One of the things that I am amazed by is how immigrants can come to the United States and figure out how to make a living, by doing things that would never occur to me, in ways that I wouldn't try.
When we had our kitchen remodeled the plumber was a Bulgarian guy who taught school back in Bulgaria and had a degree in Bulgarian history. He said that he couldn't qualify to teach in American and no one was hiring Bulgarian historians, so he learned plumbing. The decision to come to the United States turned out to be a good one for him, as he saw it.
For our trip these past few days, we made reservations on the Super Shuttle to get from the airport in Los Angeles to the hotel in Anaheim and back to the airport. The fare was $24 per person round-trip. Normal fare is $30 but we had a coupon.
The fellow who picked us up last evening at the hotel was an immigrant from somewhere in the middle east. The ten-passenger van that he picked us up in, had nine passengers booked, including our party, so being the largest I quickly called shotgun, and I got the seat next to the driver.
As an aside the World's Foremost Expert on (fill in the blank), sitting in the middle of the first row of seats behind me and the driver, bitched about the tightness of the quarters. With the passenger to her left pressed tight against the window and the passenger to her right hanging on to the edge of the bench with one butt-cheek suspended in air, she loudly announced, "This is ridiculuous. I know I'm big, but I'm not that big." I beg to differ, sis.
As we drove along I was trying to figure out how the whole Super Shuttle process works. I asked the driver where he parks the van at night. To my surprise he answered, "At my house, this is my van, I bought it."
I had assumed that our driver was an employee and that the van belonged to the company, but it turns out that the each Super Shuttle van is an individual franchise. This guy bought the van, ordered in the distinctive Super Shuttle blue, paid to have all the logo stuff put on and presto he was in business for himself.
In exchange for franchising with Super Shuttle, he pays them $625 per week plus 25% of his fares, about $34 per trip to or from the airport. Assuming he has a full van, he gets about $100 per trip for himself, out of which he pays the van payment and all expenses, except insurance. They provide him with liability insurance, passengers, access to the airport and administrative support.
Whenever he wants to work, he logs into the Super Shuttle system to see what is available and is assigned a pickup. At the airport he has to wait in line with the other drivers to get a load. A wait that can be as little as 15 minutes or two to three hours, depending on the season. Sometimes Super Shuttle will call him if they need a driver to make a pickup right away.
He told me that he would never want to be an employee, so this was great for him. The downside is that he works long hours to make a living, but it is worth it because he can make his own schedule and doesn't have a boss telling him what to do. He enjoys the flexibility.
I'm pretty sure that if you plunked me down in a foreign country tomorrow, with little money and no job, I would quickly become just another homeless guy. These immigrant guys seem to land on their feet. They have dream, and I guess that trumps fear by a lot.
Merle.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky
Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor
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