[The 500] Falling Behind

It was my last day as a taxi driver.  Twenty years ago, no one would have cared.  They would have gotten another job somewhere; truck driver, retail worker, fast food.  Those were the glory days before the robots.  Its not like they didn't warn us, we needed to have some kind of a system to accomodate people who weren't developers.  But we just didn't care.  God knows I didn't.  I was having a great time.  I remember the teens with fun; twenties were better.

But you kinda noticed it, even then, even if you didn't want to.  Robot here; robot there.  But hey, work hard, play hard.  It was a free market.  It's all good.

And I did work hard.  I got my first job as a taxi driver when I was 19, and I was good at it.  That's why it took me so long to notice; sure Uber and Lyft and all of the alphabet soup medicine companies were doing ride sharing; but the companies were assholes.  I was the driver with a personal touch.  People got along with me and I got along with them.

Eventually, the robots took all the jobs from the uber drivers who were taking it from taxi drivers.  And I just smirked because people were always gonna want a personal touch, not some fucking robot to drive them somewhere. I had survived the touch times, and now I was In Like Flynn.

The job changed and I changed with it.  Needed to wear a tux while you were driving? No problem.  Needed First aid training? No problem.  Needed to be able to be a fully liscenced bar tender capable of running the mini bar while driving? No problem.

I got training in psychology, etiqutte, fashion, self defense, stunt driving and the local history of the city.  The bar kept going up and up and I went with it.  There came a point where Taxi driver was synonymous with Rocket Scientist or Brain surgeon.  And I reveled in it.  At a time of 33% unemployment, and the rest of the world reached Post Industrial status, the United States became a backwater gulag for all but the 1%.

I was the 1%, so I didn't care.

But the higher you rise, the harder you fall; a lesson I learned all too well.  It wasn't Robots or Ninjas (they became a thing in 2025, don't ask) or cyborgs (2030) or zombies (2035), but keys. I lost the keys to the car.  Its a simple thing, right? I mean people lose their car keys, but not if you are a Taxi Driver.  You are expected to be the best of the best.   You are in the care of this 2 million dollar vehicle.  It is smarter than you are, but you are its human face.

If you lose your keys; its like mixing up the medication on your elderly grandparent.  Who wouldn't want to steal a taxi?

So of course my Taxi fired me.  I don't blame it.

But being unemployed is a 60 hour job now; you never have time to train or look for a real job.   Church, dancing, proxy voting, training in the Trump value book..it never ends.

I enjoyed my moment in the sun.  I regret nothing.

Except losing my keys.