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PrintRethinking New Yorkers
What ever happened to the New Yorker as hard-bitten, arrogant, looker-out-for-No. 1? Last month, a guy risked his life saving a man who'd fallen on subway tracks. Now we have cab driver Osman Chowdhury, who found 31 diamond rings inside a suitcase left in his cab. He spent hours tracking down the woman, who turned out to be, not a person with a serious commitment problem, but a jeweler from Dallas. This despite the fact, that the woman had given him a $20 bill for a $10.70 fare and asked for $9 change. That's a 30-cent (3 percent) tip, folks, proving that not everything Texan is big. The woman, for obvious reasons, preferred to remain anonymous and may well be getting a facelift. She did thank the man with a $100 reward. Mr. Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi immigrant who works 12 hours a day, seven days a week, declined at first, but later accepted it to cover fares lost while he tracked down Ms. Lousy Tipper.
Altogether now: "We love New York."
Do the right thing, folks
New York cabbies may be the most maligned workers in the world, but the job's not a day at the beach. Recommended tip: 20 percent. (New York Daily News.)
The view from Brooklyn
"Last weekend, a couple friends and I hailed a cab and three guys tried to steal it from us. The driver knew we were going to Brooklyn, but made the Manhattan guys get out anyway. The result: a hefty tip for choosing Brooklyn over New York. Sometimes cabbies do have a heart, so why not have heart for them, too?"
"My worst experience: I got in a cab in Manhattan and told him I was going to Brooklyn. He told me there was a subway on the corner, and why didn't I take it?"
"If you want to skimp on the driver's tip, then just take the subway and walk. Come on, if you've been throwing money at bartenders all night, spending at least $5 per drink, with a dollar a drink tip or more, then throw another $5 at the taxi driver for a $20 fare. They work longer hours than bartenders."
From DailySlope.com, a site for the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Taxi tales
John from Fife, Scotland: I started work at around 6 p.m., and the night passed well. At around 4 a.m., I was sent to pick up two young females. I had the usual short conversation and dropped the first female at her home. The other one asked me to take her a few streets farther on. As I started, the girl began to speak in broken sentences, "Not my fault." . . . "I don't know why they're not speaking to me." I stopped her and told her I didn't follow a word she was saying. We got to her door and I offered her a cigarette. She accepted and we proceeded to chat. She told me she had had a miscarriage three weeks previous and just HAD to speak to someone. Her boyfriend had left her, her friends didn't understand, she couldn't talk to her family and didn't know where to turn. I listened, told her what I thought. The actual words were irrelevant. She thanked me for listening and left the car, smiling."
Woody from New York: "When you order a Bud at a bar and the tab is $2 because it's happy hour, you probably leave the bartender $1 since its kind of the minimum tip if you don't want to appear cheap. You spend approximately 10 seconds with this bartender. Yet you give him $1. You spend at least 5 minutes in a taxi at a minimum. Why not give cabbies at least a buck as a tip unless they are absolutely the worst driver you have ever encountered or are rude."
Jim Utterback: "I was driving a cab in a Boston suburb and times were slow. I was sitting for almost an eternity, getting more and more angry. After all, we make money only when the meter is running. I finally got a call at the local supermarket. I was so angry, knowing this would be only a couple of dollars. When I got to the market I saw a little old lady with four or five bags. She asked me to put them in the trunk, which annoyed me even more. Something about her voice was familiar but I was too mad to think about it. Then I said in a rather gruff voice, "Where to?"
When she gave me her address a flood of memories came rushing back. The house was four or five down from my old house, and I knew exactly who she was. Twenty-five years earlier, when I was in grade school, my friends and I would stop at her house on the way home from school for cookies. We could always count on Mrs. Lynch. She always had something nice to say and good to eat. Her husband was one of those guys who was always home but you never saw him.
With my tail between my legs I asked if she remembered me. Well, not only did she remember me, she asked about my brother and sisters, and how my mother was doing, and what was I studying in college, and a hundred other questions. She told me her husband passed away five years earlier. She lived alone. When I finally had her groceries in her house, she thanked me and paid me. I put the best two bucks I ever made in my pocket, said goodbye, and went back to the end of a very long line at the cabstand.
