Silence

Some folks can live in silence, others die in it. Because our airport transfers average around an hour of driving, there's a lot of time, time which some of my customers fill and time that others do not.

Rule One for Chauffeurs: Speak only when spoken to.

In practice we don't adhere absolutely to this, but exceptions are few. Our routine is to meet arriving customers in the baggage claim area, greet them, and either walk directly to the car or wait for their baggage.

Within a few seconds, one can tell if they're silent types or not. Yes, it is odd standing next to someone at a baggage carousel for thirty minutes without passing a word. Equally oddly, for someone who loves words, this doesn't bother me in the least. In fact, I would rather remain silent than be forced into a conversation in which I cannot fully participate or listen to jibberish silence-filler.

There are some customers whom I'd happily drive to Vermont. We could gab all day and never bore ourselves. Obviously, these are the people with whom I have connected, with whom I need not filter as much. Another group of customers I'd also drive to New England, and never pass more than ten words. The third group comprises those who are constitutionally incapable of oxidizing without talking...about the first thing that reaches their tongue. For these people, a silence in the car is a small death, so naturally they talk.

The art of engaging in conversation as a chauffeur is a fine one. I cannot actually be myself - hells, I'd ask way too many personal questions - which leaves only conversational acting. I navigate these tricky waters by listening to what my customer says,and reflecting it back to them. Basically I attempt to affirm their own view of themselves, and keep my own thoughts to myself.

It's a game, and like a lot of games, it can be tiring. Frankly, I adore the silent trips, and for those I drive who think likewise, they do too. Last night, a new customer actually said so.

Joy. (And a nice tip.)






Nice photo of a Studebaker.

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]

Customer Appreciation

Snafugirl was right, my Canadian lady's flexibility proved to be very important that day.

When I realized my careless mistake (by reversing the order of an airport transfer, told here) my reaction was to ring a driver mate. I asked him to check on the arrival time of the flight from Toronto, hoping that it was an hour late.

Too much to ask for?

Yep. The flight was early. Drat. At this point I'm on my way to Tampa airport.

Next, I tried the customer's number. For whatever reason, the call didn't work, not even diverting to voicemail. Damn. Nothing for it but to call The Boss.

Remarkably, he didn't launch. The rocket sat on the pad without the motors igniting. I gave him my estimated time of arrival at the airport, and suggested that he might like to call another company with cars closer. Nope. He wanted to salvage the situation.

After a few minutes he called back. The customer was at the airport, and was planning to have coffee while she waited for me. Foot to the floor time.

The Lincoln Towncar is a large automobile with a large engine, but it's not exactly a racer. In a straight line, however, on a nice smooth highway, she can move. Let's just say that I averaged somewhere in the hot-day Fahrenheit numbers that day, breaking my record as a chauffeur for the distance.

I attempted to call the customer with about five minutes to run, and this time she answered. Just the tiniest, almost unnoticeable hint of annoyance came through in her voice. A few minutes later, I spied her curbside and she was in the car and we were on our way. Elapsed time from recognition of mistake: 43 minutes.

Gratitude for her philosophic nature doesn't cover my emotion. Super grateful? She was damned gracious, with that valuable intellectual foothold: people make mistakes.

And after all that, she still insisted on tipping me. Amazing.

Reverse Order

The driving gig gets to be boringly routine after a while. The boss calls around six in the evening with whatever he has for the next day. (No courtesy call if there's nothing, of course.)

As soon as he's finished talking, I work out how to fit my life around the driving jobs with which he's blessed me. The important bookend parameters are when I have to leave my place to pick up one of his cars, and when I'll be done.

Early in the summer His Highness provided me with a Tampa airport job. The customer was a regular, a lady who has a house locally the family use to escape Torontonian winters. She's the ideal client; happy, flexible, interesting, easy to chat to...and she's a generous (and, importantly, genuinely grateful) tipper.

A noon-time job like this one is always frustrating. From my place to collect the car, to her house, the drive to Tampa, the return, ten minutes to refuel, drop the car, back home adds up to three and one-half to four hours - the better part of a half a working day. If The Boss could attract sufficient business so we could string three or four or more together, that would be great. It would significantly up hour average hourly pay rate.

I'll stop dreaming now.

My thoughts were on anything but the job - I had things I was working on, people I wanted to call, stuff to do. Can you guess what I did?

Thinking.

Thinking.

Like a dope, my mind was stuck on the idea that I was picking her up from her house, and driving her to the airport. In fact, she was flying into Florida that day and wanted me to take her to her house.

Can you guess when I realized it? Yep, just as I approached her neighbourhood. I was the standard fifteen minutes early for the noted time...but that time was for the arrival of her Air Canada flight into an airport sixty-three miles away.

Man. Oh, man.

All my fault, all my own doing, all my own failure to concentrate.

How We Roll

The idea is simple. You tell The Boss what time you'd like a pick-up, I arrive ten to fifteen minutes earlier than that time and wait in your driveway. If I'm late or there's a problem, you will receive a phone call; if you don't receive a phone call, you can expect that I'll be waiting at the address provided, at the time stipulated.

Moreover, all the drivers I know are smart people. If we're at your house at 5:05 am for a 5:15 am pickup, we won't ring the doorbell. I have no clue as to how your household's constituted - who sleeps late, who rises early, whether there are children, whether your wife got up at 4:00 am to cook you pancakes.

All of that is unknown to me, so it seems logical to use a fall-back idea, which is that no-one wants their door-bell rung before the sun's up.

That, sir, is how we roll.

Next time, instead of phoning The Boss to complain that your airport ride isn't there, do something more logical. Open your front door, or open your garage door and

SURPRISE

look at the nicely dressed man with the shiny Lincoln waiting for you.



'55 Thunderbird from here [link]

Let's Go Drop Some Eaves.

Eavesdropping is rude, and I do my best not to listen. But what is a working driver to do when people insist on using the phone within earshot? Towncars aren't equipped with a compartment divider like the stretched limos, so as much as I try to tune out, it's sometimes beyond me.

The secret is that customer phone calls often keep me awake. Even our airport trips are at least an hour one-way, so accidentally overheard private conversations alleviate the hypnotic effect of the freeway. It's a safety enhancer, right?

This morning's job is a case in point. The 4:30 am pickup was in a nice gated community, the likes of which Florida is infested - fancy golf-course, large lots, big houses, families. I know this family; thankfully they're normal.

Except this morning. When the front door finally opened at 4:45 am, I heard raised voices. An argument? Before sunup? Who has the energy?

One of the daughters was returning to college. Her mother was at her, talking overly loudly, clearly agitated. The father looked harried, still half asleep, appearing to need a stiff drink.

With the usual "Oh, I forgot my....." rush back inside, we left at 4:55, to the sound of Miss texting furiously in the back seat. Interesting, I thought, to whom is she texting at that time? Not her college room-mate, I'd guess.

After about ten minutes, she called her mother, and here's what I learned from the conversation over the next forty minutes:

- she attended college in a distant state
- she'd acquired a boyfriend eight months ago, of whom the parents disapproved
- parents had predicted it would end badly
- this last weekend, parents flew to see daughter
- they didn't tell her they were coming
- they arrived on her doorstep with the intention of having her ditch the b/f
- that didn't go so well
- the three of them returned to Florida
- it was a tense weekend
- the parents wanted to tell the b/f directly he was no longer welcome to date their daughter
- daughter thought this was an over-reaction
- daughter wanted to break-up her own way
- parents weren't convinced
- daughter now tired of parents "controlling every damn thing in my life"
- she won't have time to see the b/f this semester anyway

Thank goodness for family drama. My driving was particularly alert and smooth this morning.




Early cellphone photo from here [link]