The Problem of No Time: The Taxi Driver's Daily Dilemma

What I really want to write about today is a subject taking more time than I can give it at this present moment as I have to go to yet another taxi-related meeting which means getting dressed and doing the 30 mile drive from Tacoma to Seattle. That topic, driver versus dispatch must await til later tonight but I will briefly comment upon having too little time, something the average cabbie knows everything about.  Many drivers work a 12 hour shift 7 days a week. Since the majority have families you can begin to see the difficult math.  12 hours for the shift plus 1 hour total commute time to and from the lot plus a minimum of 7 hours sleep adds up to 18 leaving merely 6 hours for eating, talking to the wife, playing with the children, going to the bank, to the post office translating to no time whatsoever. What a life it isn't which explains why every so often drivers take off 1-3 months and go back home forgetting everything about taxi.  Even after my usual five days off I feel the dread of returning to a world I have no interest in entering.  As I tell folks, taxi is a perpetually fatigued industry.  Everyone is tired and requires more sleep which perhaps explains everything which somehow it does. Now I too must fly off with too little time and an incomplete mind!  But of course of course I am doing fine!