Today marks the first Oracle convention I’ve worked as a night driver since 2007 and if its anything like prior years, it stands to be the busiest week of the year. Fifty thousand people plus show up for the software convention, and between the other regular business travelers and the tourists, there’s no rooms left at the inn. Oracle is so big that people who come last-minute have to find lodging outside of the city or stay in the crackhead hotels down in the Tenderloin, and I’ll be blown away if I don’t take at least one group of conventioneers to their hotel over the Bay Bridge or down towards the airport.
Oracle OpenWorld is also the first convention I remember getting the permission to block off Howard Street, sometime around the time Larry Ellison signed a twenty year contract with the San Francisco convention center to keep the biggest convention of the year in the city. Now the convention not only blocks off Howard Street, which straddles the convention center, but Mason Street downtown by the Hilton as well and while I’m not positive, I would bet that the piers that hold the America’s Cup (sponsored by Oracle) have something to do with the convention this year too. This means a classic traffic clusterfuck and when you throw the extra people coming and going to and from the clusterfuck, well – traffic downtown is going to be gridlocked through sunset.
But it’ll be busy. The nature and size of the convention guarantee a little extra money, as this isn’t a bunch of middle-aged doctors attending the American Association of Cardiologists annual summit. The Oracle convention is about salesman schmoozing with their clients from around the world, and for a lot of the clients it’s a big thank you for spending millions of dollars on software, which goes towards strengthening those relationships and getting them to sign more contracts for more product. The daytime business seems to be about rolling out new products on the convention center floor but the night-time aspect of the convention is not to be ignored, as restaurant buyouts, trips to the strip club and the annual private corporate rock concert are all in full swing.
Which means lots of groups of convention goers going to lots of different places at night on corporate credit cards, in addition to the regular comings and goings of all of the people who live and work in the city every day of the week.
I remember making over three hundred a night back when I last worked it in ’07, and that was with a less expensive meter, the weed paper route and half the amount of driving experience I have now. Maybe things have changed, and maybe because of the traffic I’ll get stuck in it enough to not make it anything special money-wise, but I doubt it. Oracle has always been busy, which is why I’m working my first Monday night since coming back to the night shift a little less than a year ago. The way the cab business is working right now is shaky, so I figure I might as well get it while it’s hot and make some extra money, because winter isn’t far off and I want to store up a few extra nuts like the squirrels do so I don’t get too hungry come January.
Especially if I’m considering splitting the country for Mexico City with the lady after splitting the West Coast for the holidays to go see my folks back east, none of which will be cheap.
It does mean putting up with salesmen and clients for most of my night, but you don’t always get to choose who’s giving you the money. They’ve got it and I’ll take it, which is what matters.
And it’s getting late in the day so time to get to it.
More tomorrow.
