Into the Unknown

One characteristic of working for The Boss is that every job tends to hold some mystery. That makes the work a little like a sausage, or McDonalds's burger meat - it's clear in general what's going on, but one doesn't always know the detail.

Nor, perhaps does one want to know, but that's a philosophic thought for another day.

After only one airport job for all of last week, the weekend was decently busy. Saturday night I was blessed with the worst gig of the six on the roster, a three-hour limousine job starting at 6:15 pm.

Three hours is the minimum time for which The Boss will rent his machines and drivers. That's fine, but by the time one has showered, shaved, dressed, driven to the office and prepared the car with ice and other bits and pieces, three hours pay is barely worth it, especially on a Saturday night. The ideal weekend night job is one with a 7:00 pm pickup and a 2:00 am finish. That is enough time to make it worth actually driving to work, has a decent starting and finish time and a high likelihood of a good booze-driven tip.

But we of the underclass aren't able to choose. We work with what we're given. Sometimes it works out okay, as did this gig - it was about as easy as it gets. A couple had a dinner to attend celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary and had me to drive them. Their daughter had booked and paid a deposit on the ten-passenger limo back in June, an unusual circumstance of itself.

Before leaving the office (which has an attached warehouse in which all the cars are kept) I had to call The Boss to pump him for some more detail. He'd told me it was a wedding, but the address on the ticket made no sense. (Attention to detail isn't high on his list of priorities.) Upon reviewing his notes, he came across the small detail that my presence with a giant automobile was to be a surprise. Important point, don't you think? I would have normally bounced up to the door at the requested time, but that would have ruined the daughter's plans.

The oldies couldn't have cared less. After a smooth, surreptitious arrival, they had no real enthusiasm for the fancy ride. I drove them two miles to their dinner in a rented hall, waited two and three-quarter hours and drove them home. From where I sat, I think they would have rather foregone the whole thing, stayed at home and ordered pizza.

Asking the wife about the secret to fifty years of marriage, she looked at me, slowly chewed her gum and shrugged.

I guess that was my tip.




Austin A-40 interior photograph from here [link]

Wedding Tears

Weddings all, to me, appear underfunded and under-organized. Not to say that well-funded weddings are necessarily better planned, because I've seen many expensive 'Wedding Planners' royally mess up. But there's a clear lack of forward thinking skills in this area.

(Note to military veterans: This is a giant market in which you folks could create a very profitable and successful business. From my experience, weddings could all do with a big dose of military sensibility. These people need someone to tell them what to do.)

Which brings us to Saturday. As far as weddings go, this was at the top end. If the bride is reasonably calm and happy with the way she looks, everything works out from there. (For me.)

Chrissy was just as you'd want - friendly, not completely self-absorbed, and she looked great. Her self-organized wedding on a budget looked like it was on a roll when she and her bridesmaids emerged from her house at the appointed time. That's always a good sign. You know you're in trouble as a chauffeur when more than twenty minutes goes by before there's movement.

Mostly, the bridesmaids are a dead weight at weddings. They are all more concerned with themselves than the bride - a contradiction of their title...maids. They should be there to look after the woman at the centre of things, but too often they're bitching among themselves or off smoking ten cigarettes. This group smoked (OMG did they smoke) but Chrissy's sister and one other 'maid kept on top of things.

Until someone fielded a call from the DJ at the beach.(Florida: Beach weddings are all the rage. Don't. Just...don't.) He didn't have any electricity to run his music system. (Amazing. No power outlets at the beach. Dummy.)

The bride cried. Not big sobs, but the tears and quivering lip routine.

Thus began a thirty-minute scramble to find a boom-box so Chrissy could have her wedding march walking down the aisle music.

Fair enough: It was her big day, and she wanted the damn music.

Once they'd finished cussing out the dopey DJ, we put the plan in action. We found a store with a portable CD player, bought some batteries, and we were good to go. Problem solved.

There were a lot of side-plots to this wedding. It's amazing how much human drama one sees in a three-hour limousine ride. One bridesmaid hadn't altered her dress to fit, and had to swap with another; the groomsmen were supposed to ride with us - thirteen people in a ten-person limousine; the bride's mother and father not speaking to each other. The usual.

And in the end, the CD didn't play. The bridesmaids beat-boxed the bridal march. I was proud of them...that's what they're supposed to do.



Wedding limo from this Aussie site [link]

Ybor City Animals

Busy, a new feeling, even if it was only for one day. The weekend was the busiest for weeks, handy because now I might nearly make enough to pay a few bills.

Saturday was notable for blessing me with two (2) limousine runs. The first was an afternoon wedding run, which included a crying bride...but I'll save the tears for another post.

After that The Boss scheduled a 9:30 pm pickup. A bunch of twenty-somethings were heading out on the town in Ybor City, Tampa's high-crime sewer of a club district. Despite that, Ybor is an interesting place, centre of the cigar-rolling business for which Tampa used to be known.

Thesedays Ybor attracts the drunk and drugged crowd. I've seen more knife-fights, punch-ups and general anti-social behaviour on the streets there than anywhere else in the world. Besides that minor detail, the streets are narrow and there's no parking for a stretched limousine, so you can imagine how happy I was to be there.

As usual, the cops standing on the corner turned a blind eye to me stopping traffic on 7th Avenue to unload my people. It's a two-lane thoroughfare, and they understand we drivers are just trying to make a living. I move on as quickly as possible. But as I'm about to drive off to find coffee, another cop, a mounted policeman, guided his steed in my direction.

Using one of those dismissive hand gestures they teach in cop school, he indicated he had something to say.

"You can't park here," he said. I looked up at him, then to the two cops standing behind him on the sidewalk, and back to him.

I wanted to point out the double standard - two sets of cops, two different rules - but thought better of it.

Those horses are BIG.

Back of the Clock

In our county, bars stop serving at 2:00 am.

Last drinks are drained at 2:30 am.

Everyone's in the limo by 2:45 am. (Fingers crossed.)

We're heading home at 3:00 am.

Someone wants food at 3:05 am.

Stop at Taco Bell at 3:20 am.

Leave Taco Bell at 3:45 am.

Last drop at 4:20 am.

Now is when I gas up, park-up, clean up, wash up, tidy up and lock up.

I might be home in bed by 06:00 am.

Another back of the clock night done.



Night shot from this excellent blog [link]

Puke

The Boss levies a $250.00 puke charge if ever someone loses their dinner in a limousine.

What he withholds from customers is that he doesn't pay for a professional cleaning of the limo. He expects we drivers to make the vomit disappear. Granted, we get the money, so a case could be made for us to encourage drinking to excess and barfing. But closer examination and common sense dictate what a bad deal it is all around.

Contemplating this whole cleaning business, I guess that when chauffeurs drove coaches with real horsepower, they were expected to clean up after the nags. Huh. I wonder.

The normal deal is that when we return a limo to the depot, we clean the interior. Oftentimes it will take an hour or more to ready everything so that the next driver need only add ice and be on his way. As you can imagine, the appeal of this at 5:00 am is limited. But if the car's going out the next (same) day, one has no choice.

Choice, however, is what I offer customers who do upchuck in a limo. This happened a few weeks ago, when the two women in a party of ten both barfed. The both attempted to make the window, and they succeeded to a point.

Naturally, no-one tells the driver that this has occurred. They'll hope I'll miss it, but experience is a valuable commodity. With some people, I check. So it was at 4:00 am that I was running my flashlight over the interior and came across the telltale drips and goops of vomit. Two areas. I pointed this out to the guys, and gave them the choice: You clean it, or I do it for $250.

That's how I came to be watching three drunken bums use six rolls of paper towel and a goodly amount of cleaning product to clean up their chicks' vomit. Just when they thought it was done, I'd point out a chunk or a dribble they'd missed.

How wonderful to see off-duty police officers grovelling.





Vintage Scottish chauffeur from this interesting site [link]

Sunny Sunday

You have to count your blessings. After a big, restful night's sleep, it's not so bad waking to the alarm at 6:00 am on a Sunday morning. Really, it's okay.

It was a beautiful morning, the humidity in the "I can handle this" range and I have an airport transfer to do. Shower, shave, put on the white shirt I ironed last night, a once-over with a lint-roller, check in the mirror, and I'm out the door. In a suit.

What I'd rather be doing is heading to the beach for a swim. In my boardies. After that, a lie in the sun, then I'd take coffee. But here I am, driving to The Boss's warehouse to collect a towncar; someone needs a ride to Tampa airport.

An older guy, it turns out, around eighty, needs that ride. A couple of odd details stand out. One, he's not listed as a resident on the intercom system, and the concierge doesn't know him. Two, I know his residential address is not in this downtown high-rise. His real house is in a gated community on a golf course out in the 'burbs.

Five before eight, my people arrive in the lobby from upstairs. The gentleman and a lady, a decades-younger lady. She's in her fifties, over-tanned, over-skinny, not quite certain of how to deal with a towncar chauffeur.

It's not that difficult. When I ask you if you'd like me to take your bag, you accept my offer. I roll your bag to the rear of the car, then I open the door for you. I then attend to the gentleman in the same way. You both sit in the air-conditioned car while I load your bags in the trunk. When that's done, we go.

Simple. Or so you'd think.

Anyway, my over-riding thought is that if you're on your way to Amsterdam (First Class), constantly blowing and popping bubble-gum won't endear you to anyone. That shit should have ended during the Nixon administration.



Olds roadster from here [link]

Canary in the Coalmine

Another slow week in paradise slips by. It's Friday night and I've done precisely two (2) jobs in the last six days. One was a late-night airport pickup; the other, a five-hour limousine run which I just finished.

With all the time I have to contemplate such matters, I think it is possible that the limousine business is a great leading economic indicator. No-one needs a limousine or a town-car service. Taxis are (and will be - they're like cockroaches, a professional opinion) always available. Although a town-car is in fact many dollars cheaper than a taxi for the kind of airport transfers we do, the perception is of indulgence.


I'm too sophisticated for a taxi; I deserve a car service.

Sometimes ego saves money.

To add insult to pauperdom, a friend and fellow driver had his entire bank account emptied by the IRS this week. They claimed he owed them $22,000 in back taxes from 2002, which he hotly denies. Makes sense to me, knowing his work history. The frightening thing is that the US Federal Government can take your money without notification. I guess that's one way to find the
$13, 000,000,000,000.00 they spent on our behalf.

All well and good, but when he can't pay the rent, or the phone bill, or for gas to get to work, I'm not sure how much of an asset to the economy he can be. Like most drivers, my mate isn't officially counted amongst the unemployed, but like all of us, he is seriously underemployed.

Which brings me back to my point. The limo game is a confidence indicator. When people are upbeat and want to either travel or celebrate, we see them in our cars. Our services are a minor luxury - even for folks who saved up for a year to attend a Metallica concert - that tells much about the collective conscious.

My read is that everyone is hunkering down. If that changes, I'll let you know. For now, the depression continues.







Photo from here [link]

Rescue

Breakdowns are inevitable, we all understand that. But no-one thinks - or wants to think - it will happen to them. Someone else should bear that burden.

I'm sympathetic to anyone stuck in a broken automobile, which is how I came to hurriedly shower, shave and dress at ten o'clock last night. A fellow driver was stuck at a rest area off the interstate with twelve customers and a busted limousine. I don't know the guy, and he works for the opposition service here in town, but I like to think that if I needed a hand, the brotherhood of drivers would come to my aid.

It's karma, right?

Here's how these things work: The driver breaks the car, and spends time placating his customers. He calls the boss, who is safely at home on his second Saturday night six-pack. In turn, he calls a tame mechanic, who is on his second fifth of vodka - well it is Saturday night, after all.

No immediate repair option then. The opposition boss then calls The Boss, knowing we have a humungous stretched SUV that can do the job. The Boss is on his fourth or fifth bong of the night, but can see more green by sending me out. So I get the call. Probably the only sober/straight driver in the county at that point, I figure I can help.

The elapsed time from that call to me rolling into the rest area was one hour and seven minutes. Now having done this kind of rescue before, I know what to expect. The driver is grateful and relieved. The Boss is counting his money. The opposition boss is glad he'll be receiving no more abusive phone calls. But the customers, ah the customers. Far from being happy, they get into an odd state of mind where they're sorta happy, but still sorta pissed. And you know who bears the brunt of that action.

We swap out the coolers, the drinks and the plastic penises, because this is a bachelorette party after all. Within ten minutes we're under way, and they've lost only an hour and a half of their night. Seems like a win to me.

Everything proceeds normally after that. The group disembark at the bride-to-be's place at 3:00 am. I sense that not everyone is happy, a pretty standard state of affairs when twelve people get together with some booze. Tension has a way of squeezing into a party like this.

You'd think that my part in the rescue operation would merit a little special thank-you or some kind of acknowledgment...and you'd think incorrectly. No tip, no warm words, nothing. But as I have discovered, that's standard.

My reward is the karma. Apparently.




Classic drawing from here [link]

Friends

Regular customers are the backbone of The Boss's limo business, not that you'd know it.

I shake my head at how he treats these people. One guy in particular pays around thirty percent more per airport transfer than everyone else. The reason? Because the bills go straight to his corporate office, and no-one there ever does a comparative analysis against other limo companies.

I suspect that he instructs the finance department not to question the cost because he's comfortable using our service. In reality that means that he likes we drivers; we go out of our way to look after him, and he knows it. Yes, he's demanding and particular but we know how to handle him.

After spending many hours driving guys and girls like him around, you get to know them. The power gradient is huge, of course - we're mere drivers, they're captains and captainettes of industry, but a personal relationship of sorts can spring from this thin soil.

That's nice, and makes for more pleasant working days, but drivers should never mistake cordiality with friendship. The subtext must always remain in a chauffeur's head that this is a customer/servant arrangement, nothing more. Taking liberties and making assumptions can land you in trouble. Quickly.

Only when a customer has invited you into their house for social reasons can you change the footing in your mind. Until then, one has to understand one's inferior position. And I chose that word very carefully.




Saab picture from here [link]

Chauffeur Enemy #1

Over a beer:

Mate: So what do you think is the most dangerous car on the road?

Me: That's easy - the minivan.

Mate, after five seconds silence: Man, that is so true.



Chauffeur enemy #1. The unpredictable, chaotically driven minivan. Stay well clear.





Early minivan photo from here [link]