so we hit the road.

These guys are zombies, but no one looks like they are likely to get sick. They talked loudly for a while, and I paid attention to their names, and the guy who was blowing up my phone earlier was not in the car, and no one is asking me about flat rates, so it looks like I am going to get the meter rate on this ride, and I already have a $20 tip in my pocket. The drunk in the front seat is a dick, but not the worst I have had to deal with. After a few minutes, a few of them nod out, and the rest are tolerable for the thirty minutes they are in my car.

So we are approaching the gate of their community, with a mere three hundred yards to go, and the guy in the middle row passenger seat abruptly and unexpectedly yaks. He just could not hold it together for another three minutes.

Dammit!

I slammed the car in Park, went to my back hatch and retrieved a roll of paper towels and The Bucket Of Shame, and mopped him up as best I could. Fortunately, about 90% of it was on his chest and lap, with very little on my carpet and seats. I told him to hold the bucket, and drove them quickly to their address. We are at right around $96.00 on the meter.

The guy in front digs out his wallet, and hands me $180.00 and asks if that will make up for his friend being a giant asshole. I took the money, double-checked the count, put it in my shirt pocket, and said, “The clean-up fee for puking in my car is $100.00; it is posted right there on the window, so I’d like another twenty dollars, please.”

The guy says, “Hey, man, I’m trying to be straight with you… why are you doing me like that? Why are you being a dick?”

I said, “I’m not being a dick. I’m running a business, and your friend back there has put me OUT OF BUSINESS for the rest of the night! I can’t make any more money tonight, I have to drive a long way back, I have to pay to steam clean and disinfect my car, and if it still stinks like puke, I have to pay for a professional carpet cleaning. Twenty more bucks, please…”

The guy in front says, “Fuck you, man… I was trying to be cool, and you are being an asshole! I’m not giving you more money… give me my money back,” and then he leans in close to me and reaches for my shirt pocket.

Pro-Tip for passengers riding in my taxi: Do not put your hands on me. This always provokes a very negative reaction on my part.

I swatted his hand away from my chest, shoved him back in his seat, picked up my trusty ball-peen hammer, hit the power doors, and bellowed, “Everybody out! Get the fuck out of my car or I am calling the cops!”

A girl in the far back says, “Wait! We need to go to our place next…”

I replied, “Not my problem. Sucks to be you. Were you listening just now? This car is OUT OF SERVICE. I suggest you call a taxi that IS in service. Everybody out, right fucking now!”

The guy in the front seat opens the door, and his bottle of vodka tumbles out and smashes on the street. The rest of them pile out, and I try to steer around the broken glass beside my car, and head off to the 24 hour car wash to steam clean my carpet.

So in the end, I got a $95 fare, a $5 tip, and the $100 clean-up fee… remember, the guy in the front seat gave me twenty bucks before we left the bar. But this story illustrates not only the wasted idiots we have to deal with, but also the business machinations and calculations that taxi drivers have to make all the time in their day-to-day operations. Driving a taxi is really much more complex than it may appear to the untrained eye.

Post For Jason L.

Posted: 26th June 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
5

Apologies to my readers, but there is a guy who followed me over here from HotAir.com leaving comments that are completely irrelevant to this blog, and he apparently has a bug up his ass because I won’t post them and engage in a philosophical debate with him, on a topic that has little or no correlation to my blog.

Submitted on 2014/06/25 at 10:33 am

Great strategy: delete posts you disagree with. You’ll likely delete this one without replying, too.

Figures…

Dude, I read your comments, and you are wildly off topic. If you wish to engage me in this matter, do so at HotAir some nite when I have time to post there. But I am not going to argue the merits of this debate on my taxi blog, because my readers are only slightly less interested in it than I am. If you like one of my stories, or wish to offer commentary relevant to a political post I have made here, I will publish it. Otherwise, this claptrap gets deleted with the Jimmy Choo and Viagra spam. Sorry for your butthurt and indignation, but this is not the place for that discussion…

Clayton Makes The Blog II: Post For Clara

Posted: 9th May 2014 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags: ,
3

One thing I don’t think I will ever understand about being a taxi driver is the way our passengers view us and relate to us. We are relative or even total strangers to our passengers, yet many of them voluntarily tell us extremely intimate things, and behave like our understanding and confidentiality are just part of the ten dollar fare. They will argue in front of us, make out in front of us, break up in our cars, even have sex in our cars… without giving it a second thought. Maybe this is weird to me because I am a basically private person; if I had an argument with my wife or girlfriend, I would keep it to myself until I got out of this stranger’s car, and I just can’t imagine what combination of alcohol and drugs would make me think it would be a good idea to perform a sex act with a woman in a moving taxi. Perhaps copious amounts of tequila and a double dose of Viagra, but still, I doubt it. Maybe this can be attributed to booze-induced exhibitionism and abandon, but it really goes deeper than that. People tell me the most intimate details of their relationships, their marital problems, their work issues, their sexual peccadillos, their drug use, their criminal history, and a litany of other things that are decidedly none of my business.

One night I picked up a giggly couple in their late thirties at a bar that hopped in the back seat and are groping and pawing each other, and the guy says that we need to go to the woman’s beach condo, and then to the nearest hotel. She gives me the address, and on the drive they are kissing and whispering furtively to each other. When we got to the woman’s condo, they both got out and went inside, and I wondered why they aren’t staying here… after all, it seems apparent to me that they are looking for a place to get laid… what’s wrong with her place? They come back out and she is carrying a small overnight bag, and we head out to a nearby beach hotel. The guy pays the fare, and I looked over my shoulder and wished the woman goodnite. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “My husband will kill me if he finds out about this… you won’t say anything about this, will you?”

And my regular customers tell me all sorts of things, just by virtue of repeated rides in my car. Some of it can be attributed to alcohol, but I know extremely intimate details of the lives of dozens of my passengers, stuff their parents and children and brothers and sisters and best friends and doctors and attorneys don’t know. The thing is that almost NONE of these people even know my last name. The thought occurred to me that it might be as simple as, “Well, who the hell is the taxi driver going to tell?”

But I write a blog… I can tell the world if I choose to. And a lot of my regulars know that, but tell me this shit anyway. Perhaps I just exude a vibe that tells them that it is OK to tell me this stuff… like they know my confidentiality is assured, like a lawyer or a doctor or a psychiatrist.

Clayton from my previous post Clayton Makes The Blog is an excellent example. I know a great deal about him and his babe, Clara. They have told me about where they work and what they do and youthful indiscretions and family stuff and even more private things… I see them at their best and at their worst, and they don’t even know my last name. I think of them as friends and excellent customers, but how can you not know your friend’s last name? But come to think of it, I don’t know Clayton’s last name either. Like I said, these relationships we form are kinda weird.

A few weeks after Halloween, I picked up a fairly buzzed Clayton and Clara from a party, and Clayton told me that he had finally manned up and popped the question, and they were now engaged. Clara beamed as she showed me her ring, and I got a serious case of the warm fuzzies seeing how happy she was. Clara is beautiful, inside and out… simple, natural beauty that looks good in jeans and some lip gloss, smart and sweet, and I told her once that twenty years ago and single, I would have been sticking to her like a cheap suit. Trust me on this… I meet hawwwt girls every nite that are very, very ugly on the inside. And Clara just looks radiant in the yellowish glow of my car’s interior light, but I suppose a girl is never more in love than right after she has said, “Yes.”

We head out for home, and Clayton says, “Yep… we decided to go for it, man… become grown-ups, responsible people and all that… I gotta marry this girl… and you know about it before our families know, dude…”

I congratulated them and we talked about married life on the drive, which I happen to love. I dropped them at home, and as I drove away, the thought occurred to me that maybe I should make a blog post congratulating them. But then I remembered that Clayton said I knew about their engagement before most of their friends and family, and I nixed that post. Yes, my blog is anonymous, and Clayton isn’t Clayton’s real name, but he has told me that he has told numerous people about my blog, especially after his Halloween misadventure, so his friends, family, and co-workers might read the post, and I might have spilled the beans. For all I knew, Clayton and Clara were waiting for Christmas dinner to announce their engagement. Twenty years ago, I opened my yap and unknowingly blew the Christmas surprise for my brother, purchased by his then-girlfriend, and to this day, I still regret that, even though she is long gone and he is married to another woman. Clayton and Clara didn’t have to tell me that they were engaged, so I decided to maintain their confidentiality, and I nuked that post before I ever started writing it.

So a few weeks later, Clayton called me and asked for a pickup for him and his buddy to take them out to a restaurant for some dinner and drinks, and Clayton tells me that he is now a married man. I was surprised, because it was only a few weeks ago that he told me he was engaged. Clayton and his friend have already had a couple of cocktails, and he razzes Clayton about all the women that are now “off the menu”… Clayton held up his hand and looked at his ring, and said, “Yeah, well, they’ve been off the menu for a while now, so it’s no big deal… but now it is official… I am a married man….”

I said, “Lemme tell ya, brother… that ring is an aphrodisiac for some women. But your world has changed now… stay strong, you married well. Steer well clear of these bitches… Clara is definitely a keeper…”

This line of discussion reminded both Clayton and I of complicated, crazy, and kinky ex-girlfriends from our past (something I have in abundance), and we swapped a couple of stories, and agreed that we had both dodged a couple of bullets, given who we married and who we MIGHT have married. I dropped Clayton and his buddy off at the restaurant, and headed back out to work.

Several hours later, Clayton called to be picked up at a bar several blocks from where I dropped him, and he and his buddy are predictably hammered. I playfully said, “How did it go, Mister Married Man…? Were these bitches all up on you…?”

Clayton slurred out, “No, it’s all good… I maintained well… but it does feel weird, though…”

I said, “That will pass, and when it stops feeling weird, it starts feeling RIGHT… but it’s still a big adjustment for a man. You wanna hear a story from just a few nights ago, about a guy that asked me what it is like to be married?”

I told Clayton about three black guys I picked up at a nice hotel… they were college frat brothers from all over the country reunited in Florida, going to an upscale niteclub to bag some trophies… and I truly felt sorry for the women in the club, because these three guys ain’t ghetto ballers in gold chains, they are smooth, educated, professional, moneyed, good-looking and well-dressed… and they have a plan. They apparently have a three-man wing-man tag-team ass-procurement strategy that they perfected in college and it never fails, as long as everyone works together and sticks with the plan, and they are about to deploy it against the unknowing drunken ho’s at Club Plush. These bitches don’t have a chance… these guys are good-looking and smooth… picture Billy Dee Williams in his prime… that kinda smooth.

I said, “Wow… that sounds pretty impressive… I’ve never heard of a three-man strategy before. It sounds like teamwork pays off… There is no “I” in team…”

One guy says, “Yeah, well, there ain’t no “we” either, and if I get my hands on something nice, I am out, and you motherfuggers are on your own…”

His friends start laughing and yelling at him, saying that he is the one that always fucks it up and breaks team discipline, and they start recalling some previous ass extravaganzas they had together back in the day. These guys had some great sexual adventures back in their fratboy college days… I said, “Damn… you guys are making me think back to my predatory single days…”

One guy says, “You’re married? How long?”

“Yep… almost ten years now…”

He says, “You like being married?”

I said, “Yeah, man… I chose well… wouldn’t have it any other way…”

He says, “I dunno, man… not sure I am ready for the whole “married” thing… What’s it like to be married?”

I said, “What’s it like to be married? Gimme your phone.”

He says, “My phone?”

I said, “Yes, gimme your phone… I’m gonna delete every single song on it except one.”

All three guys start laughing their asses off… I said, “That is why it is important to choose wisely… otherwise, you might be listening to “Rapper’s Delight” or “My Sharona” for the next forty or fifty years…”, and all three of the black guys are laughing their asses off as I drop them at the club.

Clayton’s friend says, “Well, “Rapper’s Delight” isn’t that bad of a song”, and all three of us started laughing, and Clayton, very close to that magical sodium pentathol stage of alcohol intake, where one is conscious but it is almost impossible to lie, spoke very warmly and lovingly about his new wife for the rest of the drive. I dropped the two of them off at Clayton’s place, and headed back toward downtown.

So, for Clara… if you are wondering how your new husband talks about you when you are out of town and Clayton is on a boy’s nite out, when he’s been drinking and it is “just us guys” talkin’ shit about wives and old girlfriends, and the taxi driver isn’t gonna say anything…

Well, lemme tell ya, Clayton just adores you, and I approve completely of the way that this guy talks about you when he is buzzed and believes his confidentiality is assured. Clayton is a good man that loves you with all his heart, and I think you chose well, babe…

Now… get to work on some babies, you slackers…

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