Computer Breakdown

Sorry Folks for not putting up any posts the past few days. Everything is fine now. I am very relieved to have  an upgraded interface enabling me to continue to share more stories with you.

The past few days have been most frustrating trying to figure out what went wrong with my computer, at the same time working days were just as bad. Monday was the worst as I hardly drove enough to even cover my daily taxi rentals, Tuesday and Wednesday improved slightly and finally today I decided to seek assistance from my troubleshooter to repair my computer and now all is well.

After all the enforced time wasted, I think I better start working now in order to recover some losses and hopefully by tomorrow I will be writing as usual again. Meanwhile, stay tuned, don't go away.

day in the life of a cabbie.......

An actual account of what I do for a living.

Yesterday, Monday 4th of January, 2010, at 5.10pm, I picked up my first passenger from United Square taxi stand, a young lady who wanted to go to Leonie Hill, my metered fare was $6.70 after that, I drove to Great World City where I picked up another young lady going to Hong Leong Building, her fare was exactly $8.00.

Next, at Shenton Way DBS Building taxi stand, a caucasian man going to Sentosa Cove and his fare was $12.20 from there I drove out to Vivo City taxi stand, time was 7.00pm, sent this lady to Toa Payoh Lor.7 her fare came to $16.00. It was 7.35pm when I queued and waited at Toa Payoh Central taxi stand where I finally drove this young Malay boy to nearby Lor.1 for $3.80 by then it was already 8.05pm. This time, I started cruising slowly towards town and eventually ended up in the queue at Raffles City taxi stand at 8.45pm, imagine, all the way without a single passenger. About 10 minutes later, a Chinese couple boarded my cab to go to Hilton Hotel, fare was $8.30 and thereafter, also from Hilton, a young Indonesian mother with her daughter wanted to go for a ride on the Flyer, their fare was exactly $7.00. I then proceeded to Esplanade Mall taxi stand, time was 9.10pm, I waited till 9.30pm when a young Chinese couple with their two children wished to go to nearby Swisshotel for a fare of $6.00, and immediately after, two middle aged caucasian ladies boarded my cab to go to a Sembawang Road condo after passing Chong Pang area, their metered fare showed $19.60 but this paying lady insisted on giving me $22.00 which I reluctantly accepted. 
It was then about 10pm when I drove towards Mandai Zoo taxi stand to queue, and boy, it was a long, long queue. Anyway, I decided to read my New Paper as I slowly jogged along and finally picked up two European ladies wanting to go to Jalan Besar Road near Petain Road, their fare came to $14.60, it was then that I felt a bit hungry and decided to go to Syed Alwi Road coffee shop to have my dinner, a bowl of prawn mee soup $3.00 and a cup of hot barley drink 80 cts. After eating my meal, I ended up in the long queue at Clarke Quay, it was already 11.50pm when I fetched four young European ladies to Swisshotel for $6.20 and lucky enough for me, after a short wait I ferried this young Chinese girl to Ponggol Central at exactly midnight. Her fare came to $21.90, the time was about 12.30am, I felt quite tired and decided to call it a day. It was a rather unusual day for me as there was'nt much converstions involved throughout my working day. Despite the slowdown in taxi ridership, I still managed a fair but still quite low take home pay, can't complain too much though. 
Thank you for sharing this long journey with your friendly neighbourhood Cabbie and now its time for my cup of "Kopi".

slow and low daily takings.......

Schools reopen today and it looks like business will still be the same, slow as in the past few days of the new year. It has been extremely quiet and its a struggle just trying to earn something decent each day. Waiting in a long taxi queue is getting more boring whilst continuous cruising here and there tires you even quicker. Somehow it does not look like business will improve soon, today or tomorrow as some of my friends and I were discussing with each other about our low daily takings when we met during our coffee breaks.

its a good Christmas eve.........

At 5.00pm, it was the start of a very fruitful and non-stop workday. The first passenger I picked up was this pretty young lady from United Square taxi stand. She was first in the long queue and had been waiting for about 20 minutes. She was going home to Yishun street 11, and along the way, we had a pleasant conversation. She told me she was going to have dinner with her family first and later in the evening at about 10pm, she would be celebrating Christmas with about ten of her former secondary schoolmates including a few childhood friends at St. James Power Station where they had already booked a table in one of the clubs where Cantonese and Hokkien songs are part of the music being played there. She said after finishing her secondary education eight or nine years ago, she and her friends have been keeping in close touch with each other and have partied together on festive occasions regularly and tonight is going to be another big bash. Her metered fare came to $18.30 and fares more or less around this amount seemed to be the order of the day as I worked on.

The beauty of this Christmas eve workday for me is that I did not at any time encountered traffic jams at all. It was smooth travelling and there were eager and ready passengers everywhere throughout my working time. I only took two breaks, half an hour each, and the rest of the time was on the road till I called it a day at 3.25am. My overall gross takings amounted to $247.00 for about nine and a half hours of work which was very good. I could have continued for another two more hours but my legs are feeling very tired right now.

Works both ways

Most of my passengers will pay what is shown on the meter or we tell them how much, and usually they pay the fare or round it up leaving a small tip. This works both ways, for instance, if the meter shows $3.90, chances are the passengers will give you $4.00 and tell you to keep the change. On the other hand, if the meter shows $4.10, I will often say just give me $4.00 will do. Once I had a middle aged woman passenger, a school teacher, I heard, and the meter showed $9.95 she gave me a $10.00 note which I took and was expecting her to alight but she just sat there. I started groping through my coin box but could not find any 5 cts so instead, I gave her a 10 cts coin which she took, said thank you and got out of my cab. 
And then there was this guy I fetched from Lucky Plaza to Geylang East Ave 1, the metered fare was $10.20, he gave me 2 pieces of $10.00 notes. I asked if he had 20cts or not, he said "No, sorry, I don't have any coins at all" "Its ok then" and return him 1 pc of $10.00 note and thanked him. He just kept quiet and without a word left my cab. 
Another time I had this young lady passenger whose fare showed $8.80 and she started to grope through her handbag, "Could you switch on the lights?" I did so and she started counting 10cts, 20cts 50cts and 4 pieces of one-dollar coins and finally came up with $8.60. 
"Uncle, only got this much, ok lah, hoh?." 
I said, "But you have a $10.00 note in your hand which I can change??" 
She said, "never mind lah". 
Well what to do? and she said thanks and got out of my cab. This everyday situations are not uncommon and so, sometimes, we just have to give and take.........say "Please" and "Thank You" more frequently.