If my week has a hump...
Jan. 25th, 2008 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringIt's Thursday. I drive Tuesday and Wednesday nights, both pretty quiet, Thursday night is cheap drinks night (also called Uni Night) which brings out the cheap drunks, and Friday and Saturday night are full on, where after about one o'clock, I usually have as much work as I can handle.
This week, I've got the two big nights to go and I'm pretty well drained. Wednesday night I started late, because I had to get some fresh tail light bulbs for my son's car, and I took the opportunity to get some photographs printed. This involved rather a lot more time, expense and inconvenience than I'd imagined, but at least I got a set of photographs to illustrate my travels last April.
So I started late. The day driver lives way down in Banks at the bottom of Tuggeranong, which is a long way from where I live. That takes up a chunk of unproductive driving there, and usually back again. At that time of the day, the real work is in the city, taking public servants and consultants to the airport, so I prefer not to hang around Tuggers.
Around midnight, I was a long way short of the income target I set myself each night. Usually, it's easily achievable, and the only time I haven't made it since my first week is the night both headlights blew and I took the car home at dusk. Even so, I'm quite sure that my target is well beyond what a lot of cabbies bring in.
It's a matter of pride for me to make my target, and this night I could see that I'd be driving for a while to make it. Up until the day driver took up his work at five in the morning, maybe.
The other cabbies faded away as work became scarce, and then it was just me and the usual diehards. There wasn't much activity in town, and I chased radio work, but three times I got to the address and there was nobody waiting. One time I caught another cab disappearing away, and I rang base, asking if taxi so and so had had a job there. Yes, came the reply, looks like the passenger called the automated system and then called an operator. I waited a few minutes, but nobody came out, so I headed back to the main rank and a long wait.
I had a nap somewhere around one thirty, pulled into a school carpark and zonked off for twenty minutes or so. But it was after four by the time I snagged a long fare that took me halfway back to Tuggeranong and one dollar over my target.
Last night was the first time it's been close to a normal shift for weeks. Public servants are coming back from holidays, the defence academies are beginning their years, there's even a few politicians around. Steady work.
Big news was that my regular day driver was back from holidays, so I got to deliver the car to him at his start time of four o'clock. Or rather, I picked him up from his home and drove him to mine, having a nice old natter along the way. Nothing better than talking cabbie talk.
He went off to scrape the dregs from an empty city, while I climbed into bed.
Had to be awake a couple of hours later so Kerri could drive me down to far Tuggeranong to pick up my car. That was an hour or so out of my sleep time. And some fool of a telemarketer rang me a bit later.
Now I'm on deck again, ready for my shift. I'm tired. One day I'll start up a service business for the cab industry. Taxidriving Tyres and Exhausts, I'll call it.
I'll be lucky to get through the night without a nap, then I'll try to get some sleep on Saturday morning while the family tiptoes around, finish the week with a big shift on Saturday, and climb into bed, trembling with fatigue, some time around dawn on Sunday.
And, when you look at what I make, it's pitiful. I think the hamburger flippers in McDonalds get more on an hourly rate than I do. The security guards who drive around all night checking padlocks make more.
But I wouldn't trade my job with anyone. I love it.
This week, I've got the two big nights to go and I'm pretty well drained. Wednesday night I started late, because I had to get some fresh tail light bulbs for my son's car, and I took the opportunity to get some photographs printed. This involved rather a lot more time, expense and inconvenience than I'd imagined, but at least I got a set of photographs to illustrate my travels last April.
So I started late. The day driver lives way down in Banks at the bottom of Tuggeranong, which is a long way from where I live. That takes up a chunk of unproductive driving there, and usually back again. At that time of the day, the real work is in the city, taking public servants and consultants to the airport, so I prefer not to hang around Tuggers.
Around midnight, I was a long way short of the income target I set myself each night. Usually, it's easily achievable, and the only time I haven't made it since my first week is the night both headlights blew and I took the car home at dusk. Even so, I'm quite sure that my target is well beyond what a lot of cabbies bring in.
It's a matter of pride for me to make my target, and this night I could see that I'd be driving for a while to make it. Up until the day driver took up his work at five in the morning, maybe.
The other cabbies faded away as work became scarce, and then it was just me and the usual diehards. There wasn't much activity in town, and I chased radio work, but three times I got to the address and there was nobody waiting. One time I caught another cab disappearing away, and I rang base, asking if taxi so and so had had a job there. Yes, came the reply, looks like the passenger called the automated system and then called an operator. I waited a few minutes, but nobody came out, so I headed back to the main rank and a long wait.
I had a nap somewhere around one thirty, pulled into a school carpark and zonked off for twenty minutes or so. But it was after four by the time I snagged a long fare that took me halfway back to Tuggeranong and one dollar over my target.
Last night was the first time it's been close to a normal shift for weeks. Public servants are coming back from holidays, the defence academies are beginning their years, there's even a few politicians around. Steady work.
Big news was that my regular day driver was back from holidays, so I got to deliver the car to him at his start time of four o'clock. Or rather, I picked him up from his home and drove him to mine, having a nice old natter along the way. Nothing better than talking cabbie talk.
He went off to scrape the dregs from an empty city, while I climbed into bed.
Had to be awake a couple of hours later so Kerri could drive me down to far Tuggeranong to pick up my car. That was an hour or so out of my sleep time. And some fool of a telemarketer rang me a bit later.
Now I'm on deck again, ready for my shift. I'm tired. One day I'll start up a service business for the cab industry. Taxidriving Tyres and Exhausts, I'll call it.
I'll be lucky to get through the night without a nap, then I'll try to get some sleep on Saturday morning while the family tiptoes around, finish the week with a big shift on Saturday, and climb into bed, trembling with fatigue, some time around dawn on Sunday.
And, when you look at what I make, it's pitiful. I think the hamburger flippers in McDonalds get more on an hourly rate than I do. The security guards who drive around all night checking padlocks make more.
But I wouldn't trade my job with anyone. I love it.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-25 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 12:26 am (UTC)"This is an ABBA cab," I tell them.
And they tip me well.