Training done I’m on my own, I’ve picked up and dropped off my first batch of passengers and keeping a Running Tip total (including the tips I didn’t get when I did all the work during training) we are at $0.
I knew if I was going to make any money at this I’d have to adopt the sunny disposition and professional demeanor my training driver showed me— in other words I couldn’t be myself.
The way pickups work is you circle the airport and stop at each terminal, put the bus in park and then get out and yell the name of the limo service in case someone can’t read the giant letters emblazoned on the side of the van.
You look for movement from all the tired, hopeless souls dragging huge pieces of luggage with them and then you confirm that they are on your list of passengers, put their bags in the back and open the door so they can grab a seat. On your passenger manifest is their name and address so you take a minute to figure out via your road atlas where they live and how best to get there, then you multiply this times as many people as you can pick up and head off. I was thinking I’d stick to five or six passengers, meaning they would be on the bus for less time and it’d be easier to lay out a route— the dispatcher had other ideas and had me swing back around two more times until I had eighteen people jammed into the back.
The problem was they were going ALL over the state. Gloucester, New Bedford, Cape Cod, West Springfield, Worcester, Leominster, Brookfield, Palmer, Barre, East Longmeadow, North Adams— if you look at a map of Massachusetts those destinations were in almost every spot on the map.
I pushed the sunny disposition and from the small talk we were all making I was feeling good about this one. I started to head west to drop off my first passenger just outside of Cambridge when the dispatcher radioed in that I should take my load of passengers to a parking lot at a supermarket in Cambridge for a “prisoner exchange” or whatever they called it.
This was so that they could have buses that were heading North - South or West and better get the passengers home in a timely manner. It was actually impressive thinking the only thing was when I got there I found SIX other buses waiting so all of my passengers disembarked my bus and were placed on all of these other buses. Now being empty I was sent back to the airport to pick up more people. Apparently, despite my being the new guy, I was very fast at getting into and out of the airport.
This would have been fine except for one thing.
Passengers only tip the final driver— so everyone getting off my bus had their luggage picked up and brought over to the new van by the other drivers. So total tips for these 18 passengers despite my incredible charm and personality and all of our clear new friendships and connections came to $0.
I made this repeat trip another four or five times. Same thing. Full load, stop in parking lot, lose all my passengers and any hope of a tip. Hey there was still the amazing minimum wage paycheck, right?
My shift was scheduled to end at 12 midnight, so at 11:15 I radioed in that I would be picking up my last batch and heading in only to be told that no I needed to go back in. Visions of working four straight days with no sleep or shower like my trainer driver crept into my head.
I got my final load of passengers at a little after 1am, this time only four pickups and I was taking all of them home. No prisoner exchange this time. I dropped off the first two passengers in Worcester, they lived about a mile and a half from each other, traveling down the same road twice. They got off without saying a word and had no bags. Tip Total: $0
Passenger #3 was also from Worcester and as I pulled up to her apartment I realized it was on the other side of the very road I’d been driving by.
“I was wondering when you were going to stop, you drove by my house three times.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I asked her.
“I figured you were racist and wanted to drop off the white people first.”
I looked at passenger #4 who was a white male in his fifties. He just shrugged at me at her comment. She walked away. No tip.
The last passenger was a nice guy, he moved to the front. Trouble was it was now half past two and he lived in rural Hubbardston— down a road that had never seen a vehicle that didn’t have a horse pulling it. I dropped him off and he handed me $5.
Three Days; Tip Total $5.
I drove the 40 minutes back to drop the bus off and radioed that I was coming in.
”Make sure you vacuum it and fill the gas tank.” Came the reply.
“Yeah, I’m not doing any of that.” I dropped the bus off as well as my resignation. This was not for me.
“No problem, come back anytime. Drop off your windbreaker when you get your check.”
I informed him I had declined the windbreaker and told him to keep the check— by my calculations it would be $44 after taxes.
They needed it more than I did.