Skip to main contentAsk a cab driver to wait for you with the meter running when it's busy, and they'll get antsy. You make more money rolling than you can on the clock. But when it's slow, that's another matter entirely.
A fleet message is going out on this totally dead evening, asking for a volunteer to earn waiting time for Kaiser. I'm dialing before the message is finished. The dispatcher does his best radio-announcer voice: "Congratulations, you are the first caller!" He tells me to go to Kaiser Interstate lab and run its deliveries out to Kaiser Sunnyside in Clackamas as needed, with our $30-per-hour wait time in effect when I'm not driving.
This is odd, as Kaiser has its own couriers, calling us only when there's overflow. When I get there, I find out what happened. One of the machines they use for testing is down. Normal turnaround time from Sunnyside is two hours. If someone is having a heart attack in the emergency room, two hours is far too long to wait for blood-chemistry results. I'm there to ensure this doesn't happen.
The first hour, I run out to Clackamas twice. The rest of the time, I'm glad I always bring something to read in the cab. I could go on about the virtue of certain British music magazines over ours-no ads, no coverage of Britney and her ilk, much coverage of fringe artists and genres, thoughtful writing. I read MOJO and Uncut for about three hours, earning $100. Tough old life, this.
WWeek 2015