Lawyer Brian Greenspan's summer on Niagara tour bus taught him an unexpected lesson
Every day, prominent criminal defence lawyer Brian Greenspan guides (upset, angry, difficult, despondent) clients through the complicated legal progress. In this instalment of 'How I Spent My Summer,' Mr. Greenspan shares how it's not altogether dissimilar from his summer job at 22 years old: shepherding groups of (tired, cranky, bored, drunk) tourists around Niagara Falls in a tour bus. Either way, if you want to get paid, it's all about composure.
I was born and grew up in Niagara Falls, a city for which I still have enormous affection and wonderful memories. My computer screen is Niagara Falls, I hang paintings of Niagara around my office. I just love the place – probably even more so when I moved away to Toronto for law school in '68. To pay for school, I drove a taxi in Toronto during the winter, but every summer, I'd come home to my mother's house. I looked forward to it all year.
At home, from May until Labour Day, I had to be available twelve hours a day, seven days a week to drive a tour bus for the City of Niagara Falls. I didn't work all those hours, but I had to be ready to take three tours a day at three-and-a-half hours each.
I called in most of the time to be both the tour guide – with a microphone in front of the steering wheel – and also the bus driver of a huge 42-passenger blue and white bus. Taxi-driving made me better at driving the bus, and vice versa.
I would get primarily American tourists for the comprehensive tour: We started above the Falls, went to the power plants and the Table Rock House, down the river to the Great Gorge Trip, we stopped at the newly-built Skylon Tower – I could give you the whole tour, right now, as I have probably a thousand times over the years. I'm a bit obsessed with the Falls.
Knowing this, a friend got me a job with the tour guide company. He sold tour tickets in the street and they'd get on my bus for my lesson. I knew a lot already but I read a great deal to learn more. Did you know the drop of Niagara Falls is about half the drop between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario? Or that Niagara River is one of the few rivers in North America that flows north? All of this is still in my head fifty years later. It's not going anywhere.
I can't remember what they paid me per hour, it was that low. The real money was in tips. There was a sign by the door at the bus, placed there deliberately so you'd pass it every time you got on and off the bus, that said 'Unless completely satisfied, please do NOT tip the driver.' Most people wouldn't have even thought of tipping until they were told not to. Reverse psychology works very well.
Unbeknownst to the passengers, tour guides got kickbacks every time they bought a ticket to something. If they paid $6 to go up the tower, for example, I got a buck. If they went to the restaurant I recommended, the restaurant let me eat for free. If they bought a souvenir, I'd get a 10 per cent kickback. All of these were good incentives, though I was being honest with passengers too, because I really was enthusiastic about the Falls. It must have shown, because some weeks I'd make upwards of $300. That amount of money today [about $2,700] was lucrative.
That said, I had to earn it. I had to be very even-tempered and accommodating and not get frustrated. There'd be angry people who needed to be calmed down, sometimes intoxicated people, people with a lot of cranky kids who cried. The human element of managing 40 different personalities could be very difficult some days. Staying patient and maintaining composure was always the most important thing.
I use these very same skills every day when practising law. Whenever a client comes into my office, I have to assess what they need and how to best interact with them to get the best results. I have to be patient, I have to keep their interests in mind, I have to respect the fact that they're relying on me to guide them through the legal process.
I know about something they don't know, and I need to tell them what they need to know and answer their specific questions but not be too complicated about it that it's overwhelming or confusing. And if they're angry or difficult, just like the people on the bus, it's my job to stay calm and try very hard to be understanding and empathetic to their problems. If I want to get paid, that's the job.
As told to Rosemary Counter
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