Worcester: Welcome Back to the Patheticness!

The first night back from my mini-vacation getaway was horrendously ridiculous... This account is recalled mostly by looking at my waybill and wondering how the hell I made it through this night of cab driving...

Goldwaithe Road to Gulf Gas and back
I was instructed to pick up the customer in the back of the apartment complex on Goldwaithe Road. She gets in the cab, tells me we're just doing a round trip to the gas station, can we do a $5 flat rate? No. We're going to see what the meter runs. I stopped the meter at $6, but god only knows what this frantic cheapskate trip to the gas station was all about.

UMASS up my ass
I'm first up at the taxi stand on Lake Ave. for UMASS Hospital. I've been sitting there for quite some time. Oh, before being here, I sat at 100 Research waiting for Denise to come out for her 4:00 pick up, but she ended up walking briskly to another person's car and away she went. Wasted time. I them went to the first up stand...

"Who's first up at UMASS?" I am. "Cab 89, go to the Main Door to pick up (some guy) and bring him to 68 Jacques Ave. (Community Healthlink / Detox Center) on a 362, run the meter." It's utter chaos as usual at the main door of UMASS. No customer. I wait. No customer. Call goes out for UMASS again. I'm first up at UMMASS with a void for which I'm given a $3 void service.

I'm told to go back to the main door to get (some lady) and bring her to wherever, one way, on a 401 for $11 flat. Okay. Back to the main door. I wait. I wait. Chaos. More wait. Then a woman is frantically waving at me and she gets in the cab. Rather obsese woman who's weezing and puffing and the first thing she asks me / tells me is if she can smoke in the cab, she's been dying for a smoke all day. Before I can even say "no", she's already assumed I'd say "yes" just because that's what she wanted to hear and I argued with her about it. "You asked a yes/no question and in fact, NO, I'd prefer it if you did NOT smoke in the cab. She acquiesced, but begrudgingly. She was all discombobulated, scurrying around, scrounging around in her bag of belongings looking for her phone. She asks me to call her phone to see if its even in the cab. I call. No phone. Back to UMASS. Dispatcher says she can either go straight home, no phone OR back to UMASS and stay there. Lady gets up out of the cab only to discover that she was SITTING on the phone. And no, I can't drive her to Henry Terrace now.

Sent to UMASS E-R for a cash customer. I find standing at the entryway for the E-R, the guy I was supposed to pick up to bring to 68 Jacques. He wasn't at the Main Door, but at the E-R. Whoever called FROM THE HOSPITAL, didn't even communicate the right door for him to be picked up. Ridiculous. I drive him to 68 Jacques for $14 on a charge.

City Hospital debacle
Just as I'd left 68 Jacques, a call goes out for City Hospital. Just as I pick a guy up, I'm told that my job had cancelled. But I had a guy in the cab. And part of the way toward his destination, he tells me that THEY are paying for the cab. I stop the cab. "Who is paying for the cab? Who authorized the ride?" It was like I was speaking an alien language. He at least knew a charge account number that made sense and the dispatcher had him on his list, so I'd lucked out and found another incompetent person and was now transporting them to Providence Street.

Memorial Hospital loser
I was first up for Memorial Hospital. Sent to Main Door for a customer who could only go to drop off prescriptions at the CVS on Front Street and then be dropped off herself about a block from City Hall. All this on a meter charge. Simple enough. Customer comes out of Memorial, slowly gets in the cab, I've started the meter already... She's sick. She's throwing up little bits of whatever into a napkin / kleenex she's holding. It's sick. She should've stayed at the hospital. She's not well at all. But I bring her to CVS. She leaves her three clear plastic bags of belongings in the cab. She assures me she'll be in & out. I wait. And wait. And wait. Dispatcher asks me how much the charge came to. I'm still doing it. He tells me to stop the meter and leave. "What about her bags?" I dump her bags in a CVS shopping cart, wheel them on in to the store where she is still at the prescription desk and I inform her that her cab ride is over. I leave.

I then proceed to get another utter cheapskate going from Front Street to the new Price Rite on Southbridge Street. She immediately only wants to pay me $5 for the ride, in traffic... She's totally pissed me off. She gives me $6 in the end, but she's just a cheap ass loser.

Memorial, O Memorial
Fairly uneventful ride with two rather lost people going back to the S.M.O.C. house in Millbury, just off Rt. 146. The weird thing about this place is that it's not really on Rhodes St., but off of Waters Ct. sort of. Just a weird address for weird people.

First REAL Normal Customer of the Day
This is a gentleman I've given rides to before, going from Union Station to Westboro Street. He says he works for the Securities & Exchange Commission, prosecuting financial ne'er do wells. But this is a guy who has his shit together. He's not a disorganized, discombobulated, drug-addled loser who I have to babysit for money. This is a guy I can have a real coherent conversation with.

It's all fairly slow and normal from that point on, but my afternoon / evening has been nothing but dealing with incompetent people who seem to be multiplying and increasing in Worcester like crazy. No, not LIKE "crazy"... ACTUAL crazy...