I don't drive. I know that seems crazy, but I lived in major American cities for the better part of a decade and in metropolitan areas in other countries, even in the easily-mocked and slowly crumbling USA, it is much cheaper to get around without a car, and in many cases easier/faster as well. If you don't need to commute far, and you don't make a ton of day trips, there's usually an affordable all-services transit pass that will cover 90% of your needs.
In Glasgow that is an absolute fucking joke, but I didn't know that when I moved here. And being from the car capital of America, and having known how to drive since I was 14, I just plain refuse to pay the extortionate fees and give up the ridiculous amount of time required to get a license just to deal with the traffic on Pollokshaws Road every day.
For years I solved this problem by having my mother in law do the supply runs with me once a week. Unlike most people, I really liked my mother in law, and right up until the end of my marriage she liked me too. It was a nice little bonding day. Two hours or so, talking shit, bemoaning the decline of the British work ethic, and trading industry stories (she used to run a sort of roll shop/dairy and a cafe out in Paisley for the majority of my wife's youth).
When my wife and I eventually split up I relied on Sam #1, one of the best employees I've ever had, and his very dependable 'nightshade' (not purple; not black) Qashqai. We bought supplies on Mondays, prepped them on Tuesdays, and life was breezy. Then Sam moved to Dundee, and I went back to the internet, where I met a series of one-off, pleasant supply runners, including Jim, the Most Interesting Man On Earth, whose exploits I still follow with interest, until settling into a lockdown groove with Sam #2 and his small but sturdy Nissan Micra.
This lasted until Sam2 came off furlough and was recalled to the "real" workforce, leaving me once again at the mercy of the internet. Thankfully, I hired Jake somewhere in there and also bought a very nicely maintained 2007 Nissan Note for our mutual business needs. Jake had a license but no car, I had a car and no license, and together we were freewheeling, mobile men with matching bikes who spent 18 out of 24 hours with each other for the better part of a year. Totally normal story. Happens all the time. Then Jake also moved, not to Dundee but to Yeovil, which people tell me is even worse.
I hear it has a bar called The Bullet, though, so it cannot possibly be all bad.
Once again I found myself at the mercy of the internet, only I thought it would be much easier now since I actually had a car so all I needed was a licensed driver who was free between 9:30am and 12:30pm on Tuesdays (a category I would imagine would include almost every resident of this city) so every Thursday for four fucking months I would make a post and/or story asking for a driver to help get the food that NANIKA needs to function. 8500 followers. Regular DMs every day/week/month. And yet somehow, and despite the fact that this is a paid job, for money, I got either no responses at all or FAR MORE ANNOYINGLY was left standing at Nanika from 9:30 until 10:15am not once, not twice, but three times by three different people who didn't have the courtesy to even let me know they were not coming, nor why. So much for that amazing "community" you're always seeing little posters and stickers about.
(Jonathan, a customer we all love, who has a 9-5 job and is thus usually unavailable for the supply run has nonetheless done an amazing job of doing the supply run quite often these past few months, and I would like to take this opportunity to say that without him we would have definitely closed down several months ago, so thank you Jonathan)
So I have been making a three hour, easy round trip that I used to make weekly with a variety of fun, friendly people, by myself, on buses and in taxis, for the past two months or more, which takes something like eight hours over two days (those two days being the only ones I have off every week) because nobody with a license wants to do a three-hour circuit around Glasgow where the actual time spent driving is probably under 30 minutes and the rest is just sitting in parking lots reading books or walking through Asian markets touching weird vegetables.
Do I have an explanation for this phenomenon? Do I fuck.
At the beginning of lockdown I couldn't sleep for the constant pinging of my phone because everyone and their cousin wanted to know if I wanted a delivery driver, so I am fully aware that there are hundreds, likely thousands, and if we're being honest a couple hundred thousand people who could do this job. If you know why they aren't, go ahead and share that reason with me, because now that GlasGo cabs has bought up all the smaller companies I literally cannot get back to the shop with the supplies every week.
The restaurant will close down, permanently, if I cannot get supplies. It's not some abstract concept. If I cannot get the food I cannot cook the food. Point A to point B, in a nice straight line.
I can think of thousands of reasons why people wouldn't want to work in the hospitality industry.
I can think of almost none why they would not want to drive around and drink coffee and hang out in the SeeWoo parking lot while I buy kecap manis. Especially when they don't even have to use their own goddamned car. But there are many things I do not understand in my old age, like why over-watering and under-watering plants causes the exact same symptoms, or why companies that have been stealing and selling your data without consent for years are allowed to say "we care about your privacy" when trying to make you accept advertising cookies, or why anyone ever liked Mrs. Brown's Boys, etc.
A world of mysteries.
Keeps you on your toes.
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