Inconsiderate, Inc

Early morning pickups are fraught with danger.

Everyone (in general ) has cut the timing right to the bone, so every minute counts. One particular job comes to mind, a 3:30 am collection time, although I must say that there are plenty just like it. For a start, the customer's house was in a fancy gated community, which all take an age to navigate.

What's with the endlessly winding streets spread out over thousands of acres, guys? There's nowhere to walk. There are no sidewalks. There are no shops. There's nowhere to go and nothing to do. Unless you are endlessly entertained by golf what the hell is there to do in these places? And if golf does entertain you 24/7, there's no saving you. And neither should there be.

I'm there, early as usual, at this guy's mock Italiante Villa on a golf course in Florida. The time is 3:15 am. I've been up since 2:00 am. I'm ready to drive this dude to Tampa, and go home and go back to bed.

It's not reasonable to knock or ring the doorbell that early. Maybe there are kids, maybe there are relatives. I reverse the Town Car into the driveway and wait. The hope is that the customer will walk out the door, luggage in hand, and be ready to go.

Fat chance.

At 3:30 I rang the bell.

A minute later the wife opened the door and scampered down the faux granite steps to explain to me that her husband had overslept, and that he'd be out momentarily. Sure. Whatever. Like my time's worth nothing, because dopey forgot to set his alarm.

Thirty minutes later, Mr Business appears at the doorway, grip in hand, freshly showered, ready to go. Excellent! Good-morning sir, may I take your luggage? Please, take a seat here, we'll be under way as soon as I can.

Sorry, he says, the alarm didn't go off.

And you know, I believe him. He was completely apologetic, and an interesting guy to boot. And I feel bad that his company, which trades on the Pink Sheets OTC is not doing so well.

We all screw up. But at 4:00 am, it seems that much worse.

Sleepless in Florida

Bugatti picture credit

As the saying goes, I made this rod for my own back.

Back when I was less cynical about the driving game, I'd take on pretty much anything The Boss had to offer. I was - in his words - available and willing, just the way he likes his vassals. There was nothing I'd turn down.

That works for a while, until late night jobs blend into early morning jobs. The way that happens is that on Friday he would allocate everyone's limousine and Town Car runs for the weekend, through until Monday. Then on Saturday morning he would take a booking for an early Sunday morning airport run, despite the full roster.

Let's examine this for a moment. Back in the good old days, limousine runs rarely finished before bar closing, which is 2:00 am around here. By the time everyone's been dropped off, I've driven the limo back to base and cleaned everything up, there's not much change out of 4:00 am, or even later. I've seen quite a few sunrises.

But The Boss only acknowledges the dispatch ticket with the 2:00 am finish time. He sees that, then is perfectly happy expecting one of us to be ready for that 6:00 am run to Fort Myers airport that he's just taken.

Seriously, he has NO ability to understand that:

a) the customer might go over the stated time,

b) the driver's night doesn't end with the last drop-off, and

c) we are human and therefore suffer fatigue.

But here's where I am to blame.

In my race to make some decent money, I would take the extra morning run, and talk myself into thinking it's just the same as doing a night shift. I know, I know, it's crazy, especially given the absolute pittance that these things pay. But there you have it. Often I would have been up for more than thirty hours, picking up some unsuspecting person on their way to an airport somewhere.

When business fell off a cliff two years ago, for the most part that kind of thing stopped, replaced with something even worse. Now The Boss is happy awarding me late night airport pickups, which can often extend to 2:00 am, followed by those horrid 5:00 am jobs. Not only do I lose a night's sleep, I don't even have the benefit of the money from a limo job.

The worst of all worlds.

And it's all my fault.