Humour Me

Fabulous Ferrari picture from here.

You've seen me, or one of my colleagues.

We're waiting on the baggage claim level, or where you emerge from the satellite shuttle. Or we're at the exit from the customs hall. Most often we're formally dressed, often inappropriately so.

We carry a sign, which we hold up for all to see. A name appears on that sign. I like to create a handsome hand-drawn sign, but sometimes The Boss creates one via the computer.

His say "Smith"

Mine say "Welcome, Monica Smith."

If you're NOT Monica Smith, do me a favour. Do not walk up to me and say:

"That's Me"

or

"Hi, I'm Smith."

Your brilliant, original wit is wasted (for the one-hundredth time) on the likes of me. Take your act to the people...at the cab rank.

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.

Misunderestimation

You have seen me at airports, in the baggage claim area. I'm the guy with the long-sleeved white shirt and tie, suit vest or jacket, and a sign with a name on it. The name will be that of the person I'm meeting.

I wear a look of distant boredom. Making eye contact with hundreds of strangers is tiring, so I focus on the middle distance and try to appear like I'm not scoping out the fun parts of ladies.

Time passes. The object is to find my customer amongst the sea of transitory humans who are all, also, looking for someone. Hence the sign.

The sign is important for two reasons. It keeps most people away - I'm someone else's and I'm not available to dance. The sign is meant for the one with whom I have been promised a dance. Sure, it's an odd kind of dance involving them sitting behind me while I drive, me being super-polite, and me be transparently obsequious, but it's a dance nonetheless.

Which is why today was so odd. I was there, looking blank, with a sign. The people who were looking for me saw the sign. They decided not to make themselves known to me.

The people - a mother and two teens - didn't know the steps of the dance. I saw them look and point, but people do that all the time. They didn't look, point and then walk up to me.

That's the way the dance works; I do not know you, and likewise you do not know me. It's my job to provide the sign, and it's your job to recognize your name. And then walk up and stand in front of me. If you choose not to participate in the dance, even after you have said you would, be not surprised if I go home.



Pic from here [link]

Flat

Most of my working time is spent on airport runs. It's basically taxi work, but pays some bills between the much more lucrative limousine runs. Some drivers, and some companies for that matter, make airports their specialty. That's understandable, because towncar transfers are simple compared to driving groups of drunks around.

If you make airport runs your bread-and-butter, you end up doing a lot of miles for your dollar, which creates its own set of problems. First is the boredom. Imagine driving the same 60 mile route ten or more times a day, seven days a week as a buddy of mine does. I fear he leaves a small piece of his sanity on the side of I-75 every trip.

Another occupational hazard is the inevitability of mechanical problems, and that bane of drivers everywhere; the flat tire. This was my first as a limo driver, and happily enough the story ends up well. I had parked at Tampa airport with ten minutes to spare before my customer's flight's landing time. In reality that gave me ten minutes, plus ten minutes for it to taxi to the gate, plus ten minutes for her to deplane and find her way to baggage claim. Let's call that 25 minutes to be safe.

Of course, we carry only the 'donut' get-you-home spare in the towncars, not a real wheel and tire. Fortunately I was in a well-lit, level spot, so the change went pretty smoothly. Twelve minutes from start to finish, which surprised me. I feel for the folks who get stuck on the side of a busy freeway. That's downright dangerous.

Scuttling downstairs, I washed my hands and stood waiting for my customer. The plan was to be honest and upfront - it was likely to take us twenty minutes longer to get to her house than normal. The donut is limited to 50 mph, somewhat slower than our usual 70 plus. The alternative was to help her into a taxi.

Fortunately, my wonderful customer was completely cool and let it bother her not at all. Being in the car and on the way was good enough for her. She checked her email, ate her sandwich (delayed flight, no food) and we had a nice chat. When we stopped in her driveway she joked that it was the her longest ever trip time...but she was smiling. She even offered me a cash tip, which I refused. Her good humour was more than enough.

The Boss, of course, charged her the full amount. Heaven forfend he take some off for the inconvenience.




Pic from here [link]

Mission Impossible

Put yourself in this position:

You are to drive an older lady to an airport around two hours from here. You will wait there for a friend who will arrive on a flight, collect the friend, and drive them both to a hotel a few miles away. You will then drive home.

Sounds easy, right? Three or four discrete steps that should be a limousine driver's bread and butter. Simple in theory, a plan that a child could execute.

First problem: the older lady is on a hair-trigger. The smallest slight results in her shouting an inquisatorial rebuke.

Second problem: She isn't familiar with normal towncar/airport conventions. It's normal for someone we are meeting at the kerb to wait at the baggage claim level, close to the baggage belt for their particular flight.

Third problem: She is hard of hearing. When her friend called, it all worked but for one item. My woman heard baggage belt "twenty-four" as "seventy-four" and so relayed that number to me.

Fourth problem: When a plan goes astray, as this one did, the trick is not to panic. We need to contact the person waiting and reformulate the plan. Shouting does not help the resolution of misunderstandings.

Fifth problem: If I had've actually talked to the arriving customer I would have know what she said. The fact that you ask me what she said when you alone talked to her simply confirms what I'd decided - you're insane.

Sixth problem: If you have no pressing appointments, staying cool is really cool.

Seventh problem: When everything is resolved, and quickly, regaining your cool is cool.

Eighth problem: Blaming me for your inability to communicate adequately is insane.









Pic from here [link]

Also published here [link]

Pounding the Road

The days surrounding Christmas were busy. The Boss's Limo Service hasn't seen this amount of activity in many months. His mood is buoyant and drivers are busy figuring the size of the next cheque. Job satisfaction is a nice ideal, but if you're working for minimum wage plus tips, it's about the money.

Not to say we don't do the very best we can by all customers. This Christmas season was punctuated by extreme weather in those places from which people fly to Florida, which means flight delays and messed-up schedules all around. And just when it looks like calm will return, some insane Nigerian fool with a dose of Yemeni bomb-pants decides to blow up a plane.

As a result, the charade of airport security moves one step further into the looking glass. Now we have snow delays and underpants inspection delays, which would have been avoided had anyone in charge taken seriously their oath to defend the American people as the Constitution requires. [link]

Amazingly, all our customers (so far) found themselves a chauffeur waiting at our designated meeting points at all the regional airports. They might have been six hours late, and sometimes folks expecting a Town Car found themselves in a stretch limousine, but it all got done.

The big question is whether business will slide back into its normally torporous state or if this is the start of something big.

Venezuela

This weekend is awful for anyone flying from the east coast of the US to anywhere else. Snow in the form of blizzards shut airports from Washington DC (Dulles and Reagan National) to Boston Logan. The knock-on effect has been awesome in its scale.

Weather is one thing, but political stuff-ups are another. Planning to collect a customer from Miami International last night, I lobbed in the carpark at 8:30 for his 8:15 pm scheduled arrival. It always take a minimum of thirty minutes to clear immigration and customs at MIA, so I was in good time.

Too good a time, as the monitors now showed the flight from Venezuela arriving at 10:30 pm. Great. Two hours and fifteen minutes late.

My natural instinct is to work forward to get a rough idea of my "get to bed" hour. If he arrives at 10:30, thirty minutes for I and C, fifteen minutes faffing around getting to the car, three and a half hours to his house, get gas, clean interior of limo, return limo, drive home. 04:30. Yet more good news.

My customer was in decent humour, and we chatted about his day.

"Everything is rotten in Venezuela" he said, a native himself and so qualified to talk. "Nobody cares. It's a ruin".

After mulling on that for the drive back, my 4:30 am crawl into bed didn't seem so bad.

Speed Up

The Boss told me that one of his customers had called him to complain about me. Great, I thought, a bollocking is all I need about now. Can you guess what the gentleman complained about? Apparently the last time I drove him I was too slow, and that I need to step it up if we're to retain his business.

You must be kidding.

This is the chauffeur's dilemma in a nutshell: divining what the customer is thinking, and figuring a way to make it happen.

The captains of industry we drive are often in a hurry. They believe they can arrive at Tampa Airport forty minutes before the flight leaves, and catch the thing at a stroll. Actually, they plan to arrive forty minutes before the scheduled departure, allow ten percent less than normal for the journey to the airport in one of our Towncars, and make that their pickup time.

They then walk out of their house or office fifteen minutes after that arranged time, fully expecting bods like me to pick up the slack on the highway. It's a joke.

Any idiot can drive fast. It's in your driver's licence, look, it says "The holder is now allowed by the state to put the accelerator flat to the floor and go like the wind." The problem is that my job is to get you where you are going safely, expeditiously and comfortably. If you have a death-wish or want these priorities re-ordered you have to tell me. I am not a mind reader.

When it's obvious that the heavy breather sitting behind is frustrated with me obeying posted speed-limits (body language tells all) I might bring my speed back down just a fraction. Or I move over a lane behind someone slow. Sometimes this insolence will force them to speak up, saying something like:

"I'm in a hurry, you know,"

Or

"My flight leaves at ten o'clock".

If there's snark in my veins at this time, I'll say to them:

"Sir, I can get you there as fast as lightning, but I need your assurance that you will pay my speeding fine and any legal fees".

That shuts 'em up.

Lord help any one of their minions who suggests he disregard the SEC or whatever agency regulates his business. Why, that's outrageous you ask him to break the law. But if you're a dumb sedan driver running I-75 day in and day out, well, that's fine.

Fuck them. And fuck that piss-weak jerk who wasn't man enough to say to my face that I should drive with a little more brio. No, big asshole had to call the boss, and bitch mano-a-girlo.

Pfft.




Also published here. [link]

Halcyon Days

A certain kind of customer strides up to me in the airport, hands me his grip and keeps right on without saying a word. I watch him walk towards the baggage belt, stop, pull out his cellphone, and begin fiddling. The attitude is pretty clear from the start - their chauffeur is only nominally a person, and more valuable as a combination hatstand, closet, porter, Sherpa, mule and driver.

It can come as a surprise. I'll be standing there holding my welcome-board at the base of the escalators. They make no sign of recognition, no verbal or other greeting as they approach. I will not have met them before, so they recognize me from (obviously) the uniform and their name that I'm holding up. Literally without a word, I have had these strangers dump their overcoat, carry-on, camera, computer bag and purse into my waiting arms, and string a tote over my shoulder. So much for my smile and prepared name-specific welcome.

"Hello Mr Peters, welcome to Florida" gets lost amidst their disgorgement.

The name for that kind of customer is extinct. They're a product of buoyant times, when everyone has a job and every bank is lending. There's a PhD to be had correlating money supply growth with arrogance in limousine customers. I'm sure there's a link. Now that car companies are run by governments and employment's over ten percent, even the most boorish of bulls have had their horns clipped.

Impoliteness like that is rare, in my experience. Most of our customers are a delight, particularly the regulars. They're sweet to the point of being embarrassing, undemanding, and simply easy to deal with. Most of them even remove their own trash from the car when they leave, they're that nice.

Extinct is too strong a word for the man in the airport. {This behaviour is not limited to men, by the way. Women are equally capable of high-handedness. I use 'men' in the general sense.} They're really only lying dormant, waiting for the economic winter to thaw and the first shoots of spring to launch them back into their old habits.

Here's hoping.



Also published here. [link]

Welcome Sign

You have probably seen me at the airport, hanging around the arrivals area, holding a sign showing my customer's name. I might be tall or short; skinny, muscular or portly; smoothly dressed or somewhat rumpled. The likelihood is that I am older rather than young, grey-haired more than colored, measured more than peppy. I am overwhelmingly male, glued to my cellphone and almost always tired.

The driving job isn't my first choice. I might have a buddy in the business who needed some help one weekend...and I stayed. It's possible that I saw the potential in a buoyant economy and bought a limousine with a down payment and a dream. Retirement might have bored me rigid, and the idea of some extra money (and tips!) appealed to me (and my wife.) Or I could enjoy the driving, the hours, the observation of human nature, the variety, and just not being stuck indoors enough to want to make it a long-term job.

After around two years you start to think you've seen it all. That's a mistake. There will always be new ways for people to surprise you; incredible, unbelievable behaviour that will make great tales for the telling. But somewhere in there you begin to notice patterns, to recognize situations as echoes of days past - this kind of misunderstanding is best resolved in a particular way, that type of customer is actually asking for somemething different than he or she verbalizes, and we both know it. Experience begins to guide you when uncertainty looms.

Mostly I like people, and want to help them through. My temperature might rise when conflict arises, but I know that it's overwhelmingly likely to be in the customer's mind than in the way I carried their bag. I probably dream of a week of early to bed and breakfasts there too, but start to miss the road after two days of that. The money sucks, The Boss acts weird, nobody tips anymore, these cars aren't running right, the cops hate me, I'm hungry, Starbucks sucks, I miss my family....and yet I'm still here, in the monkey suit, holding up my sign, looking for Mr Smith.


Also published at The 941.