February 26, 2008 – Parking On The Sidewalk

This morning I came to the taxi to find a nice buttery yellow parking ticket.  My first one in Cortez.  How exciting!  $25.  For what might you ask…  Well, for something I didn’t do of course.  Typical.  I’m beginning to think the cops are a bunch of assholes over here.

I was given a ticket for parking on the sidewalk.  Could it have been an oversight on my part?  Doubtful.  Accidents occur, sure, but it would be pretty hard to park on the sidewalk accidentally now wouldn’t it?  I think I would have remembered it.  I would have had to drive over a six inch curb to get up there. 

Sometimes you get a parking ticket for something that you thought that you could get away with right?  We’ve all done it.  Like running into the store just for a second and not paying the meter.  Most of the time you are able to get away with it.  But parking on the sidewalk…  Now that’s a bunch of shit.  I’d fight it on principal, but it’s only $25.  Not too happy about this.  Not because I got a ticket, but because some son of a bitch completely made it up.  Not just some son of a bitch, Officer Harris to be exact.

February 17, 2008 – Creepy Dennis

           Pretty quiet night tonight.  Every night we get a lull in business between 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m. so the drivers gather around and chat and line up our cabs for potential customers.  Some of us are more personable than others, and then there’s drivers like Dennis…  A few minutes ago a couple came up to Dennis and asked for a ride.

Customers: Hi

Dennis: (Says nothing)

Customers: Are you available? (This is an honest question, there are several cabs lined up in the area, and it’s possible that Dennis is just taking a break.)

Dennis: No, I’m just here for my fucking health.

Customers: Excuse me?

Dennis: I said I’m just here for my fucking health.

Customers:  Ok…  Nevermind then.

The customers ended up taking Dennis later that night - I can only imagine how awkward that was…  Some of our customers refuse to ride with Dennis for some reason or another.  Most likely because he’s a prick. 

Frank Menderson is one of them.  He’s a character himself but that’s another story.  My best guess is that Dennis tried to fondle Frankie at some point.  Dennis is a creepy old man who has been driving cab for like 15 years who is seen by other drivers frequenting transvestite bars outside of work.  He’s in his 60’s, and looks like your typical sex offender.  Quite like Kirk actually.  Something off of Broadway I believe, I think it’s called “Chee Chee.”  I have no idea what goes on in there and honestly I don’t care to.  Hey whatever, to each his own.

If nothing else it looks like total shithole – don’t think anyone is going to debate me on that one… Just another wack-job that Catherine keeps around because he works a shift that no one else wants to work.  

February 2, 2008 – Our Awful Dispatchers

           It’s 9:40 p.m. and Julie will be leaving in 20 minutes.  What a relief.  Everyday except Sunday Julie comes and dispatches from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.   No one likes Julie. To say that she was simply mean would be an understatement.  Julie is presumably in her mid to late 60’s with beady little eyes and granny glasses with freckles and an ass so wide you couldn’t fit it on a park bench.  From what I understand she was a secretary for like 20 years, don’t know how she ended up here...  She could have easily passed for a school bus driver in some little hick town.  Every town has one of those, you know the ugly fat bus driver who screams at the kids.  I digress.

"Julie"

            Not that any of that really matters, it just seems fitting…  The reason that none of us like Judy is because she is constantly SCREAMING, and if that weren’t enough she is TERRIBLE at her job.  To work for her is simply DREADFUL!  Imagine being yelled at all day for mistakes that you never even made.

Julie is a woman with a mans ego.  Under no circumstances have I ever heard her apologize for a mistake that she made.  NEVER.  I have never in my life met a person as stubborn as Julie. There have been numerous studies over the years that suggest that there is a correlation between temperature and aggression.  Perhaps it isn’t really Julie’s fault.  After all, the office seems to be too cheap to use air conditioning.   Although the office wasn’t too cheap to add an addition on, that is before they were forced to tear it down due to a tip to the city.  Pity, a permit would have solved all of that.

When Julie leaves the problems don’t cease however, this is when the overnight dispatcher comes in.  His name is Mendoza and he is every bit, if not more, inept than Julie.  We don’t get screamed at though, so things are much more relaxed.  Problem is that Mendoza is dumb, I mean really, really, fucking dumb.  This guy couldn’t solve a puzzle with 9 pieces.  He would have been a good Walmart door greeter.  There’s speculation amongst the drivers that Mendoza is high and/or drunk at work, which would explain a lot.  I once caught him peeing in the bushes just down the street from the cab office at 6 a.m.  I don’t mean discretely either, right next to the trolly in Old Town.  Yeah, you know the one that shuttles the tourists around…  Welcome to San Diego!