Tommy’s was run with class. My boss, Betty - insisted on professionalism (no sweat pants or torn jeans, everyone wore uniforms in the summer, etc). If a driver came to work looking disheveled, Betty would send him home to clean up. Betty was blunt, but she was fair.
BUT, it was still a cab stand. There were bums that hung out at the rail (train station), the smell of piss used to rise up from the tunnel that went under the tracks and there were rats and other critters that hung around the dumpsters.
How I came to get a job at the cab…
During the summer, while I was a junior & senior in high school – I taught swimming at Lucille Stretch Swim School in Ocean Beach. I became close to some of the students and their parents. There was one family I kept in contact with year round. They had a house near Brightwaters Lakes and they also had a house in Ocean Bay Park. I would babysit for the kids and act like a “nanny”. It was a great part-time job.
After High School was over – I was living on my own and continued to babysit for this family. They would pay for me to take a cab to their house every morning and I got very friendly with the Tommy’s drivers. After a few months of conversations – some of the regular drivers convinced me that I could make a decent living driving a cab – enough money at least, that it would hold me over until I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
When I turned 19 (in February), I went to Tommy’s and spoke with Betty. Betty was Tommy’s girlfriend, but she ran the company (under his direction, of course). She looked at my application – told me I needed to upgrade my license to a chauffeur’s license and go down to the Town of Islip and get a hack license. After I got everything I needed – I went back and she put me to work. It probably helped that my father and Tommy were cousins (wood-pile relation is how Ganny described it)… at any rate, I was going to be a hack.
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When you work at the cab you are given a number. It’s called your hack number. It becomes your identity. You use it on your trip sheet, when you call in on the radio and when you sign off on the lease agreement (to rent the cab for the day). To this day – if I run into someone from the cab, I’m Terri #18. Sometimes – I’m just 18.
I had to train for 3 days before I was allowed to drive on my own. My trainer was Bruce #31. Bruce was definitely the epitome of cab driving excellence. He hacked the rail (aggressively yelled “TAXI” at the poor people getting off the train), took customer’s bags and put them in his trunk so they had to ride with him and when there weren’t any calls, he’d position himself at the rail so he had a 360 degree view of anyone walking that looked like they needed a cab. Bruce took hustle to the extreme.
How you make your money… each area of Bay Shore is broken out into a zone from the rail. The further away from the rail you go, the more the fare is. So, you could be at the mall and go to the Brook Ave School in a cab, but it was the same amount as if you went from the mall to the rail – because once you crossed Sunrise, it was a different zone. It was $1 for each additional person and out of town calls were a flat rate. When I started in 1985, a cab from the rail to the mall was $3. I can’t even tell you how much it is now, but I do know – it’s gone up substantially!
So the idea is to drop off your passenger and race back to the rail to be next out – so you can get the next call. As soon as you get to the rail you call in (ex. “18 at the rail”), the dispatcher acknowledges you're there (puts you on the list) and crosses numbers off the list as calls get dispatched out. The person with the most calls, wins (not really – but more calls generally = more money). That’s how you make your money. That formula works when it’s slow.
There were times that it was really busy and you may not make it back to the rail for a couple hours. I loved days like that! If I worked with a dispatcher like Betty, Jerry #41 or Jack #9, they would put the calls together (dispatched you from your drop off) to a call nearby. I saved on gas because I didn’t come all the way back to the rail after every call and most times if I (let’s say) dropped off at the mall, I picked up at the mall – which saved time, too.
At the end of the night (I worked 2pm to 2am), I would gas up and total my book (the total amount of the day’s calls). I split the book with Tommy 50/50 & I paid the gas. At the time, gas was on the rise. Tommy had made an allowance that every call you went on – you could keep 25¢ towards your gas. So… if I had 30 calls - that was $7.50 towards the gas tab at the end of the night.
I was young and it was fun. I made some friends – that are now like family. It was an honest day’s work. I worked with a bunch of dirty old men, but I was tenacious and independent. I learned a lot.
All the cabs are now white, too.
(to be continued…)