Majority

One fact about the limo game - there's always something unexpected in the wind. The Boss graciously assigned me a small-stretched run a couple of Fridays ago, six passengers for a local night out, pick-up time 23:30. Twenty-three thirty, that's thirty minutes before midnight.

It's not that unusual, the late-night start. The under-thirty crowd is aggressively nocturnal, apparently, and arriving at a bar close to midnight is cool. By necessity that usually means being there for closing, often a messy thing. Most places in our neck of the woods have a 2:00 am close.

So I resigned myself to another back-of-the-clock night working for peanuts. I had an airport run late-afternoon, so I tried to nap for a while before heading off to prep the vehicle.

Although I'm used to this kind of weird working schedule, a small knot of dread accompanies me with late-night gigs. There's no way to avoid the fact of circadian rhythm, which for most people means slowed thinking processes, tardy reaction times and skewed decision-making. It's the reason pilots must have certain periods of rest between duties, and why the accident rate skyrockets for shift workers. In a potential bomb like a fully-laden limousine, mistakes can be fatal, and with lots of drunk passengers, it's easy to go wrong too.

I began the usual routine, around 9:00 pm. Shower and shave, dress, drive to The Boss's warehouse; check out the car, load the ice, inspect for cleanliness; make sure of the address, lock up and head out, allowing plenty of time to get to the customer's place. I'll need caffeination, so there's a mandatory stop for coffee.

All the time, the start time is bugging me. The Boss, of course, imparts no extra information. All I know is an address, a time, and a total of six people. Nothing more.

Oh, and a cell-phone number. Approaching the condo, I call. The woman on the other end tells me the gate code, and that 'he' will be down shortly. Who is 'he'? Where are the others? How come you're not coming? All questions I want to ask, but cannot.

Travis looked eighteen years old, but was polite and chatty. We were to head off to another address to collect five of his friends. About half-way there he moved forward to talk through the divider. Turns out that he was recently back from Iraq, serving with the US Army. Tonight's limo ride was a gift from his mother...because at midnight he would turn twenty-one.

Click. He was planning his first legal drink as soon as possible. Now I understood.

Good guy. He was the perfect client, the best and brightest indeed, a tribute to his unit. His friends, however, could have done with some of the civility that army life apparently imbues.

But that's another story.

Familiarity Breeds Happiness

1941 Town Car Pic Credit

The essence of happiness for a driver is knowing the future - when going on a run holds few mysteries or potential surprises. That (mostly) means that we know the client and where they are planning to go, or likely to go.

The best example is collecting a regular client from the airport. In our case, that means one of the airports more than an hour away from home base, to make it worth our while in terms of what The Boss pays. The local airport is (fortunately for us) poorly served. That means anyone looking to travel without connection is forced into using a Town Car service for the first or last hour of their journey. It's our bread and butter.

I know that Doctor S likes newspapers, I'll happily buy a handful to keep him happy. He often travels with a checked bag, and so prefers to meet his driver in the airport in baggage claim. And so it happens. We both know each other, and it works. Once in the car, he immerses himself in the papers, emerging only when I tell him he's home.

Guaranteed low-stress trip.

Max W, a super-busy business guy hasn't time for checked bags, so he will always meet curbside. I'll wait until his flight is a little distance from landing, text AND voicemail him with my exact position, and he'll appear there. Sometimes we even meet at departures, or at a less busy airline's baggage area. He likes to outwit convention, even if it only saves .04 seconds. He'll be on the phone when he emerges, so he'll look up at me, say "Hi Wombat" while I grab his roller bag. I put that in the left rear seat while he's getting in the right, and I melt rubber screaming out of there. Metaphorically of course. Max just likes the idea that we're hustling all the way. And he likes Coca-Cola, so of course I have some on ice already.

It's a well practised, predictable operation.

Mr and Mrs B are wealthy-ish older family folks who turned a Snowbird habit into permanent Floridian life. She's a bit wobbly on the pins, so definitely needs meeting in the baggage claim, as well as me carrying all her bags. They love to chat, starting at the point of us finding each other, ending only when I finish complimenting her on her beautiful garden. It's ninety minutes of more or less non-stop banter. They sit in the back of the Town Car, telling me what they've been up to inbetween calling ALL their VERY LARGE family informing them they're off the plane and in the car, on the way home.

Mr B wants nothing more than some ice-cold water and the local newspaper, so he can catch up on what little occurred while he was away.

It's another well-rehearsed and happy groove.

If only all jobs were as calm.

Too Much

Porsche Panamera interior pic credit.

Some people tip too much. I know, it's antithetical for someone like me to say, but it's true nonetheless, that some people are overly generous with the gratuities.

The gentleman I have in mind is an interesting study. Not the most charismatic guy, he's obviously set on looking after all of the drivers slaving for The Boss. Upon his insistence, we automatically add thirty percent to all of his invoices as a standard gratuity, but he also oftentimes palms us a note as well...and not a twenty, either.

Oddly, all this money makes me uncomfortable. There are two reasons for this. One is that while Mr Tipper is always polite and never demanding, I have no connection with him. We talk only perfunctorily, and never with humor. His wife, more friendly and outgoing, is kinda the same. Secondly, I really never feel like I've earned the tip. A lot of his jobs are very simple local limousine runs, collecting a couple or a couple of couples around five in the afternoon, and driving them to his house. They have dinner and a few drinks, and then I drive them back. It's so easy.

The only downside is that we have to sit in his underground garage for the three hours in which they're eating and socializing, but that's no imposition if one is prepared with books, newspapers and a nosebag. All in all, he's the ideal customer, but still there's something that makes me feel guilty about accepting such amounts for so little input.

The Boss's angle on all this reveals much about him. He is mostly pissed off with Mr Tipper for this reason: with that thirty percent tip, we drivers often net more money from the run than he does.

This makes him angry, which tells you all you need to know.

Partition

VW interior photo credit

All of The Boss's limousines are equipped with partitions. The partition is an electrically operated barrier that isolates the passenger compartment from the driver. In essence, we're already in a separate space - the partition just fills in the hole.

My attitude towards the partition changed a while back. As a rookie driver, I took the view that customers preferred a more open interior - the ability to look forward through the partition cut-out and so through the windscreen - and easier communication with their faithful servant up front. In the smaller limousines it can be a little claustrophobic back there.

Here's my routine thesedays: with new customers, when I show them the controls (lighting, heating, sound) I make a point of demonstrating the partition up/down switch, by saying:


...and here's how you ditch me...

at which point I raise the partition and leave it up.

With regular customers, I often start with the partition up, or, if not, use this lame line:


...so I'll just give you folks some privacy now...

whilst I roll that thing up.

Remember, I have a switch for the partition too. It's important to tell me NOT to use it ahead of time if you don't want me to surprise you.

I'm reminded of the way fancy hotels do this. When the customer service person escorts you to the room, they show you important features you might need immediately. Then they leave, close the door, and allow you to explore your room on your own.

People behave differently if they think they're being watched. Oh, and if they think they can't be heard.

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.

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.

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.

Guardhouse Gangstas

All of which set me up for a surprise.

When I pulled up in the ten-passenger stretch at a few minutes before 10:00 pm, a knot of people was there already, and my, weren't they dressed!

My guess is that he had turned twenty-five, give or take, and as suspected, the birthday boy had organized the night. He and his buddies were in the modern young man's idea of Dressed Up. To my eyes it looked somewhere between late Jimmy Durante and early Groucho Marx, but what do I know? White ties and black shirts come and go in the fashion world like transmissions on a Cadillac.

But back to the business. I try, always, to start off the same way with every new customer. I'm polite, friendly and deferential. This only works with people who understand that this is a dance, and that I'm offering to lead.

I can help you negotiate this, if you put your arm out...like so...and follow these simple steps. I want you to succeed, young man, but you have to play along. We don't know each other yet, but if you trust, your life will be easier. For at lest the next six hours.

Who was I kidding?

A guy of twenty-five is at the top of his ego/responsibility ratio and reacted accordingly. After loading the car with booze, we hung around waiting for all the partiers to feature. Of course, we weren't going anywhere until the magic cash crossed my palms, but he strung it out. That's fine by me. Had he not paid, I'd be happy to drive off.

Whilst we sat around for forty-five minutes, I watched these guys. They were all from pretty well-off families. Beneath the tough-guy bravado lay an upbringing revolving around a private school education, a childhood in a 4,000 square-foot house on a golf course, and a security gate to keep it safe from bad guys.

And what was their unanimous music of choice? Gangsta. Hard, loud and rotten gangsta. I nearly laughed out loud. These prissy pretty boys with CZ studs and other crap in their ears and Jager shots in their hands fancied themselves urban crusaders.

Golf-Course Gangstas. Security Guard Bad Boys. Limousine Tough Guys.




There's more :-)

Farm-Ins

If you're a captain of enterprise (or work for a captain of enterprise) and end up out of town, chances are you'll need a ride somewhere. Cabs are dirty and unworthy for Highly Paid Important People, so it's up to the livery industry to provide them with luxury chauffeured wheels.

Big business tends to centralization in all things, particularly low-level functions like transport. This means that if you, you HPIP you, arrive in my sleepy Floridian town, chances are you'll be driven around by an operator engaged by way of what's known as a 'farm-in' job.

Let's take the example of someone from the money-management industry who flies in from Boston to deliver a seminar (ahem, sales pitch with lunch) to rich old people. His company's preferred town car provider is Boston Coach, which happens not to have an office nor any cars here. What to do? They call their preferred partner hereabouts and farm the job out to them.

Occasionally, The Boss receives one of these things. He hates them. They always involve use of electronic aids, such horrors as email and the facsimile machine * shudder * as well as never-ending phone calls, and, worst of all, a high proportion of cancellations.

I hate farm-ins too. For a start, we all know that the client is paying way more than the amount we'd charge for the job. Boston Coach will be charging big-city corporate rates; we're a small town, small business operation, with rates commensurate. It kinda bugs knowing that I am the least paid person in the chain, but the one taking all the shit.

Inevitably the customers (who aren't paying out of their own pocket, it should be noted) are arrogant SOBs who take great pains to demonstrate just how much more important they are than a mere driver.

That's all fine, and part of the deal. Despite that, there is a little fun to be had. Oftentimes a representative from the mother ship will call me directly. Sometimes it is as often as three times in the hour prior to the nominated pick-up time. Always the same conversation:

Is this Wombat? Yes.

You're aware you're collecting Ms Codfish at 12:30 pm? Yes.

Where are you? Sitting in the front left-hand seat.

Very funny.

How are you dressed? In a toga.

Interestingly, we seem not to get so many farm-ins thesedays.



Packard Town Car hood ornament from here [link]

Wedding Tears

Weddings all, to me, appear underfunded and under-organized. Not to say that well-funded weddings are necessarily better planned, because I've seen many expensive 'Wedding Planners' royally mess up. But there's a clear lack of forward thinking skills in this area.

(Note to military veterans: This is a giant market in which you folks could create a very profitable and successful business. From my experience, weddings could all do with a big dose of military sensibility. These people need someone to tell them what to do.)

Which brings us to Saturday. As far as weddings go, this was at the top end. If the bride is reasonably calm and happy with the way she looks, everything works out from there. (For me.)

Chrissy was just as you'd want - friendly, not completely self-absorbed, and she looked great. Her self-organized wedding on a budget looked like it was on a roll when she and her bridesmaids emerged from her house at the appointed time. That's always a good sign. You know you're in trouble as a chauffeur when more than twenty minutes goes by before there's movement.

Mostly, the bridesmaids are a dead weight at weddings. They are all more concerned with themselves than the bride - a contradiction of their title...maids. They should be there to look after the woman at the centre of things, but too often they're bitching among themselves or off smoking ten cigarettes. This group smoked (OMG did they smoke) but Chrissy's sister and one other 'maid kept on top of things.

Until someone fielded a call from the DJ at the beach.(Florida: Beach weddings are all the rage. Don't. Just...don't.) He didn't have any electricity to run his music system. (Amazing. No power outlets at the beach. Dummy.)

The bride cried. Not big sobs, but the tears and quivering lip routine.

Thus began a thirty-minute scramble to find a boom-box so Chrissy could have her wedding march walking down the aisle music.

Fair enough: It was her big day, and she wanted the damn music.

Once they'd finished cussing out the dopey DJ, we put the plan in action. We found a store with a portable CD player, bought some batteries, and we were good to go. Problem solved.

There were a lot of side-plots to this wedding. It's amazing how much human drama one sees in a three-hour limousine ride. One bridesmaid hadn't altered her dress to fit, and had to swap with another; the groomsmen were supposed to ride with us - thirteen people in a ten-person limousine; the bride's mother and father not speaking to each other. The usual.

And in the end, the CD didn't play. The bridesmaids beat-boxed the bridal march. I was proud of them...that's what they're supposed to do.



Wedding limo from this Aussie site [link]

Back of the Clock

In our county, bars stop serving at 2:00 am.

Last drinks are drained at 2:30 am.

Everyone's in the limo by 2:45 am. (Fingers crossed.)

We're heading home at 3:00 am.

Someone wants food at 3:05 am.

Stop at Taco Bell at 3:20 am.

Leave Taco Bell at 3:45 am.

Last drop at 4:20 am.

Now is when I gas up, park-up, clean up, wash up, tidy up and lock up.

I might be home in bed by 06:00 am.

Another back of the clock night done.



Night shot from this excellent blog [link]

Puke

The Boss levies a $250.00 puke charge if ever someone loses their dinner in a limousine.

What he withholds from customers is that he doesn't pay for a professional cleaning of the limo. He expects we drivers to make the vomit disappear. Granted, we get the money, so a case could be made for us to encourage drinking to excess and barfing. But closer examination and common sense dictate what a bad deal it is all around.

Contemplating this whole cleaning business, I guess that when chauffeurs drove coaches with real horsepower, they were expected to clean up after the nags. Huh. I wonder.

The normal deal is that when we return a limo to the depot, we clean the interior. Oftentimes it will take an hour or more to ready everything so that the next driver need only add ice and be on his way. As you can imagine, the appeal of this at 5:00 am is limited. But if the car's going out the next (same) day, one has no choice.

Choice, however, is what I offer customers who do upchuck in a limo. This happened a few weeks ago, when the two women in a party of ten both barfed. The both attempted to make the window, and they succeeded to a point.

Naturally, no-one tells the driver that this has occurred. They'll hope I'll miss it, but experience is a valuable commodity. With some people, I check. So it was at 4:00 am that I was running my flashlight over the interior and came across the telltale drips and goops of vomit. Two areas. I pointed this out to the guys, and gave them the choice: You clean it, or I do it for $250.

That's how I came to be watching three drunken bums use six rolls of paper towel and a goodly amount of cleaning product to clean up their chicks' vomit. Just when they thought it was done, I'd point out a chunk or a dribble they'd missed.

How wonderful to see off-duty police officers grovelling.





Vintage Scottish chauffeur from this interesting site [link]

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]

The Boss

In the past, when I listened to self-improvement tapes while I ran or walked, most of it literally went in one ear and out the other. Not much stuck inbetween. One thing that did, however, is the idea that many of us are mentally stuck in high school.

It appeals to on a visceral and a logical level. I saw it in myself, I guess, and that brought home the horror of being a fully physically mature man and still a mental adolescent. What an awful thing. And you know what? I have found this again, in the figure of The Boss.

It's not new to me, given that I've been living with this thing for years, but events of recent times show me that it's time the veil of anonymity be raised, if ever so slightly. I want to bring this face of stupidity right out in the open, if only for my own fun. As a man I trust completely says, to think bad things is one thing, but to do them is quite another.

I wonder where blogging about a complete douchebag fits?



Cartoon from here [link]

Little Old Ladies

It's the fact of living in Florida, but many of my adventures revolve around old people. Seniors, in the argot, or oldsters, or silly old farts depending on my mood.

In the limo game, I learned from experience that little old ladies belie their benign looks (and reputation). In real life, these people are sharks, manipulating hapless optimists like me with the skill of a Reno card dealer. Don't let their stooped stature and old-lady smell fool you - they know the value of a buck, and how to keep them in their purse, and out of your pocket.

The job sheet showed me collecting two local ladies from Tampa airport, late on a Sunday night. Two friends on vacation sharing a towncar ride back to their respective residences; it's a common-enough deal.

Let's say the total was $140.00. It's normal for folks to use a credit card to reserve a booking, and then pay cash. The Boss is always up front about the cost, which he is careful to make clear to the customer. Also, another driver had driven them to the airport a week earlier, so they knew the drill. And to further solidify the arrangement, we talked about the fact they were paying cash, half each. They knew exactly how much the ride cost.

After I'd schlepped the first lady's bag to the door, she gave me a handful of cash as arranged. Being as I was trusting of Little Old Ladies at that point, I didn't count it. Like I said, she'd already been through this on the outward leg, so why would I question it?

The second lady lived in a high-rise. Dutifully I carried her three bags full of gold bricks up the stairs, into the elevator, and along the breezeway to her apartment. She, too, gave me a handful of cash, and in the same trusting manner, I shoved it in my pocket. She also made a point of saying that there was a little something for me there too.

That's nice. A small tip for my manual labor makes for a happy evening...

...until I returned to base and counted the cash. Instead of a $70-00 wad and a $70.00 plus-some wad, I had two $65-00 wads. Not only had I been swindled, there was no gratuity and she knew it. The choice at that point is to make phone calls, knock on doors and go chase the money. But then I saw this episode for what it was: a ten dollar learning experience. So I added a sawbuck of my own and to this day I count every note that passes my hands.

Sorry, I trust you, but a couple of old grifters shook me down once....


Pic from here [link]

Also published here [link]

Wise Heads

Young men and their lady friends sometimes find themselves in the back of my limousine. I'm impressed by the way they do the responsible thing, and pay for one of The Boss's limos (and me) to drive them around instead of doing it themselves.

In Florida, if you blow over .08 you are off to jail for the night, no questions asked. So a few hundred bucks to prevent that is the deal of the century.

These same young men aren't quite full-bottle on some of the finer points of limousine life. For instance, there are ways to circumvent The Boss's no smoking policy. One method that does not work is to raise the divider and light up a blunt. That results in me lowering the divider and politely pointing out that smoking is not allowed in the limousine, as per the rental agreement.

Someone needs to tell these boys that a polite request beforehand, and emoluments in the form of cash go a long way towards me overlooking The Boss and his silly rules.




Pic from here [link]

Christmas 2009

For some, holidays are holy days. For others, holidays are time for feasts, or family or falling asleep. To me they're a time for work, to get ahead on bills, make some jink.

Christmas Day 2009 saw me driving a regular customer and his wife to her sister's place about an hour south of here. I did the same thing a couple of years ago, and it's interesting to note the differences.

That time, he was quite grumpy about going. He could have been in a bad mood, but the dynamic was that he was pissed off with the wife, and didn't want to talk. In my experience of these folks, he generally wants nothing but to be left alone with his book anyway, notwithstanding any marital tension.

This Christmas she had obviously presented him an iPod. He sat back there, ear-buds in, fiddling with it while she gave him verbal instructions, quietly at first, but then louder when she failed to get through over the music. Funny how rich older folks end up in the same position as children when presented with the new. That's not meant as a criticism. Childlike is fine as far as I'm concerned, implying discovery of the new. Childish, though, is quite another thing.

Small comments are telling. As they stepped out, he said to me to be back at 4:00 pm, ready for the trip home. She said, sotto voce, words to the effect that he loves his brother-in-law....for the first two hours. Funny, really. Families are the same everywhere.





Photo by me.

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.

On the outside looking in

Or perhaps that's being on the inside looking out. Either way, working when everyone else is having fun can be a bummer.

Oh well.

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.