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]

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.

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]