Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: tow pound, off duty light, taxi school, New York, Upper East Side, New Jersey (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Plaut decided to become a New York City cabbie after getting laid off from a job as an advertising copywriter, then began posting about her interactions with patrons on a blog that forms the backbone of this memoir. The anecdotal structure has its weaknesses, repeating the cycle of passengers getting in the cab, engaging in conversation with Plaut, then leaving either a generous tip or a lousy one. There are also a number of scenes set at the garage, where she slowly develops a friendship with a 62-year-old transsexual driver while struggling to avoid another senior cabbie with bladder control problems. Plaut's growing dissatisfaction with the job provides the memoir with an emotional undercurrent. She has trouble shaking off the feeling that she's wasting her potential, and the drain of interacting with abusive passengers and a hostile police force eventually sets her to dreaming of dying in a car crash. In the end, however, she's grown more comfortable with her fate, ready to continue circling the streets looking for fares. Her storytelling technique may be uneven in this debut, but it shows promise. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Getting laid off can be a door opened, even a golden opportunity, as Plaut found when her advertising job ended, freeing her from trying to plan the rest of her days and to concentrate on what would be next, driving a cab in the Big Apple. What with licensing and fingerprinting fees, a medical exam, taxi school, and a test, becoming a hack wasn't easy. Moreover, being a hack meant being, as a woman, part of only 1-percent of her profession, not to mention belonging to a cohort liberally salted with bizarre characters. While not the only woman in her For-Hire-Vehicle Driver class, she was the only U.S.-born citizen. Many other students had fallen from elevated standings in their native lands to a lowly one in a land of opportunity that offered them few options. The three-day course emphasized the basics—hit the streets early and don't get lost, stuck in traffic, ticketed, or in an accident—and the real learning came strictly on the job, as Plaut's sad, funny, enjoyable account reports. Scott, Whitney --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Villard (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400066042
• ISBN-13: 978-1400066049
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #717,064 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, August 31, 2007

By	www.bookshipper.blogspot.com/ "www.bookshippe... (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This memoir about a female cab driver is good. I enjoyed the down to earth writing by the author but I often felt as though I was searching for the thread of continuity. Melissa would start telling an entertaining story then abruptly end it to go on to another story months later.

I also could never quite get a handle on whether she was actually bragging or complaining about the job she was holding down.

This is actually an entertaining read and I would say buy it. You will learn a few things you did not know - as well as get paranoid about tipping from now on.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great, honest read, December 6, 2007

By	zaxwrit - See all my reviews

I was reading Melissa's blog for a while before her book came out. The book alone is a good, fast read, chockful of great stories and insight. To further expand your experience from Melissa's viewpoint, read her blog as well. It adds an edge to the stories as a bonus not available with regular books not accompanied by blogs. I'm a native NYer and know the city well, and Melissa tells it like it is. I've also been wanting to drive a taxi for a few years but never had the guts to do it, until now thanks to Melissa (final test is today). What fun! Melissa's experiences are honest and real. Way to go!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars As a cab driver, October 14, 2007

By	John Dublin Taxi man - See all my reviews

For the public the cab driver is just someone who is never there when you want them and blocking the traffic when you don't.
You sit in you cab and you are an observer on life. No one would ever believe what people tell to or say to a cabby.
The book is an admission of defeat but I feel she had a personal victory in her sights. Through it all the high points and the lows she was learning about mankind and humanity. a valuable lesson which she shared with you.I started my own blog after reading hers [...]

I wish her well in her new career, the lessons learned while driving a taxi help her and you dear readers in the future.
Well done! success in your next career.