About a week ago one of our drivers “Nick” picked up Robert and drove him to Starbucks so that Robert could get some coffee. Robert is disabled, possibly in a number of ways, but most noticeably by the fact that he walks with a crutch. I’m not exactly sure what ails Robert. Robert asked Nick if he could go inside and get some coffee. Nick wasn’t interested and told Robert that he would need to do that himself. Sure, it would have been a nice gesture to get Robert coffee, but in all fairness, it was a little forward for him to ask directly. Robert is able to walk, albeit with the aid of a crutch. Were taxi drivers, not errand runners.
At any rate about 10 minutes later as Robert is walking out he trips and falls and gets stuck right in the swinging door in front of Starbucks. Nick just sat there and watched as Robert flailed away like a fish on the beach. An employee of Starbucks came and helped Robert to his feet and back into the taxi. I could only imagine the awkwardness on the ride back.
I had heard nothing about this until Robert brought it up.
Robert: I went to the Starbucks the other day and tripped and fell as I was walking out. The driver saw the whole thing. He just sat in his taxi and stared.
Me: Oh, yeah.
Robert: Yeah, and then when he dropped me off he told me his name was “Gomez.” I know Gomez, and that wasn’t Gomez.
This is actually a game that a number of us drivers play. Whenever we get a fare that we don’t much care for, we tell our passenger that our name is something else. This is typically a driver that we really don’t care for. Me, well, I say my name is “Kirk.” He’s probably the biggest piece of shit out here, so I try to pass all of the crappy rides on to him. Kirk’s not as stupid as he looks though. He’s caught onto this, and now refuses to take personal requests from people he’s not familiar with.
Gomez, well Gomez actually likes to pick up Robert, although I can’t imagine why…
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