guerrilla curatorship

jimrock:

manymachines:

For those of you SFers who, unlike me, are not having your parents over for dinner tonight — Berg Injury Lawyers (?!) is picking up cab rides in SF and the East Bay tonight.

(via Mission Mission)

To request a free cab ride home within the city limits of San Francisco, individuals can call Luxor Cab at (415) 282-4141. Tell them Berg Injury Lawyers is picking up the tab.

Oh no. What a clusterfuck this is going to be. Please keep in mind that on a holiday night like this, the likelihood of cab dispatch being able to get a cab to you within 20 minutes is about 30-50%. This is not the fault of the person on the phone or of the driver; this is because there are only 1300 taxicabs on the streets of San Francisco and only a few hundred in the Luxor fleet.

And, on a night like this the demand for cabs spikes from the influx of out-of-towners who don’t know their asses from their elbows, and residents who typically don’t use cabs as much using them for social occasions, in addition to all the regular cab-riding citizens who still need to get to their regular destinations (bartenders, strippers, other graveyard shift workers who regularly take cabs on Friday nights and and know how it works.) This, combined with the higher percentage of drunk idiots not knowing where the fuck they are getting impatient and leaving their pickup point before the cab arrives so he spent five to ten minutes driving fruitlessly out of his way, is going to mean even longer wait times.

What this will also inevitably mean is a lot of verbal abuse of people on the phone at (415) 282-4141 from people whose frustrations stem more from not knowing how it works than anything else. As someone who has answered that phone, let me give you a few words of advice:

1. If you’re anywhere in the northeastern quarter of the city, or the Mission, Haight or SoMA, within a few blocks of a major commercial intersection, go there and flag a cab. It will be faster. I’m sorry it won’t be paid for by Berg, but frankly I’m sure that’s going to run out pretty quickly and you can scrape together the $10. I know you can.

2. Don’t call a cab to a specific address and then leave without telling them. Just don’t do it. You take valuable time out of a driver’s shift and there’s nothing they hate more than futile, time-wasting no-trips. It’s illegal to blacklist your address, but it’s also illegal to smoke pot in concerts, dig?

3. Which brings me to, PLEASE HAVE A REAL ADDRESS. Nobody is going to dispatch a cab to “the corner of Market and Carl’s Jr.” (Yes, I have taken that call.) Or, “we’re on 24th between Noe and Sanchez; the big blue house with the window open. You’ll see us. It’s a big party.” Sorry, no. If you’re in someone’s house, ask them the address and for god’s sake ask them if there’s any special code for the doorbell or whatever, because if a driver can’t find you within 30 seconds they are leaving. (Time is money. Don’t act like you don’t know that. Be considerate of other people’s time. If you’re classy, you’ll provide a phone number AND be within sight distance of the street so you can hop in the car when it comes. A cab is not a limo. If you want limo service, call it, and pay for it.)

4. This is something that will serve you well at other times too. If you call a cab company and wait more than 3-5 minutes on hold before speaking to someone, your wait time will be long. Do with that what you will. If it were me, I’d take muni. If you want to wait, that’s great. They are happy to keep trying to service your order. Just please be understanding and call back every 10-15 minutes and let them know you’re still there. Sorry you have to do that, but please see #2.