Day 13 | $24,666 paid | $66,051 till freedom
This is a low-quality post in terms of actual story-telling, but I will push forward with what I have to say anyway since tonight was fairly eventful and I want to get it down before I forget it all.
Observations from My First Night of Pedi-Cabbing
- The owner convinced me it would be a good idea to ride without my shirt to get more attention and therefore make better money. I was treated like a piece of meat all night long, and while it was funny, flattering, and novel at first, it quickly grew old.
- Some drunk girl I gave a ride to literally humped my bike seat. Awkward. Her friend pinched my nipples. Hard.
- I will wear a shirt next time I go out.
- I got comfortable calling out to complete strangers, and I did it quite a bit.
- But out of the seven rides I gave, not a single one of them was from “hustling.” Four of them were from just parking in a spot and sitting in the trailer and waiting for a fare. The othe three were for riding along the road, not saying anything.
- I’m done hustling.
- I hate just parking in a spot and sitting in the trailer. I feel so lazy. I’d rather be giving rides the entire time and making as much money if I were to give rides only half the time and sit around the other half.
- I was riding around for an hour with no fares, growing more and more frustrated, ten seconds away from getting on my bike and riding back to the depot to quit, when three people came up to me asking me for a ride. They turned out to be really cool. I took them to get hot dogs and then dropped them off at Chinatown.
- Giving rides to three drunk and wild dudes from New York who each weighed at least 200 pounds and want me to race their two friends in another pedi-cab is exhausting. I lost. But I still got a great tip.
- I broke only three traffic laws tonight.
- I rode my bike 14 miles.
- I gave 7 rides to 15 people.
- I gave a ride to a couple of girls even though they warned me that they didn’t have the cash and wouldn’t be able to pay me anything. I figured that I needed the practice.
- Other pedi-cab drivers are friendly. Most of them all seem a little off in some way.
- I made some new friends.
- In 4.5 hours, I grossed $107 and netted $72 after the trailer rental. That’s $16/hr. (Which would be tax-free if it weren’t for this blog!)
- All the pedi-cabbies I talked to agreed that tonight was slow.
- I’m exhausted. It’s now 3:36 AM.
- I had a good time overall. It didn’t feel like work.
- I’ll do it again–next Friday and Saturday if I can get on the schedule.
- I’m concerned that it won’t be as lucrative as I was led to believe.
The best part…
- I ended up making $10 more than Joel, my trainer from last night, even though we worked the same hours.
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Hi mate. I’m really enjoying reading your stuff and wish you all the best. It’s really inspirational stuff.
Re: point 7 (feeling lazy sitting in the trailer)…if you’re in for the long haul then I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. You’ve spoken a lot about these guys getting burn out so not killing yourself the whole shift sounds pretty sensible. And if you made more than your trainer then you’re clearly not doing too much wrong and can afford to take the odd break. Of course, if you’re only looking at doing this for a few months then maybe I’m just talking rubbish!
Anyway, thanks for the constant inspiration and making me feel like a lazy git!
All the best.
Thanks, Kevin. That sitting in the trailer business was so, so terrible. I never realized how much action and engagement I require in a job just to stay upbeat until I started pedi-cabbing.
Yay, applause. You don’t think so now, but you’ll probably become a little quirky too. Then again, the people we work with and laugh at (and with) are the most memorable and quickly become favorites. Trust!
Good luck with your roommate and job!
You could have made $100-$150 with an hour of freelance consulting work. You have a Harvard MBA; use it!
“I got comfortable calling out to complete strangers, and I did it quite a bit.”
Really? You “got” comfortable calling out to complete strangers? Implying that you were’t previously comfortable with it? Because I’m pretty sure I remember someone in college teaching me a valuable lesson about being awesome in life by sitting on the front porch “Ciao-ing” everything that walked by. Just saying…
I have to ask: How physically attractive are you? Do you feel that you beat your trainer in revenue for the night due to being shirtless, or were other factors at work?
hilarious man!
Don’t guys pay to have girls pinch their nipples? Sounds like you got a great deal!
Sam
HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!! Nice. You would think so, right? But actually having it done…eh…sounds better in theory than it works in practice.
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