I'd been up all night at a wedding-feast in Pennsylvania, unable to sleep before a 5 a.m. drive-off time to start a special work project nearby in Maryland. Then I worked all day at the airport; part of the assignment gave me a free night's hotel stay, so I took my bags out front of BWI to get a ride to some badly needed sleep.
For the company's convenience and mine, I'd been booked at a low-cost motel near the airport. As I stepped into the taxi, I told the driver standing outside where I was headed. He immediately protested to the official keeping order in the taxi line. The fare was too small, he complained. He'd been waiting forever for a downtown fare. The official was nonplussed.
The driver got in and slammed his door shut. He started to glare at me in the mirror, then seemed to realize I wasn't at fault. I wanted a taxi ride, and he was obligated to provide one. That's how the line-up system worked.
That didn't keep him from bitching, to no one in particular, all the way to my motel. I felt for him, but at the same time, he had elected to participate in the airport-taxi allocation system. He could have chosen some other means of getting fares; hell, he could've gone to work in an entirely different profession. But he'd gotten the short straw today, and there was nothing either of us could do about that.
Sympathy notwithstanding, I tipped him the standard 15 percent. I was in no mood to reward a bad attitude, and he must have known that. He left, and I went to check in.
the reason this story sticks in my mind is, I'd like to think that day was a turning point for that particular taxi driver. All the frustrations of his job had culminated in a $7 fare after hours of waiting. Perhaps he realized then that his welfare depended on a job that had too many variables in it. He would never get ahead like that. And so, within weeks, he abandoned the field and pursued his dream.
I don't know what that dream was. But I believe it led him to prosperity. And by now, he has looked back on that day and realized what he thought was an abominable stroke of bad luck was actually the impetus that led him to change the way he was doing things for good.
