I chauffeur execs as a side hustle. I rely on their tips more than base pay to make money.

1 day ago 16

Black sedans and SUVs sit parked on a street as a cyclist rides by.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marcus Thompson, a chauffeur in Tampa, Florida. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider verified the earnings information.

I've been in the Tampa area for about eight years now. I moved down here to work in film.

But when jobs in that industry slowed to a crawl here around 2023, I turned back to a gig I was familiar with: chauffeur. I had done that work before in New York, so I was used to it.

For me, the job is mostly driving a luxury SUV or sedan and providing chauffeur service in professional black-tie attire. I work for a company that provides the cars and coordinates the rides, but I'm a gig worker.

My passengers are mostly executives going to or from the airport Friday through Sunday. The weekends are my busiest days. I pick up pilots who are moving between airports on weekdays, though.

I work as a chauffeur part-time and make about $10,000 a year from that. That's a lot less than I made in New York about 10 years ago, driving stretch limos. There, I would make between $1,000 and $2,000 on a weekend.

One reason for the difference is that customers tipped me directly at my old gig in New York. The hourly wage was low, but the company I worked for there said upfront that about 80% of what you made came from tips.

At my gig here in Florida, people tip the company when they book a ride. Occasionally, a rider will tip me in cash when we arrive at the destination. Most of the time, though, the company pays me around $40 an hour, and that's all I make. I don't get a breakdown showing how much of my pay came from tips and how much came from the company.

Recently, I got a new job with a different chauffeur service. I haven't started driving for them yet, but I'm optimistic that I will make more money overall because the owner used to be a driver and was adamant that chauffeurs there get all of their gratuities.

I think a lot of executives and others who take black-car services are under the impression that when they give a tip, it's going to their driver. That's not always the case. I wish more of them understood that.

My goal is to find a way to do this gig where my skill set is valued. As a driver, you have to deal with people from all walks of life.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter at [email protected] or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

Alex Bitter is a senior retail reporter covering the gig economy, food, and retail. His work focuses major gig delivery and ride-hailing apps, including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Walmart's Spark. He is interested in everything from what it's like to work on the apps to the companies' business strategies.Some of his recent stories feature gig workers who have been deactivated on the apps, DoorDash hiring traditional employees to make deliveries, gig workers' use of bots, and gig work expanding into new professions, such as nursing.Alex has also written about Aldi's US expansion, Starbucks' turnaround efforts, and the fallout from Kraft-Heinz's budget cutting. Convenience store chain Sheetz ended its "smile policy" after his reporting.Before joining Insider in September 2020, he wrote about consumer and retail companies for S&P Global Market Intelligence. He's a graduate of the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and grew up on the Big Island.Alex lives in the Washington, DC, area, where you can find him studying ancient coins or searching for Civil War artifacts with his metal detector in his free time.Got a tip? Reach out at [email protected] or via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1 (808) 854-4501.