Early Shift

Daimler Motorcycle pic credit

My resolution to take greater control of my life by no longer accepting morning jobs is sorta working out. My work has declined by, oh, about two-thirds. Not only is The Boss not assigning me morning jobs, he's not assigning me afternoon or evening jobs either.

For a couple of weeks there I was doing two late-night airport runs per week.

You see when we drivers show signs of non-compliance with Boss's wishes, he punishes us in the way he knows best, by withholding work.

When I first began in this game, he told me how he likes his drivers: desperate and compliant. That tells you everything you need to know about how he views the limousine business - it's all about making life as easy as possible for him, and nothing about finding the right people to provide the best service.

Frankly, I find this kind of commercial horror encouraging. If someone so out of tune with people can still make a living, the opportunity for anyone with a modicum of common sense is huge. This is still the land of success built on hard work and fair dealing.

What's interesting is the way in which regular customers are revealing to me how The Boss treats them on the phone. Some are shocked at how brusque he's become; others say outright that the only reason they stay is because they like we drivers. There are lots of those kind of folks.

Notwithstanding, business is slow during the week, and moderately busy on weekends. And gradually I'm moving out of the bad books. This last weekend was crazy busy, a situation that causes His Lordship to forget about keeping me down in order to get me out there on the road.

Bodily Functions

1960 Lincoln Convertible Picture Credit

Inevitably, the innocent driver is exposed to the vast universe of his customers' fleshly, fluid and gaseous functions.

First and foremost and the one that springs to mind is the puke, of course. No surprise there, other than the alacrity with which some people will emit a thirty-second stream of vomitus, wipe their mouth with their sleeve and continue drinking.

Shades of Roman-style decadence in that lot.

At one point someone has demonstrated the panoply of gross exhibition including:

~ farting
~ really smelly farting (and not owning up)
~ nose-picking
~ crotch-grabbing
~ crotch re-arrangement
~ digital ear exploration
~ dandruff shaking
~ tooth picking (with little fingernail, for trapped food)
~burping

List not comprehensive.

The one corporeal expression that grates my cheese is the unceasing sniff. One sniff, that's fine. Two, even, I can deal with. But the continual drawing back of the nasal mucus by way of rapid inhalation reminds me yet again how grateful I am for parents who insisted that this never be a failing of their offspring. I am NEVER guilty of public sniffing.

I think the record is around one and one-half hours of a teenaged girl doing this right behind my left ear in a Town Car. Despite self-reminders, I was without tissue-box that day, and so had nothing to offer the hideous youth.

The acts of violence to which one's mind retreats (in order to remain sane) would surprise no-one who, like me, cannot STAND THE CONTINUALLY SNIFFING COMPANION.




That feels better.

August Blues

It's Thursday and the only job this week was my eavesdropping sortie early Monday morning. When I started contracting my services to the Boss three years ago, he had ten drivers on the roster, seven of whom were full-time equivalent. Now we are three and a half drivers, sharing what amounts to work for one.

We are contractors because Boss man is allergic to full-time jobs. They create Social Security and payroll tax obligations, and obligations don't sit well with him. So we drivers are all self-employed, or, as I like to call us, minimum wage contractors. What the IRS does to us would be banned under Geneva Treaty protocols, but it is what it is.

The flip side of that coin is that The Boss would be out of business right about now if he had full-timers. Every facet of the business is down, from the airport transfers to drunken party nights. Granted, we live in a small market, but it's a wealthy community that has become averse to spending. Here on the Gulf Coast of Florida everyone's confidence was based for decades on rising real estate prices. When that bubble burst, a lot of well-paid jobs went with it, and as the economy goes, so goes the limo business, only more so.

As ever, necessity is the mother of invention. There is no making a decent living driving, and unlikely to be one for the forseeable future, so everyone has to adapt. That's how I'm spending all my time lately, working a couple of different plans, happy to take the crumbs when The Boss offers them.




Benz roadster from here [link]

Surprise!

Jaded as your average limo driver might be, some things can still surprise us.

No, it won't be a couple (or a group) orgy-izing in the back of a stretch and it won't be sweet young things drinking until they puke. It won't be centi-millionaires not tipping, and it definitely won't be idiocy on the roads.

While waiting for my non-dancing folks on the weekend, I was surprised by Florida's governor gently descending the escalator into baggage claim at Tampa airport. His relatively new lady wife accompanied him, which was, frankly, way more of a highlight than the presence of Mr Crist in such a plebian setting. She's hot, as befitting a New York society gal.

Two points of note. One, Mr and Mrs Floridian Governor travelled on Southwest Airlines, just like the rest of us. And, two, he waited for his own luggage for forty minutes like the rest of us. Bags might travel free on Southwest, but we aren't re-united with them speedily.

As you would expect there were cops and bulky guys in suits milling around, but they remained low-key. Poor unsuspecting folks were randomly accosted by the smiling, handshaking guv, looking precisely like the politician he is. Florida's not a big enough stage for him - he's currently running for US Senate, so I guess he's winning votes one glossy grin at a time.



Pic from here [link]

Groups Part 3

When the folks return from their first stop, I can tell who wants to keep partying, and who doesn't. In general, one or two of the guys will be drunk and they want the night never to end. One or two of the women have had enough to drink and they want to go home. The rest are somewhere inbetween.

The problem comes down to money. Once alcohol takes over, inhibitions disappear, first among them the inhibition to spend money.

Drunk guys say:

Accchhh, c'mon honey, we're having a good time. Let's have fun! Have a drink and relax!

The women who want to go home say:

This is costing us $1.75 a minute, while they give the drunk guys withering looks.

Not that it's always a split along sex lines. There are plenty of girls who are with the 'who cares' program, and sometimes they lead the push. But in general, it's the guys who lose control.

Now I can't see much of what happens behind me. Once they discover the divider, it rarely goes down, and only then to shout unintelligible commands at their erstwhile chauffeur. By now we have probably stopped at our second bar, and might even be on our way to the third. By now people get lost, and we have to wait for them. And by now smokers want just another cigar or cigarette before they load up, so we have to wait for them. Some of them go to find a friend so that he/she can come along with us.

So the group is split into three factions; those who want to go home, but are resigned to their fate; the normal ones who are tipsy but reasonable; and the drunks and smokers and planners and completely oblivious who just wanna keep doing what they're doing until they fall on their face or wake up the next day with a giant grey/green hangover.

The tipping point will come at around 1:00 am. We are more than likely to be either at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, or at a strip club. If at the casino, one of my people will do something to attract the interest of the security people. Those folks tolerate little. If at a strip club, someone will need to come outside for a puke. It's surprising to me how these little events turn an evening, but turn it they do.

Fortunately, bars in Florida close at 2:00 am or only slightly later, so there is nowhere to go thereafter. Or so you might think.






Picture from here.[link]

Also published here. [link]

Groups

It feels like a good idea at the time. Call around to a group of friends, propose a night out in a limousine, rev up some interest, and then set a date. Do some homework by asking around a few companies for quotes, figure out how much it will cost, let everyone know. Enthusiasm rules, and so you go ahead and book the limo, and look forward to the night.

Fast forward to three weeks later, the evening of the planned party on wheels. One couple can't find a sitter. Marcy just got foreclosed on. Steve is having a huge blow-up with his girlfriend, and doesn't know if he can make it.

Around this time, I roll up in the stretch. It's probably nine or ten on a Saturday night, and everyone's already well lubricated. So what if we're down three or four, we'll just make up the difference with a few extra bucks. Right! Everyone who's coming here? Let's go!

The arc of the night follows a pretty well-worn path. It's quiet in the passenger compartment for the first ten or fifteen while folks acclimate. Then the drinks take effect, everyone relaxes, and the noise level rises. Oftentimes this is the point at which most people are enjoying themselves the most. They've got the right amount of alcoholic buzz and they see that it's cool to be in a limo. Then things start to unravel.



Pic from here. [link]

Also published here. [link]

Running Hot and Cold

After the busy last couple of weeks, this week is dead. Limousine runs are down by more than three-quarters, leaving we drivers with airport transfers and an opportunity to drink plenty of coffee. Down time is fine by me, but not too long, mind. My two-week fund of tips won't last forever, even if my coffee habit only runs to the cheap stuff.

The talk of the country is the weather, with Florida suffering under the burden of close-to-freezing temperatures. I know that must seem ludicrous to those folks in the north (and the real north, Canadia) but c'mon, everyone needs something to complain about. Snowbirds and natives and blow-ins like me are alike in wondering when Florida started imitating Iowa. Iowa without the snow, the clouds, the short days and the -40 temps. But it's relatively cold, y'know?

Which is actually a great relief for we in the limo trade. For much of the time, we have to run the cars with the air-conditioning on full-blast. Working in a dark suit and tie in this climate is rotten until this time of year. Now, it's appropriate. But for the other nine months, staying cool is a big priority. Frankly it's uncomfortable. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I always keep the car running with the a/c on, and stay inside that sucker whenever possible.

This week, that's not necessary. I might be the only person in the country grateful for the cold blast. I heart you winter.




Photo from here. [link]

First Time

A new customer is good for both me and The Boss. The benefit to The Boss is clear, but for me it's an opportunity to focus on what makes a good (or even, ahem, excellent) chauffeur.

Because we're minimum-wage folks, we work for tips, and the time-honored way to garner a good tip is to meet and exceed the customer's expectations. First impressions are as important as conventional wisdom suggests, so I am hyper-aware of making a good impression in those minutes immediately after meeting the new person.

But sometimes the relationship goes the other way. The customer can make a big impression on me, as happened Tuesday morning. Collecting the gentleman from his comfortable established home, I knew something was up when, after some perfunctory chit-chat, he said;

You know, Wombat, Tiger Woods has fucked it for the rest of us, that prick.

Firstly, use of the word 'fuck' puts me, the driver, on a different relationship footing with a customer. Secondly, what on earth was he talking about? After a second, I figured it out - he was telling me that he was an enthusiast for adultery.

Thus began an hour-long tour of this man's life, from his financial woes to his infidelities. He talked at length about his family, especially his many children and his many, many grandchildren. Retired from business, Facebook is his new enthusiasm, a marvel that allows him to keep up with his many widely distributed neices and nephews, although some of them "...find it a bit creepy" that he's so intent on being their friend.

But the focus of his thinking was his trips to Havana. My man could only be described as a part-time sex-tourist, waxing fond about his past visits to Cuba for the enthusiastic, fruity and cheap (cheap!) prostitutes. Apparently, once you find the right guy down there (a man he oddly referred to as "...my John...") all doors are open. John (or The John) knows the way around obstacles to free love created by the fact that "the government owns everything down there, you know". Which would be at least a partial description of a communist dictatorship.

Whenever someone decides to spill their guts to me, a perfect stranger, I wonder why. Is is because the Town Car has a kind of confessional effect? Am I like a priest because the customer cannot see my face? Or is it something about me that encourages them to tell all?

I'm going to ask this nice man soon, because he invited me to a week in Havana in February. We'll have time to talk then.




For a more detailed description of my new buddy's enthusiasms. [link]

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]

Coked Up

A requirement for being a limo driver is the ability to stay awake at all hours. This is such a weird business, crazy busy for a few days, and then dead as a dodo for the next few. If you like stability and a regular schedule, this game is not for you.

Weekends are the worst. Because the summer was so slow, we (the drivers) are all keen to get working. To do so, we sometimes need to minimize our sleep, which in practice can mean finishing a job at, say, 2:00 am, only to have a pickup at 6:00 am. I have done that kind of turn-around for three nights straight, which is a kind of torture. In fact isn't sleep deprivation and time-shifting specifically defined as torture?

Having worked back of the clock for much of my working life, night work can be okay, but it needs to be on a regular basis. One or two nights without sleep is way worse than five or six, because the body adapts. You're a zombie when you are awake during the day, but at least you acclimate to the wee hours.

The big danger is falling asleep when driving. I nearly did it a couple of days ago. Everyone knows that feeling when you get the nods on the road. Freeways are the worst, because the white lines become hypnotic, lulling the brain into some kind of low brainwave activity. It's deadly. [link]

If you can't stop and take a break - as I cannot with a customer who has to get somewhere - there are few choices. Coffee, of course, if you can. Pinching one's legs works for a while. Talking to the customer is good. And if all else fails, I bring out the big guns; Coca-Cola, with its giant shot of sugar and caffeine does the trick.

It has probably saved my life, it's that good.



Also published here. [link]

Fiery Wedding

Autumn in Florida is the time for weddings, good news for those of us in the making-the-fairy-tale-come-true business. Actually, most of the weddings I see are not about the fairy-tale. They're often pragmatic affairs, almost to the point of appearing to be an exercise in going through the motions. Maybe that reflects more down-to-earth brides, but whatever it is, the emotional energy is often wound way down.

Saturday I drove a stretched limousine for a wedding, one of the most happy I have seen. A clue that both the wedding and the marriage will work out okay is when I knock at the door (to let the client know that I'm there, ahead of time) and the bride is still in civilian clothes. With a veil. Normally, it might be a red flag, an indication that everything is running behind. But I was early, and when she emerged with her bridesmaids right on time, smiling and calm, I knew everything was fine. A low maintenance bride who takes time to say hello (after my obligatory compliment about how beautiful she looks) is a gift.

Absence of a photographer at this point is a bonus. Photographers often run weddings, which is a pity, because the spontaneity of the day is lost when you have a martinet with a Nikon bossing everyone around. Word of advice to prospective brides: you'll have a much happier day, and get much more interesting wedding photos if you instruct your photographer to simply follow, snap, and refrain from interfering. He or she is there to record the day, not organize it.

During the church ceremony, a fire truck rolled up. Turns out that the groom was a firefighter, and his (on duty) colleagues were there to say hello. Nice touch. A photographer was present by this time, and everyone had great fun having their picture taken with newly married couple all over the truck. See, weddings don't need to be stuffy and formal. It's about celebration, just like these folks demonstrated.

We did head off for formal photos, but by that time the alcohol was flowing, and everyone (read: groomsmen) was pretty loose. That makes a difference. The wedding party participants who forget about themselves and simply keep the newly-weds smiling and laughing, doing the little jobs willingly, truly make a difference. Selfless and humorous groomsmen can literally make a wedding.

The last item for most weddings is dropping everyone at the reception. I was kinda bummed not to be able to spend more time with both the bride (a doll) and the groom (who was polite and relaxed). Good people, great (simple) wedding, and, I am predicting, fantastic marriage.


Also published here. [Link]

Bomb Canada

Midweek limousine runs are a bonus. They're even better if it's a bachelorette party, especially if the bride is under age sixty. Hey, it's Florida. Ya gotta look on the bright side when there is one. I only realized how old we are around here when a friend visited recently. The first thing she said was "Where are all the people without silver hair?"

Anna Maria pickup at 7:00 pm, then dinner at St Armand's, then Siesta Key for hijinks; that was the plan. All simple enough on the surface, but the happy face soon developed cracks.

First, the money. The Boss always quotes an hourly rate for a minimum of two hours. So when the bridesmaid organizer stated she'd been quoted a fixed seven hour price for a dollar figure substantially below normal, I smelled a grifter. A Canadian grifter, which makes it worse, because I like Canadians.

Second, the female card. Sweetheart, you are cute, but this is business. Claiming you're just being a ditzy girl might work sometimes, but I've seen way too much of that variety of manipulation. I'd rather drive off and do without the money. But I phoned The Boss to resolve the money problem and he compromised. Great.

Third, the adding heads game. My limousine is legally limited to ten passengers. When you book, and say you only have eight, we assume you're as good as your word. When thirteen lovely Canadian ladies turn up, forgive me for blanching a little. I could have brought the bigger vehicle - at no more cost because it's midweek - but no, it just gives you a reason to complain about the lack of room.

Fourth, the extra time. Of course you're having fun dancing and drinking, and you naturally pray for the night not to end. That's possible, at forty dollars per half hour, and, believe me, I can last longer than you. But when you start to say that you're running out of cash, expect not to find me accommodating.

Fifth, the urination. Picture Gulf of Mexico Drive, Longboat Key. The time is 3:15 am. Every ten minutes, two or three of my 'ladies' want a comfort stop. When I point out that it is indeed Longboat Key at 3:15 am and that there are no public facilities available, swearing at me doesn't help.

Sixth, the tip. My unfailing good humor, smiling accession to every request, relentless cleaning, obsessive polishing, general professional demeanor and finding of private spots to piss apparently don't count. Exactly fifteen dollars.

What's that, about seventeen-fifty Canadian? Thanks. I'll just go clean up your puke now.


Also published here.

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.

Alcoholica

Metallica played the St Pete Times Forum Saturday night, a giant thrill for local metal fans. The hard rockin' hall-of-famers aren't familiar to me, so I figured it would be best to be prepared for anything when I drove eight die-hards to the concert.

One lesson one learns quickly in the limo game is the ancient one of not judging a book by its cover. My customers for the night might have looked like well-used paperbacks, but who the hell am I to judge? They were polite and friendly, and although I couldn't figure out just why their teenage children were coming, seemed like first-rate parents too.

Look, it's easy to be a snob about these things. Metal bands are a mystery to me, but then Scarlatti is probably a joke to them, unless there's an Italian hair band of that name floating about the place. Customers are customers, and as I say to The Boss, they all get the best treatment until their behaviour dictates otherwise.

Tampa is a dozy kind of place, with many one-way streets, and evidence of bored uninterest from the city fathers (and female mayor) that a clean sweep would rectify. Public performance venues like the SPTF are used all the time, and yet the organization around parking, traffic flow and (especially!) limousines is abysmal. The cops do their job as well as you'd expect, but the feeling one is left with is that administrators could care less what happens when the sun sets and they're comfortably ensconced somewhere else having dinner with a lobbyist.

That's a whole other issue.

A driving gig to Tampa for a concert like this is about as good as it gets, because everyone's in a good mood. They're also deaf and swaying when they come out, but that's fine too; I just turn up the heat, and they're all asleep by the time we've hit I-75 southbound.

The real fun lies in the time between when the show ends and the customers find me. Metallica girls are given to taking their tops off, I understand, an outstanding turn of events. When the sweaty crowd is melting out of the arena, there's plenty of eye-candy to keep a bloke occupied, even if they're with scary looking dudes.

They're probably shit-scared of my tie.

Doctor

Horrible truism that it is, truth is always stranger than fiction. Relationships are chock-full of stuff no-one could possibly imagine, or pass off as reality. And so I see strangeness at every turn.

One of The Boss's customers is a retired doctor. I should really capitalize 'Doctor', because he isn't merely a Doctor of Medicine, he's a DOCTOR OF MEDICINE.

You get the idea. He's a God Doctor, blessed with superior intellect, greater understanding, and is overall a better person than you and I could ever hope to be.

Ego is his ruling star. Although priding himself on having a balanced (Godlike?) view of the world he gives himself away at every turn. Most obviously this comes about because even his wife refers to him as Doctor Smith. Huh? His given name is Greg, and yet when she refers to him (to a mere limousine driver, for example) she calls him Doctor Smith, as in:

Doctor Smith and I love walking downtown for coffee in the evening, and Doctor Smith often has a brandy with his.

All the while he's sitting in the car behind me, barely four feet away, as we drive to Orlando Airport.

Any normal person with an ounce of humility would have put a stop to that years ago, and insisted on being called "Greg". At least by his wife, if not the likes of me.

Funny thing though. He's been fighting cancer for years now. I wonder if there's a connection.

Tropical Jet

Once away from Trolls and their spawn, life improves. This last weekend was busy, what with it being Easter, spring, and sunny. Everyone in the world (or so it seemed) wanted some of the sweet weather we've been having.

Apart from the fact that there's little/no money to be made driving, it can be fun. The influx of northerners for the weekend included some regulars who arrive via private jet. For me, that means hanging around the airport. Being swanky jet-setters, they naturally don't arrive with the riff-raff at the regular terminal, rather they go to what are known as Fixed Base Operators. FBOs service the non-airline parts of aviation, which activity includes maintaining mini-terminals for folks arriving red-carpet-wise.

It's all quite relaxed. I arrive early at the FBO with the limo, walk in, and tell the nice lady at the desk the tail number - or aircraft registration - of my customers' plane. She gives me a piece of yellow paper to stick on the dash, and then remotely opens the security gate and voilà! I'm on the apron.

Coz I kinda like planes, I deliberately go early to watch the activity, and it's always fun. There are rich old guys in their sweet personal twins, dopey old guys clearly lost, taxiing around aimlessly, enthusiastic students and their too-cool instructors, and all kinds of fancy jets for the rich folks. If you like aviation, it's neat.

When my particular rich folks arrive, you wait for the word from the ground guys, reverse up to the jet's door, welcome the people, load their bags, and head back through the security gate to their beach house. Everyone's happy. It's Easter, it's a weekend off, and they're at the beach, and we're all (including me) in a good mood.


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If you're interested, here is my review of our workhorse, the Lincoln Town Car.

The Troll

The Troll lives on one of the offshore barrier islands they call "Keys" hereabouts. His condo is atop a tall building in a fancy "community" overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. I imagine it's spectacular.

The Troll and his contrastingly charming wife spend most of the winter here. Business takes him back to New York regularly, however, and he's a fan of early departures. That means extra-early (2:30 or 3:00 am) starts for we drivers.

That's fine, and all part of the gig. Like I always say, this is not a job for those who need routine. And if you look, there are benefits to odd hours.

The Internet tells me that The Troll has a long career in finance. His last position was as chairman of a listed finance company, whose share price is now in the pennies. I imagine at one point he was a multi-millionaire, but now might be worth considerably less. There's no way of telling, although public records tell us that he is still a decent-sized shareholder in that and several other companies.

All this communicates nothing about the man. We call him The Troll because he's just plain unfriendly. And short. And squat. I've tried my "think your way to a happy customer" technique on him, which works to a point. He even said thank you last time I drove him, but in general he fails to acknowledge one's presence. And of course, he doesn't ever tip.

Life has a funny way of working. I note with interest that he suffers from some kind of skin or auto-immune ailment. Every time I drive him, he sits in the back scratching his surface like a moulting dog. It's horrible, really, having an older man in a suit pick at his arms and face until there's a cloud of epithelials in the Town Car. Gross.

Recently, his flight from Newark arrived forty-five minutes early. The driver just missed him at the airport, and so he caught a cab. Two points about this: one is that the cab fare would have been around eighty-five dollars more expensive than his trip with us. The second is that the reason he missed the driver was that he's too cheap to own a cellphone.

Yep. Life has a funny way of working.

Wedding

This is a photo of last Saturday's wedding. More accurately, this is after the ceremony, during the ritual Trial by Photographer.

There is much I could write about wedding day dynamics, but I think that I have discovered a new universal law: as the wedding goes, so goes the marriage.

If everyone's reasonably chill and smiling, and the bride and groom have a half-fun time, I figure the marriage will last. If she is screaming at him before arriving at the reception, there's little hope. But if the bride can get through the inevitable stuff-ups with her smile intact, and the groom loses the wide-eyed what the hell have I done look, I figure they have a shot at it.

These two will be alright. She was calm and low-key. He was uptight because of his useless best man, but came through despite that. In fact, when I said goodbye, I think he stood a little taller in his patent oxfords. That augurs well.

Deadenders

The zombie hand of government inflicts itself on limousine life as in every other sphere. Permits, licences, permissions, fees, petty rules, inspections, validations, registrations and a hundred other make-work irritants eat into everyone's time and profits.

Here's yesterday's example. Snoozing as I waited for my customers to disembark their cruise ship at Port Everglades, I was woken by two (2) dudes tapping on the window. Broward County's finest were ensuring all the for-hire vehicles sported the correct decal. Given that our outfit operates from the other side of the state, it's not surprising The Boss figures the $200 plus $15 fee is a bit steep for the four times a year we go there.

Officialdom must have the last word, so I was cited (as pictured). If you're wondering what supernatural privileges a Port decal gets you...well, it gets you the ability to be a for-hire vehicle at the port. In other words, it gets you the same as not having the bloody thing; nothing. It's just another revenue-raising obstacle to people making a living.

And although it is a cliché, one does wonder at the county's allocation of manpower. It's not like Fort Lauderdale and Miami are free of drugs, gangs, murderers, illegals, child molesters and ponzi-scheme salesmen. Sheesh.