Let Me Take This Call

It was 12 degrees out with one of those ridiculously low wind chill factors, and I was still recovering from a severe bout of the flu. My eyes were tearing, my nose was running, I was losing sensation in my fingertips and I was beginning to worry that I was going to come up empty on this assignment. By the way, did you ever wonder how the weather people came up with those wind chill numbers,("It's 12 degrees with a wind chill of minus 40, so it feels like minus 60!" How do they know, by the way how cold it feels to you and me?) Anyway...

A few weeks ago I received a page to do an assignment for the Business section. The editor told me he needed a picture of a cabdriver with a cellphone. He told me it was an illustration so I could stop and ask cabbies if they had cellphones. In other words, I didn't have to stalk one out with a telephoto lens.

When I work for the Big Newspaper, I sometimes get a faxed assignment request (if I'm home). Mostly though, I get paged and the details are given to me over the phone. This assignment had come to me by way of the telephone, the night before, and I had had the whole night to think about it. I'd asked the editor how many people he wanted me to photograph and if there were any other particulars I needed to know. It seemed straightforward enough. The editor told me that if I nailed it on the first one, all he needed was one person.

The way I figured it was this: If they're doing a story on cabbies with cell phones, there must be a lot of them, right? How hard could it be? New York City must be filled with them. I've been known to ask one too many questions when it comes to assignments, so much so that I've been asked on more than one occasion: "Markisz, did you hear what I said?" Ok, so I'm slow. I was confident that this was going to be a piece of cake. I'll drive down to Broadway in midtown and hail a few cabs. If that doesn't work, I'll walk over to the Hilton or to one of the other big hotels. Hey, this is New York.

At 10 am the next morning, on Broadway and 54th, I flagged down half a dozen cabbies and not one had a cell phone. Fifteen minutes into my search, I was frozen, feeling faint, and having heart palpitations. It wasn't working out quite like I'd anticipated, and I feared I was getting a relapse of the flu.

I meandered over to a small hotel on W. 54th Street and there happened to be a half dozen cabs waiting in line for fares. The first person I asked was a woman ---with a cell phone! A willing subject, Ms. Rajni Tak let me warm up in her cab, while my frozen fingers numbingly searched for the shutter while she used her cell phone. I asked her a few questions, like what company do you work for? are you self employed? what do you primarily use your cellular phone for? where do you live? I asked what I thought were pertinent questions and went on to find a second subject just to cover my bases. I walked to the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue and 54th Street, to find at least a dozen cabdrivers waiting in line along Sixth Avenue. I went to each and every cabdriver in that line, and not one of them had a cell phone.

I began to wonder what this story was about anyway. I went into the Hilton to defrost for a little while and then I made my way back to my car, which was parked along Broadway. Passing the same hotel as before, I found another cab driver, this time a man named Baldiner Singh who let me photograph him with his cellular phone.

At this point I was nearly passing out, but managed to get downtown to the office with my film. I called the editor and told him the film was in the drink. I had an alternative picture in mind, one that I'd taken while in Europe in November, if the story was more global in scope. The editor told me he was interested in seeing it ---and that I should transmit it later in the afternoon---but it probably was more of a national story.

He then asked me: "You did get the model type of cellular phones that they were using and the type of plans that they have, didn't you?"

"Uh, what?" I gulped.

As I recall, I mumbled something unintelligible.

"I did tell you that this is a story on cellular phone use, not cabbies and cellular phones, right?" he asked me. We just thought it would be good to illustrate the story with a cabdriver.

"Just shoot me now," I thought.

Not one to admit defeat, I figured I had to salvage this somehow without having to go out and reshoot it. I needed to go back home to bed. I called directory assistance in Queens to see if there was a Baldiner Singh listed. There were two thousand of them.

When the editor came up to the lab to look at the film, one of the staffers asked me what I'd just photographed. I launched into a Seinfeldesque version of this story, to which the staffer said: "You know she's busting your chops, don't you??? (although he used somewhat different language) to which the editor replied: "She's 100% right, I hadn't given her enough information."

Fortunately, Ms. Rajni Tak had asked me when the story was going to run. She had asked me if I would call her and let her know. OK, SUSAN, WHERE WAS THAT PIECE OF PAPER, THE ONE WITH HER CELLULAR PHONE NUMBER ON IT? In my pocket was a crumpled piece of paper. 14K gold! I called her and was able to get the model type, and the type of cell phone plan, all of which eventually went with the caption information underneath her photograph, which ran a few days later.

It all ended on a happy note, thanks to the serendipitous request of Ms. Tak for the pub date.

Unfortunately, my alternative picture, which I thought was pretty funny, didn't run. when I was in Europe in November, it seemed that virtually all Europeans had cell phones. People walking and talking on their cell phones, people eating and talking on their cell phones; people driving and talking, people in churches and museums talking on their cell phones. It didn't occur to me that this might be a story in the making, but I did, I thought, get the quintessential European cellular phone picture...a Venetian gondolier with his cell phone, while his clients wait impatiently for him to finish his conversation and get on with the business of taking them for a ride. I respectfully submit my Venetian gondolier rather than my New York Cabbie. Although the scope of the story was not international, this was a better picture.

"Let Me Take This Call" November 13, 1999 copyright Susan B. Markisz

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