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Drive a taxi. It's fun. Really.
May 03, 2004
Well, I've more or less completed a shift in my sleeping habits. Here I am at 2:30 in the morning, and I can honestly say that I'm starting my day. Saturday was a bit of a hiccup in my sinister plan to tear shit up on the day shift. I ended up awake way late. Smoking cigarettes. Not good, for I had quit somewhat recently, and it had been going well. So I quit again yesterday. I'm getting good at quitting smoking. You can finish the joke if you think there's more to it.
I finalized quite an interesting setup with the taxi owner. I will hand over 50 percent of my earnings to him, keep my half, and keep tips. I will pay for my own gasoline.
Best part: If I let the taxi sit on any given day, NO CHARGE to me. Bwhahaha. This is where it really gets good. There's absolutely no way to lose money on this setup. I guess he really was serious about not wanting another driver to replace me. Count me as convinced.
There's only one thing left to take care of taxi-wise. I need the suspension lifted. When I went to the TLC offices almost exactly a week ago, they seized my hack license 'for safekeeping', which caused me to shrug. I'm hoping that this time, they don't go the extra mile and burn it into a puddle of plastic right in front of me. I'd like to retain the power to do that, thanks. Yep, I'm admitting I'm a tad nervous about the test results, though I'm not into any kind of 'illegal substance' (TLC's term). You just never know what problem they might have. Such is the arbitrary power of the Taxi & Limo Commission, and this will be one of the those situations where arbitrary power in the hands of someone having a bad day can put you right out of the industry.
So I'm going to put in a week (well, really, Tuesday thru Sunday) and see how it goes. One big reason for quitting smoking: warm weather. A/C will be running, as required. I don't think recirculating smoky air would go over well with nominally reasonable people that are now paying more for the same old shit. It's the reasonable people that I really don't want to piss off. People with the asshole-chip built right in will find anything to whine about, and reveal themselves early into the trip.
Next time I'll try to explain why a 50/50 split of meter take is both odd in the current state of the industry and better for drivers, once upon a time...
See ya in broad daylight (3am-3pm).
I finalized quite an interesting setup with the taxi owner. I will hand over 50 percent of my earnings to him, keep my half, and keep tips. I will pay for my own gasoline.
Best part: If I let the taxi sit on any given day, NO CHARGE to me. Bwhahaha. This is where it really gets good. There's absolutely no way to lose money on this setup. I guess he really was serious about not wanting another driver to replace me. Count me as convinced.
There's only one thing left to take care of taxi-wise. I need the suspension lifted. When I went to the TLC offices almost exactly a week ago, they seized my hack license 'for safekeeping', which caused me to shrug. I'm hoping that this time, they don't go the extra mile and burn it into a puddle of plastic right in front of me. I'd like to retain the power to do that, thanks. Yep, I'm admitting I'm a tad nervous about the test results, though I'm not into any kind of 'illegal substance' (TLC's term). You just never know what problem they might have. Such is the arbitrary power of the Taxi & Limo Commission, and this will be one of the those situations where arbitrary power in the hands of someone having a bad day can put you right out of the industry.
So I'm going to put in a week (well, really, Tuesday thru Sunday) and see how it goes. One big reason for quitting smoking: warm weather. A/C will be running, as required. I don't think recirculating smoky air would go over well with nominally reasonable people that are now paying more for the same old shit. It's the reasonable people that I really don't want to piss off. People with the asshole-chip built right in will find anything to whine about, and reveal themselves early into the trip.
Next time I'll try to explain why a 50/50 split of meter take is both odd in the current state of the industry and better for drivers, once upon a time...
See ya in broad daylight (3am-3pm).
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