Haves and Have-Nots

Insane political definitions aside, I have one simple test for defining whether a customer is rich or not. Ahem:

Those who fly in private jets* are rich. Those who fly on airlines are not.

Pretty simple isn't it? The reason I like it is because it is so clear-cut, eg:

Rich people don't mix with poor people at airports - they have their own terminals.

Rich people leave when they are ready, not when the airline says it's okay.

Rich people are orders of magnitude more wealthy than everyone else - to afford that fancy chunk of aerospace magic requires it.


So that's settled then. But that leaves a fair number of The Boss's customers who would disagree with my description. They would - I'm sure - say that they only travel first-class, that they are Diamond-Edged members of such-and-such an airline's Blah Blah club. All well and good, I would say as I drive them to the airport in a Town Car with crappy brakes and 300,000 miles on the clock. (Rich people use rich-people limo companies.)

But the litmus test is this: from a first class seat with an airline, can you stride to the cockpit and tell the pilot that you have changed your mind? That you just don't feel like Vail today, and that you'd rather go to Taos, where you've just heard the snow is perfect? And if you did manage to do that on your airline flight without being shot, gang-tackled, or generally beat-up by everyone on board, would the pilot actually do it?

No. Of course not. Rich people get to change their minds in-flight. The rest of us do not.









[*For consistency I include turboprops in the 'private jet' category, but not piston-powered planes.]

Miss Apprehension

All I'm saying is, if the person blocking everyone at the gas station sports a long blonde ponytail, don't assume it's a woman. Sixties relics can be deceiving from behind.

How about moving your truck and getting outta the way, Miss?!


D'oh.

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.

Season

First Minivan Fiat pic credit.

I'm contemplating wacking a bumper sticker on my car:

Welcome to Florida - Don't Forget to Leave.

Jaded, you say? Well, pretty much. Our yearly influx of Snowbirds is currently augmented by Spring Breakers, meaning that my small Gulf Coast town more than doubles in size. And by the Wombat Traffic Theorem, traffic idiocy is proportional to the cube of car numbers, expressed thusly:

I(t) kinda = (C*M*S)

Where I(t) is traffic idiocy, C is total cars, M is total minivans, and S is total SUVs.

If you sense my Road Karma Reservoir is running low, you would be right.

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.

Overheard

Rods and pistons picture credit

Yes, it's true. The partition is not soundproof, and pretty much everything that goes on back there is audible to the chauffeur.

Saturday night provided a prime example. My charges were a bunch of working folks on a night out to a sporting event. I think their boss had somehow subsidised the trip, because the hourly rate was well below that which The Boss customarily charges for the giant stretched SUV. Sigh. Who knows how these things work, but from my point of view, 15% of a smaller than usual number is a smaller number than otherwise. If you get my drift.

It's always interesting noting how people react to a limousine if it's their first time. It actually DOES make them feel important. A few elements contribute. There's the fact that I open and close the door, call them Sir and Madam; there are the tinted windows, and the general feeling that they might be famous; and there's that idea that everyone feels like they are SPECIAL for the night. Alcohol heightens all these emotions.

Along with the usual drinking/socializing banter, it became clear to me that the folks planned on smoking a little weed at some point. The partition was up, so they don't know that I could hear all this. The argument ran along two lines; they could blow the doobie now and be stoned for the game, or they could wait until the ride home and party on afterwards.

Fortunately they decided that walking into the game reeking of high-grade Chihuahuan Mind-Bender might not be good form. After the game it was to be.

Insert three hours.

At that point, once all the photos had been taken and everyone was on board, I quietly suggested to the group leader that there was no smoking in the limo. But if they wanted, we could stop at a nice rest-area a few miles down the road, and everyone could stretch their legs and take a comfort stop. Wink wink. The message got through.

Better than that, once at the rest area, all but two of the twelve disappeared out of view for fifteen minutes or so, thereby giving me at least some kind of deniability. It's a dumb move, really, because if Johnny Law stopped us and made the people for moronic dope fiends, I'm not totally out of the frame.

But that's a story for another time.

The lesson here is that sound-transparent partitions are a good thing, if it helps keep us all out of trouble. Only the stuff that affects me sticks in my head.

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.

Perspective

Duesenberg at what looks like Pebble Beach GC

Adding up all the pluses and minuses of a driving job, it's easy to come up with a negative number. Horrible hours, low pay, idiotic bosses, capricious passengers, dopey cops and crap cars make for pretty big number less than zero.

On the flip side, there's one biggie which will stick with me for the reminder of my days - a better understanding.

I'm not certain what other work puts one as close to a lot of different people in situations where their vulnerabilities are on show. We see people under stress (when travelling) pushed to the limit (in business situations) behaving excruciatingly well (in public group outings) and behaving excruciatingly poorly (on those same public group outings, often on the same night.) Yes, many service industry folks see folks untied, but not in quite the same way as we do.

Partly this is because drivers are both close and invisible. We're robots who drive, and therefore of limited utility when that's all we do. But when the customer needs a resource, we are immediately elevated to equality, and sometimes higher. The alchemy of human emotion can change the way we're viewed in an instant, depending upon the need of the person paying the tab.

What's clear to me is that people are all incredibly flawed. I, of course, am no exception. However, witnessing so many individuals allowing their emotions to rule their outlook gives me understanding that perspective is in short supply. Just as most people driving cars at 80 mph are unable to think more than one lane stripe ahead, so they can't see more than one lane stripe ahead in their lives, whether we're measuring by time or distance.

Distance - that's what a few years of observing people has given me, or more accurately detachment. It's the reason long-time drivers have a zen-calm surrounding them. They KNOW that good replaces bad, which is replaced by good; lean times swap with plenty; and human nature never changes. For that exact reason, you'll rarely see a chauffeur giving in to road-rage. We understand that cutting into a line or ridiculous tail-gating saves precisely .002 seconds on the journey...and that kharma is a more powerful force than even the biggest engine.

Calm and perspective, the most important unknown elements.