My earnings floor — the lowest take-home pay I can expect — is increasing from the record lows of the winter. In other words, it’s rare this time of year to see a shift that doesn’t net me at least $100. In the winter I had sub $100 shifts much more often.

The ceiling seems to hover around $250, with occasional exceptions like Bay to Breakers Sunday — the most recent high outlier on the chart.

Unfortunately, earnings don’t ‘feel’ as high as they did last summer. Indeed, recent earnings seem clustered around $150, compared to a large cluster around $200 last summer. Two obvious reasons: gate fee increase and fuel cost increases, both costs are borne directly by cab drivers. Other potential reasons: tourist activity has yet to reach peak, major SF events and street fairs happen later in summer, I work less lucrative shifts than last summer.

For fun, here is a chart of gas prices over the past year. The red line is San Francisco, the blue is USA average.

My take-home shift average still hovers around $170.10* since I started driving July 2007. My median take-home pay (the middle amount of all shifts worked) is $176.

When I started last summer it was at the peak of the high earnings season. Plus, I worked the rather lucrative Saturday and Sunday day shifts (when compared to lower earning Monday and Tuesday shifts I added). I thought these seasonal and day of the week changes would give an artificially inflated view of my earnings, so I also computed take-home average for 2008 only, which starts at the low-point of the season and includes the lower earning Monday and Tuesdays.

I guessed the 2008 year-to-date (YTD) average and median take-home would be significantly less, but I was surprised at the outcome. 2008 YTD average is $168.54 and 2008 YTD median is $170. Both figures are surprisingly close to my all-time average.

*I do not subtract money spent on food during my shifts. This is important so that my variable food spending (which can range from $0 to $20 during a shift) doesn’t affect the outcome and so that I don’t have an odd monetary incentive to not eat (in order to inflate my take-home pay statistics). But, the reality for most drivers is that ‘food costs’ are a real expense, subtracted from take-home cash pay. So, any other cab drivers reading this, be sure to add back in your food costs to compare your earnings to mine.

A friend sent me a tip that there was a big after party around 6th and Folsom. This, along with many other SOMA hotspots, was a major source for fares.

• I picked up 3 gay guys from the exodus of an underground party closing near 1st and Howard. They were heading back to one of the guy’s place to have sex and were very open about it. They seemed very excited and discussed some various related logistics such as bed size, supplies of prophylactics, and privacy from roommates.
• I picked up a group of young Asian partiers from one of these parties. They weren’t so drunk, they were more high and out of it. They talked about the effects of their respective pills. They said the party was really boring until they took the pills.
• I picked up a gay male couple who were super-hungry after dancing all night. They wanted to know where was closest to eat near Union Square, we headed for Denny’s on Mission just a few blocks away. I wanted some Denny’s too.
• Memorial day morning became considerably quiet after 6am. Not many people were in the City, and those that were didn’t seem to leave their apartments.
• Tuesday was busy, nearer to a Monday’s level of activity instead of a normally slow Tuesday.
• Early Tuesday morning I did a few runs in the Mission before heading up to Pac/Marina/Nob/Russian Hills-land. Usually the Mission isn’t too bad, but I did 2 prostitute runs in a row which was a bit unusual:
  • I picked up two middle aged Mexican guys and an older black lady around 24th and Mission. I took them to a seedy hotel in the far outer Excelsior.
  • I picked up a younger Mexican guy and a younger black lady also around 24th and Mission and took them back to the guy’s place in the Excelsior. The lady was talking the entire time on her cell phone to her boyfriend or a close male friend.
  • You may ask me, “How did you know these were prostitute runs?” I don’t know for sure, but context clues pointed strongly in this direction.

    I felt a little dirty about it, but also felt that if I didn’t take them, someone else would take them, what would me not taking them change about their transaction? Nothing. I would just miss out on a few fares during the quietest time of night.

• I picked up an older i-banker sort of guy from the Marina and took him to the Financial district. After he jumped in, I accelerated hard up Gough and he asked, “Are you rushin’?”

  “Yeah,” I answered back, “But, I rush pretty much most of the day. It’s just a habit.”

  “No,” he said, “Are you Russian?”

  I laughed, “Well, actually, yeah my Mom’s side is Russian.”

  His question is one of many variants of the core question, which is, more directly, “What is your background such that a young caucasian driver is driving this taxi?”

  Other forms of the question include but are not limited to, “Are you in school?” “You don’t drive full time, do you?” “What are you doing besides driving a cab?” “How long [have you been]/[will you be] driving a cab?” “What made you want to drive a cab?”

• Another Tuesday passenger asked me if I was Jewish. I said, “My mom was raised Jewish, so I guess that means yes.”
• I picked up a lady I had driven before (first story of this post). She was just as chatty as I had remembered and we had a great time again.

  She was heading back from a doctor appointment to get her teeth at her apartment, then heading to the bank. I asked her where she was heading, she opened her mouth and said, “To get my teeth!” keeping her mouth open after she said this. I laughed and she cackled a hilarious laugh which said, “I’m doing my best to freak you out, but you’re a good sport.”

  She had a lot of spunk. She tipped well and we shared stories of family. I told her about my recent visit back home to Indiana to visit my family. I’m looking forward to picking her up again soon.

• I picked up two girls from Cal Train and took them to a City bus tour departing from the Fish Wharf. They were very quiet, but I got out of them that they hadn’t ever visited the City. So, I took it upon myself as my Civic Duty to tell them a bit about our path as we wound through the Financial district, by Chinatown, through North Beach to the Wharf. I thought they might have been annoyed, but they gave me a big tip ($15 on a $9 fare) in the end.

  It seems that erring toward speaking too much trumps speaking too little in the effort to maximize tips.

• I notice that fares run together in my memory more than before. I’m not sure of the cause. Do I pay less attention to customers? Am I becoming the cab driver that can chat up any customer without really listening to what they’re saying? (No, I don’t think so, but I still worry about it.)

  Maybe I start to see the same patterns of people over and over. What sets one business commuter apart from the other?

  Or, maybe I’m now waiting too long after my shifts to write these posts. (It’s probably that.)

• Late mornings and early afternoons the Kaiser calls are off the hook — 2, 3 or 4 orders waiting for cabs, most of them armed with City paratransit scrips, ready to spend a nice clip going across town. I like Kaiser calls.

  The dispatchers call those orders as “Geary and Divis.” Or, when there are too many, they simply say “2 [3, 4] times for the Kaiser” or “Kaiser calling back.” Good times to be a cab driver in the City.

  I picked up a guy Monday from the Kaiser. He was older, extremely tall and moved slowly but precisely. When he walked it looked like a slow motion film. A 30 frames per second video played back at 20 fps.

  He was black but with rather light skin and noticeable freckles. But, his defining feature was his glasses. They were perfectly round, thick plastic frames. He wore classy khaki pants, a sports jersey and a dress shirt. He had great style.

  When he sat down in the cab he handed me a twenty. “That’s your tip.” Making the assumption that is best to be made in such situations, I assumed he meant, “That will cover the fare plus your tip.” People do that sometimes.

  He gave his destination neither as a request nor as a command. Just a statement of truth. A fact. Our destiny, as sure as the sun would set tonight and rise tomorrow. “We’re going to make a stop at the Cala [Grocery store at California and Hyde] and then back to my apartment at [address].”

  As I’ve said many times before, I don’t normally enjoy waiting. I have a well-founded propensity toward constant motion as I usually earn more while in motion than waiting, even if the meter ticks up for time at $0.45/minute. But, I didn’t argue. He seemed set in our path.

  We pull into the Cala and he gets out. I try to relax. I’m getting better at it, even in these situations where math constantly ticks through my head calculating how much money I’m losing while waiting for this guy to scan through the frozen food aisles.

  What I perceive to be minutes later (but is probably just a minute later) I turn around and look in the store. Maybe I’ll see him grabbing something from the impulse aisle so we can keep going. He’s still outside. Searching for a cart. He hasn’t even entered Cala. I try to relax again. Of course, the meter is still running.

  I listen to some NPR. I flip around from one NPR station to the other. Ralph Nader’s on KALW. Interesting enough.

  15 minutes later I blow my top. This is insane. The meter’s up to $15. I grab a cab receipt and write down my phone number, grab his medicine from the back seat and $5 change for his $20.

  I find him in the Cala in the frozen food section. But, I couldn’t maintain my anger at him. Restated, I couldn’t direct my anger toward him. It just wouldn’t go. I just wanted to laugh. Actually, I wanted to help him shop. Maybe things would go faster. And, he shared my taste in food. Frozen popcorn shrimp, nice! “There are things at this Cala I just can’t get anywhere else in the City.” Tell me about it.

  I said, “Look sir, you’re really nice and all but I really can’t wait this long. I need to find other fares. Here’s your change from the meter, your medicine, and a card with my number. Call me when you’re done and I’ll pick you up.”

  “Oh no, don’t give me any change, that’s your tip. I’ll pay you whatever’s on the meter. I’ll just be another few minutes.” Oh, really? Now the numbers tip in his favor. And, to his credit, his Cala cart was approaching capacity. “Okay, I can wait a few more minutes.”

  A few Nader tirades later and he finally emerges from Cala. “Thanks for waiting,” he said, “It’s hard to get cab drivers to wait for me to do my shopping. That’s the last thing on my list for the week. Now I can relax the rest of the week.”

  I took him a few more long blocks up to his Nob Hill apartment. He paid me another $30. “Woah, sir, you’ve paid me 50 bucks. This is a lot. Are you sure you’re okay with that? I have no problem giving you some change.”

  “No, no, take it, you were very helpful. I’ve done everything on my list.”

  I thanked him profusely and finally said what was on my mind, “You have some awesome glasses.”

• I picked up an Indian guy and his girlfriend from the CalTrain station on Tuesday. I don’t think they take cabs often.

  He asked, “We are going downtown, are you going that way?”

  I wasn’t trying to be smart, but this just popped out of my mouth, “That’s not really how it works. I’m a cab driver, I’ll go wherever you tell me.” They told me to go downtown.

• I scored an Oakland Airport fare off the street from 555 Market, the site of my former office job. Karma?
• I dropped a guy and his elderly mom off at her retirement home from one of the hospitals. She was a bit out of it, so he was handling her paratransit scrips. He wasn’t sure where to sign and I pointed to the line and said, “Just fill in this field here. Did I just say field? I’m not even sure what the proper word is.” You see, I’ve been working a website quite a bit in my spare time.
• I picked up a bouncer from a downtown club Tuesday morning. He had finished his graveyard shift and was heading home to his NoPa apartment. He talked about work. He worked a lot. 7 days a week. He made a lot of money. He spends it all.

  I felt like asking him, does that really make you happy? Do you like working 7 days a week? Why not just spend less and work 4 days a week? Or 3?

  I’m proud to share that I’m living below my means, (finally) paying off my credit card, and working only 3 days per week. I earn about $25k per year and live in one of the most expensive cities in North America. My secret? I don’t buy things. (Nor do I have kids.)

  I didn’t feel it appropriate to lecture him though. I think it’s a lesson people have to learn for themselves. Of course, I have no problem lecturing you on this blog.

• I picked up a guy from a nice SOMA apartment building heading to SFO. We had a fun chat about politics, Obama and the state of the Union. As I dropped him at the terminal he said, “I’m glad I had you as a driver. I always like your cab company, you have good drivers.” Thanks.

• I picked up a woman downtown who was heading out toward one of the hospitals in the outer neighborhoods. She was in her 30s with a spunky, outgoing nature.

  We talked about work and the healthcare system. She mentioned she was on disability. A few minutes later she revealed she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was in the late stages of treatment and everything was looking good. Her spirits were understandably high.

  She worked in an industry where she could have easily parted ways from a formal employment situation to become an independent contractor and would have made a great deal more money.

  Before her diagnosis she had planned on doing just that: starting her own consultancy, working 60 hour weeks, hiring a few others, making gobs of cash.

  After her ordeal she views things differently. She enjoyed the stability and flexibility offered to her by a formal employment agreement. She enjoyed the low pressure 40hrs/week work life. She enjoys going to work, working, and leaving work at work before coming home.

  I enjoyed her perspective.

• I picked up a lady from a housing center in the Western Addition. She was heading toward a hospital in one of the neighborhoods. Her husband was in the ICU. The doctors told her he was brain dead, but she was adamantly convinced this was not the case. A few days back she went to see him and said he raised his hand to her presence and in response to prayer.

  What brought him to the hospital in the first place? This was not clear.

  The best I could gather was that he entered the ER bleeding profusely from a gunshot, knife wound, or some sort of other violent altercation. He either assaulted the ER staff outright or did not cooperate and was sedated. She was under the impression that the staff had over-sedated him which caused his current comatose state.

  I had no idea what to take away from all her fervently shared data, but the one indisputable fact was this poor lady was not in a very happy state. I expressed my condolences and wished her the best as we arrived.

• I picked up a younger woman in the Mission around 5 or 6am Sunday morning. Given the chilly morning breeze, her clothing was nowhere near sufficient and her lady parts were prominently displayed. I took her to meet a man waiting in his car in the heart of the Bayview.
• Weekday mornings I hunt for street hails and radio fares around my home in Nob Hill in addition to Russian Hill, Pac Heights and the Marina. On one such lap I was cruising on Hyde street and saw two young SFPD officers standing smack dab on the double yellow lines at Jackson.

  A subsequent lap or two later they were still there. I pulled up and pleasantly said, “Hey what’s up? Are you guys looking for something?”

  Keep in mind the social dynamics: I am the same age, gender and race as the officers. So, the important variable under study here is profession to profession relations.

  They both had slicked back hair. One sported name brand sunglasses molded of plastic. The sun shaded officer caustically responded, “We’re looking for traffic violations. Sir, you have a green light.” Nobody was behind me. No other moving cars were, in fact, anywhere near this intersection. Their police vehicle was parked in front of a fire hydrant.

  Wow! What hostility! I was floored. What caused this profoundly negative reaction?

  This isn’t the first time I had such negative interactions with a San Francisco police officer. A few months back I was answering a radio call on the other side of Nob Hill. A police vehicle was behind me as I approached my destination block. I turned on my hazard signals. At this point any City driver instantly knows to pass a cab as it slows to a stop. Instead, this officer stops a foot behind me and starts honking his horn. Yes, he stopped to honk his horn. A few seconds later he passes me and yells, “What’s your problem? You gotta take up the whole road?”

  Oh wait, there’s more. A long while back I picked up a bunch of Canadian guys from a downtown hotel in a vancab. They were going to a 49ers game at Monster Park. After waiting in ridiculous traffic for a half hour, we finally approached the stadium and I asked traffic officers where I should drop the passengers. They directed me forward. When we came to what appeared to be an entrance suitable for my passengers’ needs I stopped, they paid, and I let them out.

  Two officers walked up to me and one started to write me a ticket. Woah there nelly, I said, “What’s going on, officers?” They said, “You’re not allowed to drop here. You’re a dangerous traffic hazard.” This statement was obviously false. I had pulled into a parking spot out of the flow of traffic. I continued with a clear explanation of the process by which I arrived here. “I was directed here by a traffic control officer.”

  “Can’t be. You’re not supposed to drop here.”

  Thank god for my friendly Canadian passengers. The group of six lobbied strong for my safe release, corroborating the tale of a traffic officer gone wrong.

  Wow. There are some major issues here.

  A number of reactions come to mind.

  • Look, I realize that being a cop is often a thankless job. But, come on, so is being a cab driver. Why is there such a prevalent attitude that we’re on different teams, playing against each other?

    Our jobs are very similar. We both cruise the streets for hours on end, judging each and every pedestrian. Yes, our end-goals are different — cab drivers judge pedestrians for likeliness to need a cab, while police officers judge pedestrians for likeliness to be a public nuisance. Regardless, our core activity is similar. At wee hours of the morning there are pretty much only these vehicles on the street: cabs, police cars, trash trucks, and newspaper delivery vehicles.

    Cabbies and police officers serve very complementary tasks.

  • A fleet of taxi vehicles driven by professional drivers roaming your streets 24/7 can provide a significant crime deterrent for your city.

    Most streets would see very little, if any, vehicular traffic in the middle of the night if it were not for cabs crawling for fares. Haight, Polk, O’Farrell, Geary, even Mission. What an amazing crime deterrent cabs are! They are equipped with drivers constantly scanning the streets, with cell phones and cab radios, many have zone-based GPS tracking, all have in-car security cameras.

    Sure, a cabbie isn’t about to get out of his car to break up a fight, but most if not all would be willing to serve their fellow citizens and testify as a witness to a murder.

  • If the City’s mission were to deter crime, they would view cab drivers as an essential component of a crime control strategy.

    Unfortunately, crime prevention is handled by a traditional bureaucratic unit (SFPD), and like all other non-profit bureaucratic units, it serves to forward its own existence.

    How does a bureaucratic unit do this? It silos its function such that only that bureaucratic unit can provide that function. Often this siloing isn’t a real silo (for comparison, water delivery IS a real silo) but is instead gained through evolution of policy and resource control, eventually giving this bureaucratic unit an effective monopoly of this function.

    In no way whatsoever would it be in the interest of the SFPD bureaucratic unit to explore (or even acknowledge the presence of existing) crime prevention duty sharing as this could reduce potential funding to that bureaucratic unit.

    This isn’t a knock on SFPD; this is a knock on non-profit bureaucratic units, of which SFPD is one of a large and esteemed lineage. Muni comes to mind too.

  • Let’s put aside the inherent flaws of non-profit bureaucratic units and attack this from a different angle.

    In my days of higher education student affairs life as a Resident Advisor for the dorms of Indiana University, I experienced an environment that was open and often very emotionally real. (I shall point out that although the IU dorm system was a non-profit bureaucratic unit, it was part of a larger non-profit bureaucratic unit that had profit and loss responsibility — it had to pay for itself.)

    In this HESA environment RAs and residents would talk about real issues they had with each other, their Graduate Supervisors or even full-time staff and even high level managers within the bureaucratic unit. Things were vetted. Issues were addressed. Emotional and real (mission-based) progress occurred.

    Why then, in the ‘real life’ game of taxi and police officers are these issues not addressed? This is silly. It affects everyone from the officers, to the taxi drivers, to the residents of our City. Unlike RA life which lasts at most a year, these issues persist year after year.

    Maybe we could arrange some sort of work exchange program. They can try being a cab driver for a week, and we’ll be cops for a week. (We won’t get guns, but we can write them tickets.)

• I picked up a “cigarette and candy girl” from a club one morning and took her to her home in the outer Richmond.

  We had a great conversation. She was from the Czech Republic. We talked a lot about the changing Czech identity as they joined the EU. I shared my stories of drinking with Czech women in Scotland who could drink us under the table any day of the week. We shared tales of showing up to banks in the City with fistfuls of cash to deposit in our accounts in order to cut rent checks. What must the tellers think we do? I shared my tale of paying for a dentist visit in $150 cash.

  The City has some neat folks.

• I picked up a guy from the Castro on a weekday morning and took him to work near Pac Heights. It turned out he was a former limo driver in the City but was still involved heavily in the business. We talked a lot about the gas prices, taxi gate fee increase, and impending doom coming this winter.

  I learned some useful things: he claimed limo/black cab drivers aim to make about the same as cab drivers. In fact, he said most driving jobs in the City approach $150 for 10-hour shifts.

  As gas prices continue to rise, this cost will be squeezed at all levels, from the owners, drivers and end-users.

• I picked up another limo driver the next morning. He had run out of gas. He was a character. We drove to his girlfriend’s Academy of Art dorm to pick up some cash, headed to a gas station to buy a canister and some fuel, and then back to his limo.

  He said that with my City knowledge I would be able to make a bunch more money driving a limo than a cab.

  “How would I get fares?” I naively asked.

  “Oh, you know, the same way you do now. You know way ahead of time if someone will hail.” (This is true.) “You just approach them and make a deal.” Okay, wow. “Of course, the best part is that you don’t have to pay gate anymore.”

  Hmm. I think I’ll stick with paying extra for a legal cab. But, thanks for the info.

• My therapist really likes my job. Not that she wants to do it, but she likes it for me.

  She’s really intrigued by the role I play in other people’s lives. (As am I.) Do I serve as a form of therapy for others? Often, yes. Often, no.

  If people really need someone to talk to, they make that very clear, and I am there. We talk. I do an okay job pulling out their fears, sadness, anger, excitement, joy, or whatever may be lurking underneath the surface. I like that. It’s very real.

• I consistently make the erroneous assumption that all other cab drivers are ‘lifers’, having always been and always will be a cab driver.

  Of course, this is not true. This is most clearly brought to my attention when I pick up or drop off other cab drivers from my company heading to or from work. It is fun to see who they are, why they drive a cab, and what they do with their non-cab driving time.

  Our City is blessed to have such a dynamic and diverse taxi workforce.

• While driving Tuesday morning, I heard a great segment on KQED’s forum about Buddhism. The whole thing is worth a listen; the first 15-20 minutes are the most juicy.

  My takeaway: it is important to feel and recognize your emotions, but not let them control you. Use the energy toward a productive output.

  This is clearly represented with my cab driving. From poorly timed red lights, to grumpy customers, angry cops, dangerous drivers, low earnings, graveyard shifts, poor tippers, and crazy coworkers stealing orders, I can create an endless list of potential negative influences to bring me down, angry and frustrated. The only thing I can really control is myself and my reaction to these influences.

  Lest you be worried, most of the time the positives significantly outweigh the negatives. Life is good.

San Francisco cab drivers face two recent cost pressures: a recent gate fee increase combined with the recent climb in gas prices.

Fortunately, these cost pressures come at a time when aggregate demand for taxis in the City is increasing. More tourists, outdoor City festivals, and frequent conventions bring in more and more cab passengers as the summer approaches.

However, I paint a bleak picture for this winter. As seasonal demand for taxis wanes in November, this winter could be the toughest yet for City cab drivers and companies. Qualified, skilled cab drivers will seek new income opportunities as average take-home pay dips to new lows this winter. Cab companies will likely have a more difficult time than ever filling shifts, putting pressure on hiring managers to accept drivers with less stringent requirements for clean driving records, English proficiency or general City knowledge.

Given this bleak outlook, I think my cab driving may come to an end (or break) at the end of October.

I sure noticed when tourists to the City took a vacation from vacationing. Now it appears they might be back in force. Monday I had 3 trips to Pier 33, the most common departing point to catch the ferry to Alcatraz. Three. Two of them were back to back. I haven’t had a trip to Pier 33 in weeks before this, and even then it was about once a month at most.

It is already spring break for many families with children. This week is spring break for my friends in the City attending the Academy of Art. This poorly formatted website has nicely compiled statistics about spring break dates at various universities.

My daily take-home earnings are definitely on an upswing:

Is this the start of tourist season in the City? Will we see another dip after spring break but before the summer rush?

• These few days were slow, slow, slow. I find it funny that I have such a hard time estimating how much I’ll make beforehand. It’s almost like gambling. The only ‘sure-fire’ well-paying weekends are those with big street fairs or festivals, or huge conferences at Moscone Center.

  I get a bit more stressed when my earnings are on track to be significantly below my all-time shift average of $170 (11-hour shifts). I try to separate out those things over which I have no control, most notably that would be demand for taxicabs in the City during my shifts. But, it’s tough to do in practice.

• I was struggling to find fares on Monday morning during the usual ‘morning rush’ to work. I saw a lady urgently hailing my cab on Fillmore as I headed down the hill in Cow Hollow/Pac Heights. It turned out she was hailing for her husband who was heading to a meeting downtown.

  I really enjoy passengers that exhibit a steady and relaxed aura. Not cold, quiet people — confident and wise people comfortable with their person. This guy was one of those people.

  The first thing he said after putting on his seat-belt was, “You don’t do this full-time, do you?” I replied, “Right now, it pays my rent.” We had a good conversation.

• I picked up a radio call in the Financial District after dropping someone off downtown. The guy was in his mid-20s. He hopped in my cab and said he needed to get to Cupertino. I was a bit worried — I had never gone that far outside of the City. I didn’t do a great job with the protocol.

  I knew the general directions, but I had to call the dispatcher to get directions to the address in Cupertino. I looked up the price estimate and couldn’t believe it — a fare from SF to Cupertino is $160.* Wow.

  *(This includes a 50% surcharge for empty return trip. The ‘meter fare’ is about $100 to Cupertino. SF law says taxis charge 150% of meter fare for trips 15 miles or greater outside of the City. The additional 50% pays for the cost of the empty return trip. I know, this seems like a lot to me too. But, I did the math in my head as I was heading there and back. It is a long trip down there, as much as 2 hours round trip. It uses a lot of gas, let’s say $10 worth. So I could make $20-40/hr for 2 hours and not spend as much on gas if I stayed in the City. So that’s as much as $80 that I would make if I stayed in the City, and I would make significantly more if I had an airport run. If cabs charged pure meter for out-of-town fares, there would be no additional motivation for the increased risk of traffic problems, unknown territory, and higher chance of/penalty from a no-pay that out-of-town fares bring. Thus, without the 50% surcharge, most cab drivers would turn down out-of-town trips.)

  I warned him. He didn’t seem to happy about it, but he needed to be in Cupertino so he dealt with it.

• I was surprised how busy late Monday night (early Tuesday morning) was in the City. For some reason a lot of people went out on Monday night. But, Tuesday late morning and day was rather slow and I was getting stressed out.

  I picked up a sedan call in the Marina. A ‘sedan’ call means no vans, no SUVs. Usually elderly persons request sedans because it’s easier to get in and out of the cars.

  It turned out to be an older lady who had lived in San Francisco all her life. She was great fun. She was heading to the UC hospital from the Marina. She had to move very slowly because of a leg injury, hence the hospital trip. I always love getting older life-long San Francisco residents in my cab. I’ll quiz them all the way to our destination about what life was like in the City back in the day. I’ll also prod them about old school Muni (of course).

  Like the older guy above, she had a comfortable, steady demeanor which really calmed my nerves from the stress of the busy City traffic mixed with low cab demand. Thanks, lady.

• I picked up a dispatcher and driver for another cab company early in the morning. He had missed his Muni bus connection because the first bus driver was flirting with a passenger and didn’t leave on time. Oh, Muni. We talked a bit about the difficulty of needing to judge passengers, especially late at night, before picking them up for our safety. It is a tough and scary thing to do.
• I picked up a Mexican guy in the Tenderloin. He didn’t speak English well and asked to go to “Seventh and Mission.” I started that way and when we arrived, he said, “No, Seventh and Mission.” I realized he had meant “17th”. I didn’t mind, started the meter over, and tried out my very limited Spanish with him. I confirmed that he wanted to go to 17th and Mission. I guess I should keep taking Spanish classes.

During my shifts this week:

• I took an older lady and her daughter back from the hospital one morning. We dropped her daughter off at work first and then I took the lady to her home. When we got there she asked if she could ask a “personal question.” I said sure, no problem. She wondered if cab drivers “need” tips. She had paid one cab driver but he had refused a tip for some reason. I told her that the short answer is yes, we need tips. It’s not required but it makes a big difference in my pay. If I didn’t get any tips I wouldn’t make enough to drive a cab in the City. I’d have to find another job that pays more.
• I took a rowdy group of 6 in my van back to their hotel from the Castro. For the first few minutes they had a loud internal debate about whether or not to go to the End Up after hours club. The deciders up front voted against it so we ended up going to the hotel instead.
• The National Automobile Dealer Association held their 2008 convention in San Francisco. I had a number of convention-goer fares. Business was busy in the City, especially Monday when many people were heading to the airport to return home.
• I had one very involved conversation with a vendor heading to the convention. He had created a chat-based lead generation service for dealership websites. He had recently formed the company after working in the auto CRM industry for a number of years. It was exciting to hear his experience starting the company from scratch.
• I picked up a nice guy smoking a brown cigarette. I thought it was a clove but it turned out to be a hippie ‘natural’ cigarette. We had a nice chat about the chemical effects of alcohol, nicotene, caffeine, etc. A few days later I thought I saw him on Polk Street but didn’t know for sure. He nodded a non-committal nod as though he thought he might know me too. Afterward I thought, it’s funny, when I first started driving I invested a lot of processing thought on the people in my cab. I looked at their faces, thought a lot about our conversation, their destination, their clothes, etc. Now, I do that stuff but spend less brain ‘processing power’ on those tasks. I encounter so many people each week during my shifts that it just doesn’t make sense to commit all those faces explicitly into memory.
• I had a lot of fares from bar and restaurant workers that head out an hour or two after the City-wide 2 am bar closing time. They are fun passengers. They’ve worked on their feet for many hours and are decompressing after what was often a busy and stressful shift. They’re usually sober unlike the other passengers at that time. And they tip really well. I guess it’s a combination of having so much cash on hand after a long shift and understanding the power of a nice tip. Thanks, bar and restaurant workers.
• I picked up a transgender prostitute and her friend from the Tenderloin and took them both to their respective homes. At first I thought the friend was a customer, but he later expressed his (drunk) frustration at the apparent lack of non-transgender prostitutes in the City.
• Sometimes we’ll get radio calls for cab drivers coming to the garage. This is a perfect way to make a few extra bucks when I’m returning to the garage at the end of my shift. I picked up a driver that had been working for our company since the late 70s. He said it took him about 20 years to earn his medallion. He still loves the job. He drives one of the fleet’s few Chrysler 300C models. They get poor gas mileage but he didn’t seem to mind. The acceleration of the 340hp engine is evidently worth the extra cost of gas.
• I played around more with driving in the Financial District (City Center) during weekday business hours. The traffic is annoying, but there seemed to be plenty of street hails, especially as the lunch rush began. It was a good experience and as I learned which streets to avoid (for example, Montgomery Street with its excruciatingly long pedestrian-only traffic light cycle) I began to move around more quickly.
• A catering company worker was standing out on the street downtown with a few bags of prepared food in the Financial and needed to go an office building South of Market to drop off the goods.

  I took him down there, we had a good conversation, and then he asked me to wait. I told him that I couldn’t do that. I knew how long these things can take. It takes forever to get to the right floor, you have to hunt for the office, then you have to put the food out in the right meeting room and find whoever the right person is to sign off on the paperwork (that’s assuming that they’re present) or hunt around for someone that will accept the liability of signing the paperwork. Then you can finally come back.

  I didn’t want to wait that long. In that time I could have found another fare and been off somewhere else. But, he insisted and I was a pushover so I said okay, but I have to run the meter for time while I wait. Five minutes later he is still a no show. I started to get antsy. I had already flipped the taxi radio back on and could hear orders flying by right around me that I was missing.

  He didn’t seem like a flight risk. He didn’t seem like the types I had seen in the past that ran out on bills. Flakes are usually very, very quiet. They avoid direct eye contact and often don’t have a clear destination. He didn’t have any of these traits.

  But, I didn’t think he shared my view of time. He didn’t seem to have an accurate understanding of how long his task would take nor did he clearly understand the cost to me nor the meter cost to him for waiting that long. I decided to wait five more minutes and then cut my losses. Five minutes later he still hadn’t come down and I took off. Sorry, buddy. I guess next time I need to be more forceful about not being willing to wait. Maybe I’ll give out my cell phone number and they can call me when they’re done. That’s probably best.