All of you sweet little readers know that I’m an advocate for public safety when it comes to drinking and you should never, ever drive drunk.

Accordingly, I’ve always been an avid cab rider and fan.

But if I had a hurkin megaphone for all of Tacoma to hear, after last night I would yell the following at the top of my lungs:

CAB SERVICE IN TACOMA FUCKING BLOWS!

Luckily, I’ve been able to get to the bottom of why it sucks so royally.

Please don’t hate the independent contractor drivers. They’re really not the issue.
The problem is the dispatchers, several of whom don’t have the first clue about customer service.
I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve been hung up on, cussed at and disrespected by these dispatchers just for trying to get clarification on an estimated time of arrival. When I’ve called back to express my concerns about the way I was treated, I’ve been verbally abused again. Great. All the while, my cab hasn’t gotten there any faster, and I’ve been left waiting outside of a bar as late as 3:30 a.m. Ridiculous.

Sure, you often have to wait because the drivers are so busy and the geography they cover is wide, but in one instance where I waited forever, I verified via my cab driver that my request wasn’t dispatched until an hour and a half after I placed my call.

WTF?

As for last night, I was at Masa.

The dispatcher asked me for the address, and I said I didn’t know, but I quickly verified that I was on Pine and Sixth Ave. The dispatcher rudely repeated that she needed an address, so I asked her to hang on a quick second, and she hung up on me.

I called back with the address and told the person that I didn’t appreciate being hung up on. She berated me for not knowing the address, so I said, “OK, will you please have someone pick me up at 2811 Sixth Avenue. Now I’m going to hang up on you.”

At the same time, my friend was calling for a cab for us through his own measures, and the dispatcher said, “Are you in any way affiliated with a woman named Natasha?” He said yes. She said, “We’re not going to make time to pick up people like her,” and she hung up on him.

Dear Dispatcher: Isn’t it embarrassing when you find out that “people like her” are hipster reporters with all eyes on this paper? Boy oh boy did you blow it.

Now I’m forced to resort to something I never wanted to do: play favorites amongst all of the cab drivers that I love so dearly. They’ve all given me their business cards, and I’m going to bypass the dispatchers and call them directly. I’m sure the service will be much better that way. You should consider doing the same.

But the bottom line is that with the way Tacoma’s nightlife is rapidly developing, our cab service here in Tacoma HAS to step up, add cabs to their fleet, and improve their dispatch service.
As a matter of fact, at least two of my bar-owner friends are seriously considering creating their own shuttle service between bars in response to the lack of adequate cab service. Hopefully the owners of Tacoma Yellow Cab, the fleet that has the monopoly on cab service in Tacoma, will realize that this would cut into i profits and make some changes.

I highly encourage you all to call Wilma, the director of operations for Tacoma Yellow Cab. She’s a wonderful, helpful person, and this company obviously needs to hear your feedback if it’s ever going to improve. She works 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and can be reached at (253) 472-3303.

TAXIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!! â€" Natasha