Or Throw the Money into a Fireplace, Watching it Burn?
Well, that's what it feels like each month, throwing away my hard-earned cash, that $1500.00 representing my monthly insurance cost, my monthly dispatch fee and the gasoline used to earn it. How many hours at say $30.00 per does it take to make that $1500.00? Divide 30 into 1500 and you get 50 hours of my life thrown away, hours never to be returned. For most folks that's usually a full week's schedule.
And what does Puget Sound Dispatch (Seattle Yellow Cab) give me in exchange? An incompetent dispatch based 8000 miles away across the Pacific Ocean. PSD also allows our two major accounts, Hopelink and MV Metro Access, to dictate the terms we cabbies must abide by, providing no ability to negotiate our own working conditions. It's either like it or lump it. At least this attitude is non-discriminatory, all of us getting equally screwed. Ain't that nice?
Wild Ending to Monday Night
The nice woman from small town Louisiana got in my cab at King Street Station at 10:16 PM, saying her Sea-Tac flight back home was leaving at 11:30 PM. Off I roared, getting her to Sea-Tac at 10:30 PM. And it was raining. Yes, a fast ride but my record from DT is 12 minutes. I was slow at 14 minutes.
Coming back I noticed a time-call sitting in Zone 210 (DT). The nice guy was going home to the Renton Highlands, taking a cab because his Ford Crown Victoria was in the shop. We talked about cars, and once arrived, he insisted on giving me a $100.00 tip. "Are you sure? I asked. "Yeah," he said, "I got the money." Wow is all I can say !
Heading north, home to Bitter Lake, I take a call at the corner of Aurora N and N 109th. I pull up and this very tall prostitute, somewhere between 18-22 years old, gets in the cab, going back DT to a 'John" staying at a local hotel. She was very nice but appeared somewhat bewildered by what was happening to her. I didn't comment. I wished her well. Off into the night she went and me too, done for the day hurrah!
I will finally get an in-person court date
It's clear that the City of Seattle doesn't give a damn how confusing they might be. My scheduled telephone hearing of yesterday turned into something I was told wasn't possible: a now scheduled real live appearance in an actual court room. It will happen sometime in March. Ah yes, the injustice of justice. I suppose I should be happy. In some other countries they would have just put me in front of a firing squad and bang! bang! bang! no more cab driving for me.
God Damn! I have been driving a cab for a long time
From the very beginning, back in September 1987 many have wondered as to why I was in a cab. Knowing I was working a professional gig, a psychiatric case manager, how did I end up in a cab, everyone assuming I had many degrees when in reality my last full year of "formal" education was the ninth grade, and that year not starting until October, and finding myself attending school in four different Canadian provinces and American states. Crazy it was but fast forwarding to 1974 I got my first professional psych job at age 20 even though I didn't have a lick of college. I did toss away two fully paid four-year scholarships. And I was in a therapist-training program but not at a university. Later, in 1976, I got a another psych job, this time running half-way houses and again, they fully knowing I didn't have a degree.
After moving down to San Francisco in 1979 to be with my girlfriend, later wife, I realized I had to fake a degree or not get hired. My job resume was real, just not the degree. My poetry editor gig didn't require a degree, only to be an alienated soul, which I qualified.
Coming back to Seattle in 1982 I had a number of professional gigs dating from then to 1991, when I quit to concentrate on writing. There is much more to this sad tale but given new insurance requirements, showing your college transcripts became necessary, which meant I couldn't show any even when many wanted to hire me. Pretty stupid on my part, and yes, I should have gone back and gotten my degrees. I am a good therapist, and given my three-years of group therapy training, I could teach all that at an University, I really know my "stuff" but with no paper to show anyone I have kept plugging all these years beneath the toplight.
Yes, such a pathetic story! Cry! Cry! those crocodile tears for me, baby!
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