To Err is Human

Photo Credit

It must seem like I'm constantly criticizing The Boss. I guess I am, but only because I see him through a particular prism, the way he conducts business. If you met the man, you would be charmed, at least initially, and find yourself entertained with his stories. He is a salesman.

But the fun of a salesman's company soon wears off. He is only about as deep as cheap kitchen laminate, and the stories all have a sameness - he's a hero, and the rest of us are zeroes.

To list and explain the daily cornucopia of unique behaviours this man exhibits would require an entire book, so I'll start with the simplest and most enduring - his complete unawareness of what's going on.

It will typically happen like this: I, or one of the other drivers, will be on a job. We'll either be on the way to collect a customer, on the way back to the depot after completing a job, or the customer with be in the Town Car or limo. The phone will ring.

W: Hello, Wombat speaking.

B: Wombat, it's The Boss.

W: Yes, Boss.

B: I have a job for you.

W: Good-oh, can I call you back for the details?

B: Oh, why?

W: Well, I have Mr and Mrs Bond in the car.

B: Really?

W: Yes, Boss.

B: Oh, I didn't know.

W: Remember, you gave me this job yesterday?

B: Oh. Well, anyway, call me when you can.

Seriously. This happens ALL the time. The man isn't aware of where his cars are, where his drivers are or where his customers are.

I kid you not.

Rescue

Breakdowns are inevitable, we all understand that. But no-one thinks - or wants to think - it will happen to them. Someone else should bear that burden.

I'm sympathetic to anyone stuck in a broken automobile, which is how I came to hurriedly shower, shave and dress at ten o'clock last night. A fellow driver was stuck at a rest area off the interstate with twelve customers and a busted limousine. I don't know the guy, and he works for the opposition service here in town, but I like to think that if I needed a hand, the brotherhood of drivers would come to my aid.

It's karma, right?

Here's how these things work: The driver breaks the car, and spends time placating his customers. He calls the boss, who is safely at home on his second Saturday night six-pack. In turn, he calls a tame mechanic, who is on his second fifth of vodka - well it is Saturday night, after all.

No immediate repair option then. The opposition boss then calls The Boss, knowing we have a humungous stretched SUV that can do the job. The Boss is on his fourth or fifth bong of the night, but can see more green by sending me out. So I get the call. Probably the only sober/straight driver in the county at that point, I figure I can help.

The elapsed time from that call to me rolling into the rest area was one hour and seven minutes. Now having done this kind of rescue before, I know what to expect. The driver is grateful and relieved. The Boss is counting his money. The opposition boss is glad he'll be receiving no more abusive phone calls. But the customers, ah the customers. Far from being happy, they get into an odd state of mind where they're sorta happy, but still sorta pissed. And you know who bears the brunt of that action.

We swap out the coolers, the drinks and the plastic penises, because this is a bachelorette party after all. Within ten minutes we're under way, and they've lost only an hour and a half of their night. Seems like a win to me.

Everything proceeds normally after that. The group disembark at the bride-to-be's place at 3:00 am. I sense that not everyone is happy, a pretty standard state of affairs when twelve people get together with some booze. Tension has a way of squeezing into a party like this.

You'd think that my part in the rescue operation would merit a little special thank-you or some kind of acknowledgment...and you'd think incorrectly. No tip, no warm words, nothing. But as I have discovered, that's standard.

My reward is the karma. Apparently.




Classic drawing from here [link]

Groups Part 5

We're still forty minutes from home, and the night has taken its toll. After the grease and carbs of the fast food some of the drunks fall asleep, wedged upright, slack-jawed and slack-necked. There might be the odd one or two who share a beer from the bottom of the bar, chatting quietly to each other. But for the most part, the folks are spent.

They've spent their money too. One memorable night in a stretch SUV spanned 7:00 pm to 5:00 am. There's a world in one night on a night like that, and a world of money, too. The limo was well over $1,200. They started with a few hundred dollars worth of booze (and drugs too, I think) and who knows how much they spent in the bars, clubs and strip joints. I look in the mirror as I ponder this. I see twelve people who just proved that money does not buy happiness.

That's what I saw, but what I heard was the sound of kissing. In the seat directly behind me was the host of that particular night, who was noisily pashing his squeeze. The divider was down, part of a making-out-in-front-of-the-driver fantasy, presumably. His collection of friends tended to the rougher end of the spectrum. His squeeze, for instance, was a leggy blonde in her twenties, who turned out to be a stripper. She stripped at our local be-poled hotspot, paying her college tuition with the proceeds. That makes her a student with a part-time job, I guess.

I can't quite remember how it started, but the context of an out-and-out catfight in a limousine at 4:30 in the morning doesn't matter much. The stripper - sorry, student - took a quick powerful verbal jab from one of the other girls who said that she was letting the female side down by taking her kit off for money. She responded by allowing that stripping was okay, feminism-wise, because she had control. Oh, and by the way, the other girl would do it too if she had nicer tits and lost thirty pounds.

It was on. There were no actual real-life punches thrown, not that it mattered. The blood drawn was figurative, which can be worse than bleeding Shakespearean claret. The stripper, sorry, student, was louder and more strident in defense of both her moral and bodily superiority. The feminist made up for lack of volume with reinforcements, all the other women. They set about chopping up their target with finely honed insults backed up with dirty low blows.

The men had melted into the carpet. Not a peep. Not that I blame them. This was World Championship Catfighting that put feral cats to shame. Cats have only claws and teeth; these girls had verbal nuclear devices. Closing in on the house we left ten hours before, everyone had dished out as much punishment as they had energy for. One of them called for a truce, which resulted in a sullen silence for the last few minutes of their night. The stripper apologised for calling the other girl fat. The other girl apologised for criticizing the stripper's augmented breasts.

Stopping (at last) in front of the house, I have yet to see that many people disembark so quickly. They were all out and walking before I could put the beast in Park, open my door and walk to the rear to open theirs. They scuttled away in an air of sour booze and bad temper. Except for the host. He handed me a C-Note, and sped off in his Porsche with the stripper, looking to find some breakfast.




Photo from here.[link]

Also published here. [link]

Groups Part 2

When the divider rolls up, you know someone's about to get naked. The air inside limousines is laced with a very subtle gas that whispers in (some) ears:

Hey! You're in a limo. We need some titties here, bucko.

When the first nipple appears, there's a roar from the crowd and the camera flashes begin. One leads to another, which leads to another, and before you know it, breasts are popping out all over. Each pair is worth at least five minutes and if underwear from further south wants part of the action, another five minutes per thong. However, not all is good in this scenario. In that first breast appearance lies the seed of discontent.

By this time we're probably at our first destination. Smart groups book a restaurant table for this stop, but that's rare. Most times the folks want somewhere big and public, somewhere to show off the fact that they arrived by limo, somewhere to remember later. Mostly it's the venue that drove them to rent me in the first place. They have in mind a particular kind of night and this is their marquis stop.

Once everyone is dressed and out of the car, I go to work. There are few opportunities to impress on a night like this, but here's one of them. I clean up, but with a mind to impressing particularly the women. I collect and remove the trash. People are so messy. All the used glasses I wash, rinse, and re-equip with napkins. Don't ask how. The carpets get a sweep, then I tidy up all their bags/coolers/cameras/clothes into some semblance of order. Last thing, replenish the ice in the bar.

Men return and almost never notice my handiwork; women almost always do. That impression remains.

Then I wait. And wait. And sometimes I wait some more.



Photo from 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.

Troll Family Reunion

Huh. I don't believe in coincidences, but guess whose family is having a reunion?

Last night I collected the first wave from Tampa Airport. The party consisted of husband, wife, and three kids under age eight. Here's the rundown.

Father didn't stop longer than fifteen seconds from fondling and whispering to his Blackberry.

Mother (the Troll daughter) made idle threats to the kids and otherwise looked like she needed a very stiff drink.

Three children ran amok.

When I say they ran amok, they did so whilst strapped in to their seats, so they were clearly well practised at raising hell.

The first clue as to the unfolding horror was that I couldn't tell the kids' sex, because they all had hair to their shoulders. Poorly groomed kids means poorly disciplined kids, and so it turned out. In one hour and ten minutes, all three had two rounds of tears and blubbing, there were two episodes of punching, one of biting, and a possible soiled pants in a six-year old.

Oh, and they threw all of the water bottles, all of the ice, all of the napkins and all of the plastic cups on the floor.

Trolls beget trolls, I tell you.