Training Day With Justin

 I was really broke and very glad to be able to get back to work. I walked over to the office and was introduced to a man named Justin who would take me out today and train me on how to be a cab driver. He showed me about the taxi meter and how the radio worked before we even pulled out of the parking lot. He said all of this will make more since after we take a few calls and I get to see how all this works. 

     On the way out of the parking lot, we head down an alley where there are some white houses and Justin says he needs to stop and get something. This apparently is his house. How cool is that!? I mean living about 200 feet from the shop would come in handy if you were running late. Justin got out and went inside. I was sitting all alone in the cab and I could hear over the radio "Fist call...second call...486..check 4..and so forth"  I would soon learn what all of that meant. 

    Justin gets back in the cab and I ask him is he owns this house. He says "Somebody own it."  I guess he must be renting.  He told me the owners of them company Nancy and J.C. (actually the managers, United Cab had been sold to a company out of Ft. Lauderdale called Gulf Coast Transportation inc.) owned  the house and he was living there.

     I did not realize it at the time but this underscored a real problem with the taxi business as a whole. Vetrern Drivers end uppennyless. I would soon learn that you can driver for twenty years and not have  a pot to piss in or a window to through it out of. It is even worse, there are no benefits and no retirement. I was not thinking about any of that, I just needed a job and I had decades to go before I retired. 

     Justin lived most of his life in Lousianna and was pretty much a wildcatter all of his life. He told me a story about a parish where the KKK had a hugh influence. There was a sign on the county line that said "Nigger don't let the sun set on your ass." I really hope that was a long time ago. Justin described himself as a "Coon Ass."  That was a compliment to be called that in Lousianna. He told me stories about drinking and gambling and fooling around with another mans wife. This guy really seemed to have lived an adventursome life. Mine seemed rather dull up to this point. 

   We swung by some of the stands so that I would know were they were at. Justin now said it was my turn to work the microphone in a bidding situation.  A stand 23 went second call. That means any cab that is in that zone, not on a stand, or any cab in a surrounding zone can give the dispatcher their location.  After the dispatcher takes all the bids, he will determine who is the closest cab. 

     I nervously gave our location as Kennedy and Himes. The dispatcher took a few more bids and determined that we had won the call. Cool! We now went over to channel two, which is our information channel to find out exactly where we were going.  Justin said we used to do it all on one channel, but other drivers were stealing fares, so they went to the two channel system. The fare was at the Days Inn on north Dale Mabry. 

     We roll into the parking lot up front of the lobby. This guy comes out with a couple suitcases and says he is headed to Dunedun to visit his elderly father who could not pick him up at the airport when he got in late last night. We were on our way. 

     Justin starts heading up Memorial Highway which will connect with US 19 in the heart of Dunedun. We stop at a red light. The guy in the back seat starts looking around and wants to know why he is seeing neighborhoods and red lights and stuff. He says that when his father used to pick him up, they would go over a long bridge over water. 

     "Thats the Courtney Campbell" Justin Says. "That would put another fifteen bucks on your fare sir if I did that" Justin insist. 

     The guy in the back seat starts to get agitated. He says he if from Broyklyn and he knows when he is getting the run around. That is what they do in New York and he is pissed. 

     "Your taking me the long fucking way you asshole" the guy from Brooklyn declars.

     Justin hits the brakes and pops the trunk. "Get the fuck out" he screams at the guy. The guys draw dropped. The guy says no and he and Justin argue back and forth. The guy finally promises to be good if we will just get him to his fathers house. Justin agress and we are now on our merry way.

    On the ride back to the office, Justin says that you don't ever have to take abuse from a passenger under any circumstances. Justin said he had put many a fare out for bad behavior, and he said you can use any profanity they use. I was thinking I was going to enjoy this job.

     Back at the shop part of my training was to sit in and watch the dispatcher do his job so I would have a better understanding of how everything works. The dispatchers name was Tom, but drivers called him Pirate. There was a time when they used handles instead of cab numbers. 

    I was telling Pirate that it had gone pretty good with Justin and that he had lived an interesting life in Louisiana.   Pirate began to laugh.  It seems most of Justin's time in Louisiana was in theLouisiana State Prison! The rest of that must of just been bullshit. 

 

Comments

[Andrew]

I've considered driving a cab before. I won't reach the required minimum age until July 2011, or else I would have already done it. I'm in the same boat you were in when you started. Unemployed, broke, and out of options job-wise. Do you have any helpful words of wisdom to offer about the cab business?

[Larry Jewett]

Nice post Tim. It brings back some memories. I believe that in 1998 a driver named Amy broke me. I had driven for Yellow, please don't shoot me, in Jacksonville. By the way I worked in the oil fields in the 1980's. There is a parrish on Hwy 18, I believe, called Placquman (sp) that still feels that way about the black folks. Years ago it was run by a man named Judge Perez. At his home in Burras they still set a place for him to eat the evening meal. You get caught breaking the law in that parrish it was said they will put you under neath the jail, never to be heard from again, so maybe some of the stuff Justin Simmons said was true. Regarding the first part of your post, you started before I did, but you don't have to retire broke. You just have to give up some things. Larry UC157

[Carol]

I remember Pirate ! Man blasts from the past !!!!!

[Carol]

Did Justin ever come out to Citrus Park and play Backgammon with Tim !?

[at]

Now that was pretty good. I enjoyed it.