Do you really want to meet a wide cross section of the human species? Drive a cab!

[FrodosPet]

Driving a cab means that you are going to be meeting the largest possible cross section of humanity. The potential market for taxis is literally every ambulatory person on Earth. Anybody who is somewhere they don't want to be, and for whatever reason has no other option than to pay significant amount of money to be somewhere else, is going to end up in a cab.

On any given day, you may be picking up auto industry executives, university professors, professional baseball and basketball players, doctors, secretaries, hair stylists, fast food workers, travelers from any country on every continent. One moment, you are at a Bloomfield Hills mansion, dropping off a beautiful woman who tips you generously. Soon, you will be behind a Troy industrial park building, dropping off the homeless guy who reeks of urine to his campsite of cardboard and plastic. House, hotel, church, store, stadium, strip club, perhaps someone stranded on the side of the freeway. Literally anywhere that a car can reach, you might be picking someone up or dropping them off.

Happy people celebrating. Sad people crying. Angry people yelling. Catatonic people staring blankly as they attempt to block out the whole idea that they are trusting their lives to a complete stranger. Any possible emotion. Any possible philosophy, dogma, credo, political position. If you drive cab long enough, you will encounter it in your car.

Driving cab is one of the most dangerous, underpaid, disrespected, and frustrating jobs in the world. But no other job that I can think of will expose you to a greater variety of human experiences than picking up complete strangers and driving them to parts unknown.

[world wide wally]

1. I drove a cab in Chicago when I was starting college.

It really was a fun and interesting job. It actually paid well too!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. My cousin drove a cab in Los Angeles in the 1990s

when he couldn't find any other work. His wife would nag him to death to quit because of the colorful stories he told, some about dangerous encounters with armed passengers. He said at least once a week a rider would burst out the door when they reached the destination and run away instead of paying the fare.

[FrodosPet]

3. Fortunately, that has not been my experience

I have had a couple people short on the fare, but never any jump outs.

Only a few people have scared me, but no real problems. One was a couple who gave me a "natural born killers" vibe, and a couple drunks. One was convinced I was long riding him (which I was not... I never long ride as it is bad karma). The other was kicked out of a New Year's party at 10:30pm for beating another partygoer to a bloody mess. Fortunately, he seemed to like me (most people in real life do) and so he spent the part of the ride where he wasn't bragging about his assault trying to get me to buy weed.

I wish the money was better, but it is far from the worst job I ever had.