This morning, I picked up where I had left off filling out the form for Indiegogo.  It about 8:00 a.m. my first film project, Cab Slaves went live. I posted on Facebook, I sent invitations to my line producer, assistant producer, assistant, and cinematographer. Only my cinematographer responded.

I have a 120 family and friends of Facebook. I set my minimum contribution on IndieGoGo  at $1.00.   No one has contributed from my network of family and friends on Facebook.

I had scheduled a shoot tomorrow at 5:00 p.m.. It was cancelled due to the fact that cab drivers wouldn’t be available during evening rush hours.

The organization I’m following has a protest scheduled for next week. One of the days, I have have film class so I can’t make it.

Yesterday, I leased a cab for 24 hours. My company only had one. I had a few things happen that has made me want to get out of this taxi business. First, the fact that I had 1 cab to choose from. If I hadn’t arrived around 5:00 a.m. in the morning, I probably wouldn’t of had that choice.

The second issue is when I got the cab, the engine light was on. I took it to the garage to have the foreman look at it. He opened the hood, took out three electrical wires, waited about three minutes, and hooked it back up. The engine light wasn’t on (This is a little trick of theirs). As soon as I hit the highway, the engine light came back on. Not only did the light come back on, another light came on. It looked like a wrench (transmission).

The third issue I had today was at 4:00 a.m. the Gandolph machine stopped working. The Gandolph machine is the system taxi drivers use to process credit cards. I had to stop working. Now the lost of those two hours, I’m not going to get credit for. Why, you might ask? Because the company just won’t. So that two hours of my lease I can’t get refunded back. There is no one available to fix this problem at 4:00 a.m. in the morning. When I got to the garage, I found out a lot of drivers were effected.

Here is an account of what my income was like for 12-17-2011

24 Hour Lease

Expenses

Lease – $93.00

Gas – $46.72

Total Expenses = $139.42

Income:

$20.00

$39.65 (credit card)

$17.00

$17.49

$9.00

$11.00

$23.00

$37.75

$42.06

$42.00

$12.00

$10.31 (credit card)

$12.00

$10.00

$20.00

$8.00

$9.00

Total ?Income = $335.47 (minus 5% for credit cards)

Net Income = $196.05

Average Per hour = $8.16

12 Hour Lease
Expenses
Lease -$ 60.00
Gas- $ 11.00

Total Expenses $71.00

Income
Cash
$41.00
$11.00
$15.00
$10.62 (credit card)
$13.00
$9.00
$10.00
$8.65
$5.00
$28.26 (credit card)
$8.00
$10.99
$10.00
$6.00
$14.46
$12.00
$9.00
$6.00
$8.00
$6.00
$8.00
$8.00
$22.00
$20.00
$9.00
$10.00
$6.00

Total Income = $316.33 (minus 5% for credit cards)

Net income = $245.43

Average per hour = 20.44

Today was a total disaster which pushed me to leaving my cab affiliation. My day started out perfect. It only took two testing of cabs to find one that I was satisfied to drive for the day. My first customers that I picked up, I knew direction to take without hesitation. My problems started when I took a radio call. A woman wanted to got to O’hare airport. She was a freshman photography college student at Columbia College. She wanted to use a credit card. The swipe went bad. She said she had just used it last night. I read the numbers to the dispatcher over the phone. She said it came back insufficient funds. Rather than call the police, I chalked up the ride as a loss. I did take down her credit card imprint and got her signature.  I went back to the city. I picked up a few more fairs. One customer wanted to go to Lincoln & Belmont. The next The AON Building. I went there flawlessly. I headed back to Lincoln Park and it was 12:00 p.m. That’s when I got my next ride to O’hare. I thought I was lucky. The customer was a film producer working on a twenty-five hour documentary for the Big O. I had a wonderful conversation on the way to the airport about the film industry. When we arrive, my fair was $47.00 with tip. He had a bad swipe. This is when I figured out that it was the company’s machine and not the customers (at least I suspect it was.) When I tried to get an imprint of his card, I did it from the inside and not from the back which really didn’t give me an imprint. I had him sign it anyway. I decided to go back to the garage after talking to the dispatcher. They claimed they never heard of it happening twice. This is the same person who first trained me on the Gandalf machine.

When I arrived at the garage, I talked to the supervisor. He pointed out that I should have made the credit card impression from the outside rather than the inside. While I was sitting inside the dispatch office, I overheard the conversations the dispatchers were having. They were having the same problems with the machine as I was. Maybe not the credit card but saying the system failed.  The supervisor asked if I wanted to attend a Gandalf training class at 4:00p.m. My total loss on the credit cards is $75.00.

I told him I was going to think about it. I went to the window and cashed out.  I signed my paper to get my bond money back, which takes thirty days to get back. They hold it to see if you are going to get any tickets.

So I started taking down taxi telephone numbers and calling to find about driving.

I decided to blog about my new experience as a Chicago cab driver.  I’ve been driving for only five days now. Each day brings a new experience and a new understanding of what it’s like to earn a living as a cab driver. I thought I would use my blog to give insight to cab drivers looking to enter into the profession, as well as those outside the industry who want to know what life is like as a Chicago cab driver.

This morning started out great. I arrived at the garage and picked out a cab without having to check a number of different cabs to get a good one. The night before,  I left my snow scrapper in another cab. Luckily for me the cab was in the same spot I left it last night.

After washing my cab, I pulled my G.P.S. system out of the box and connected the cigarette light. I couldn’t get a connection. Apparently, the light wasn’t working. I unconnected the GPS electrical cord and turned it on by battery. I had no idea how long it was going to last but at 10:30 a.m. my G.P.S. device sent me a low battery message. I found another lighter underneath the tray.

I tried something new this morning. I thought I would go to Hyde Park and pick up customers in that area. After eating breakfast, I drove up and down Lake Park. I took 55th to Cottage Grove to the University of Chicago. No one wanted a cab at 7:00 a.m. No wonder it’s an under served area.

My first customer was a dispatched call. When I arrived in front of the woman’s house, her house was on the same street and  several doors away from where I used to live when I was a teenager. I brought that up when she entered my cab but she was unimpressed. I tried mentioning the woman’s name and she said, “I don’t know names.” So much for friendly banter. She instructed me on what streets to take. “Take North Ave to LaSalle, LaSalle to Clark street, Clark to Jackson.”

My next fair I picked up on State Street. She wanted to go to the Sun Times Building at 350 N. Orleans. I kinda knew where Orleans was but how to get to it I didn’t. I used my G.P.S.  to plug into the address.  I guess because of the buildings downtown, the G.P.S. device starts “recalculating.” I managed to screw it up and the customer gave me directions on how to get there.

I went to O’Hare Airport for the first time. I forgot to add a two dollar surcharge, fifty cent gas tax, and something else, and add the extra dollar for the extra person.However, it was a $40.00 fare.

Today’s Net Earnings: $43.48

Hours Worked: 11.0

Meals: $8.84

Gas Expense: $30.00

Lease Expense: $60.00