3-3-06 T.G.I.F.

I drive a taxicab. I've been doing this for three years, now, including an eight month hiatus working in dispatch. It's an interesting way to earn a living, if you can handle "dealing with the public" all day.

I don't mind dealing with the public, and I'm hardly pressed at all to provide the service with good humor and stress free interactions. But, to be honest about it, I'd prefer to have a job where I didn't have to deal with the public, or anybody else for that matter... and, yeah, not have to produce anything, either. I'd want a job where I just basically got paid a lot of money. A job like "lottery winner", where all you have to do is pick up the first check at the lottery office, then they send you the other 19 annual payments by mail.

I apply for that job every once in a while, but they haven't hired me yet.

Once upon a time, I was an electronics technician, but now that manufacturing electronic products is more cheaply done with offshore labor, that 25 year career ended with a layoff in May, 2002. What really irks me is that all the companies on my resume are out of business, except for the last one I worked for.

But I only have four and half years to go before I can collect Social Security. I'm really looking forward to the government paying me, for a change. Of course, the way things are going, the whole economy might simply collapse before that happens.

So, I just chug along paying my bills by driving a taxi five days a week. By the time Friday arrives, I've pretty much had enough.

I've got plenty of "taxi stories," such as the young woman I drove four hours into Vermont one day, who "outed" herself to mommy and daddy on her cell phone about halfway through the trip. "Daddy, I'm a LESBIAN!" I heard her say. Such moments are rare, but worth relating from time to time.

More recently, I had a very dangerous looking guy get into the cab, take one look at me and come out with,
"Are you a cop?"

So, I turned around and calmly asked him, "What would you do if I was?"

"Well, I'd have to get right back out..." he retorted, with a very perplexed look on his face.

At which I immediately responded, "Well, then, I'd suggest that you get right back out."

After a couple more exchanges back and forth, his incredulity increasing with every deft avoidance I made to
actually answering the question of whether I was, indeed, a cop or not (I'm not), he finally got out of the cab, muttering all sorts of foul language and how he asked for a cab, but they sent him a "*^$#&^%* COP!" He slammed the door and walked off.

I breathed a very big sigh of relief. He was a VERY dangerous looking character.

Today, I had a social services client that I transported from a church where a funeral had taken place, to a restaurant where all the people would be going after the burial at the cemetery. This guy had a walker, and needed assistance. It turns out that he actually had no trouble walking, but he was agoraphobic (fear of open spaces), and it was clear that the walker was like a "security blanket" for him to traverse open spaces with. So when I got to the restaurant, I pulled the cab up as close to the door as possible. I got his walker out of the trunk, unfolded it, and placed it conveniently by the car door so that he could easily reach it. We were about six feet from the door of the restaurant. Well, this was apparently too big a space for this guy, and he needed to cling to my arm to cross this chasm.

I really bristled at this, but helped him out anyway, putting on a cheerful tone, mixed with outward expressions of compassion.

After I parted company with him, though, I really felt completely devoid of any real compassion. I had made an attempt to get him to just use the walker, rather than clinging to my arm, but with no success. The reason I bristled was because it was clear this little scene was an enabling one, him firing up the personal indications of panic at the first hint of my not doing exactly what he wanted me to do. It wasn't about the panic trigger of the open space at all, it was all about this guy using his condition to make other people do things.

I run into these kinds of things often enough to have it press upon my patience and willingness to act in a friendly and courteous manner.

There seems to be a number of pathos driven societal encumberances that have developed over the years concerning disability, client/customer interaction, and (my favorite) the "handicap parking space".

The first one, disability, I have no qualms about. The only fine line that enters into the picture for me as a taxi driver is figuring out the least obtrusive manner for each individual as to whether I should assist them or not. Basically, old men with walkers tend to bristle a bit at the idea they can't do anything and everything without any assistance, while old ladies are very appreciative of having a younger man lend them his arm.

The politics and vagaries involved with client/customer interactions is an area that's sometimes strained with certain people. As a taxi driver, I'm sometimes perceived as a "captive audience", for monologuists. This can be a strain. The longer the ride, the more of a strain it can be. Other times, I'm perceived as "the hired help" that can be treated as less than the dust beneath the rider's feet. This doesn't happen very often, though. In rare cases, the rudeness of the passenger brings them closer and closer to the situation of my stopping the cab, and telling them to get out. So far, I've only had a couple of those. One of them threw up inside the cab, and the other one was pissed off that I hadn't arrived sooner. The former was told at the beginning of the ride that if she had to throw up, to do it out the window, or ask me to stop the cab so she could open the door. The latter started unloading on me the minute I picked her up, with foul language and a shrill voice that cold take the top of anyone's head off.

Two out of, roughly, eight to ten thousand people I've transported over the last three years is, obviously, a tiny percentage of the taxi-riding public in this town.

The last item, handicap parking, is one that really gets under my skin. Every week, I see Escalades, Continentals, Mercedes, Lexus (is the plural of Lexus "Lexi"?), and all sorts of other high end vehicles pull into these handicapped parking spaces, the driver pull the "officially authorized handicap parking permit" out of the glove compartment and hang it on the rear-view mirror, then get out of the car and dance across the parking lot into the store.

Since the taxi isn't equipped with one of these "officially authorized handicap parking permits", I can't pull the cab into one of these parking spaces even if the passenger has leg braces, a walker, and my assistance. I can be fined $200 in such a situation.

What I do instead is BLOCK the handicap parking spaces nearest the door, turn on the four-way flashers, and take my sweet fucking time making a show of the debarking passenger, assisting them far beyond the point they might need to be assisted. This has reaped great fruit in situations where some ass-hole in a Lincoln wants to park in a space, but can't because my cab is blocking it and I'm busy helping the passenger. They honk their horns, they yell at me out the window, but they can't do a goddam thing about it because I DIDN'T put the cab into the hallowed ground of the handicapped parking space.

Well, anyway... I'm glad I had a chance to unload this stuff somewhere... it is the "T.G.I.F." post, after all.

Realistically, I have to say that the overwhelming majority of people I have in my cab each day are pleasant company. As a "fat and bald, middle-aged white guy", I also have to say that non-white people often get into the cab expecting the white guy behind the wheel to not be who they'd prefer to have as a driver, but that as soon as I greet them, this instantly melts away. It sometimes takes a couple more minutes to do this with non-whites who are clearly racist in their sentiments, but I do have compassion for the reasons behind why they might have that tendency, and it apparently comes across.

In other words, I can genuinely say from my experiences that the vast majority of people that I come into contact with every day are really interesting, basically good, and very welcome in my cab.

It should be clear by now though, that the tiny percentage who wear me thin, no more than one every two or three weeks, if that, tend to make me look forward to the end of the day on Friday, and utter "T.G.I.F." with sincerity and relief.