Never never conclude a situation just based on 3 incidents! :o
By Chew Hui Min
Marketing consultant Chris Reed recently proclaimed in an article that Singapore's taxi drivers are the worst in the world.
I would like to lay claim to having met the worst taxi driver in Singapore.
Despite Mr Reed's gripes about how the drivers here frequently take him to the wrong destination, refuse cashless payments, and disappear when it's raining, has he ever been kicked by one?
I bet some of them have thought of giving him a nice powerful one now that his rant against them has gone viral, but I don't think he has.
Well, I have, and yet I don't think they are anywhere near being the worst in the world.
Just as Mr Reed described in his article on the Singapore Business Review website, some taxi drivers may not know the way, and passengers sometimes get into heated "discussions" with them about whose fault it is when they arrive at the wrong destination.
Many years back, I encountered one driver who insisted it was my fault entirely that we were headed for the wrong place (It was late, and I had dozed off).
When I tried to negotiate a lower fare, he started an abusive Hokkien litany of rants against my family, ancestors and, it seemed, everyone I knew.
Incensed, I ordered him to stop the vehicle and stomped off without paying the fare.
He then got out of his taxi, leaving it in the middle of a major road, with the driver's door hanging open, and kicked me. In the butt.
To this day, I find the entire experience rather unbelievable, but that is only one rather-peculiar taxi driver that I have encountered. I can count many more taxi rides which are memorable because they were pleasant.
There was the time a driver returned my mobile phone I had dropped in the back seat, just in time for me to catch my flight. Cabbies have offered to wait until I got into a lift at my block to make sure no harm came to me late at night and, more than once, they have volunteered a discount if they inadvertently took a longer route.
As for new drivers who don't know the roads, I find that quite a few have interesting stories about their past careers as managers; bosses of now-defunct companies; or, once, an experienced stagehand on TV dramas I watched as a kid.
Then, there have been strange encounters of the taxi kind, like the driver who kept up a string of ghost jokes when I asked to go to Lim Chu Kang cemetery, or that uncle who wheezed a lot and looked like he had his eyes closed but still got me home safely.
So, while I can count a few idiosyncratic taxi rides, I remember few truly bad ones and even those make for a good story later.
Mr Reed later clarified that he wrote his tirade because he cared about Singapore's reputation. He also amended his claim to "a minority of taxi drivers", who he said are a "black mark on the tourism and business marketing of our otherwise amazingly run city state".
As a marketing person, he also doesn't see them "as being consistent with the modern and sophisticated Singapore brand".
I prefer to see the taxi drivers I encounter as people trying to eke out a living in a city full of demanding passengers in a rush. They're not just cogs in a well-oiled economy meant to take passengers from point A to point B.
You can also see them as small business owners trying to maximise their profits under a complicated fare structure.
That would help answer some of Mr Reed's questions, like why they prefer to queue at Changi Airport for a few extra dollars.
The irony is that Singaporeans are collectively up in arms in defence of our taxi drivers but, frequently, we are the ones who complain about how impossible it is to get a cab here, or how the cabbies take longer routes.
The fact is that it is not easy to be on the road for long hours every day, having to deal with all sorts of passengers.
So, Mr Reed, our taxi drivers may not live up to your ideal of efficiency but, if you see them as not mere automatons, you may discover that they are weird and wonderful people in their own right. I should know, my dad's one too.
By Chew Hui Min
Marketing consultant Chris Reed recently proclaimed in an article that Singapore's taxi drivers are the worst in the world.
I would like to lay claim to having met the worst taxi driver in Singapore.
Despite Mr Reed's gripes about how the drivers here frequently take him to the wrong destination, refuse cashless payments, and disappear when it's raining, has he ever been kicked by one?
I bet some of them have thought of giving him a nice powerful one now that his rant against them has gone viral, but I don't think he has.
Well, I have, and yet I don't think they are anywhere near being the worst in the world.
Just as Mr Reed described in his article on the Singapore Business Review website, some taxi drivers may not know the way, and passengers sometimes get into heated "discussions" with them about whose fault it is when they arrive at the wrong destination.
Many years back, I encountered one driver who insisted it was my fault entirely that we were headed for the wrong place (It was late, and I had dozed off).
When I tried to negotiate a lower fare, he started an abusive Hokkien litany of rants against my family, ancestors and, it seemed, everyone I knew.
Incensed, I ordered him to stop the vehicle and stomped off without paying the fare.
He then got out of his taxi, leaving it in the middle of a major road, with the driver's door hanging open, and kicked me. In the butt.
To this day, I find the entire experience rather unbelievable, but that is only one rather-peculiar taxi driver that I have encountered. I can count many more taxi rides which are memorable because they were pleasant.
There was the time a driver returned my mobile phone I had dropped in the back seat, just in time for me to catch my flight. Cabbies have offered to wait until I got into a lift at my block to make sure no harm came to me late at night and, more than once, they have volunteered a discount if they inadvertently took a longer route.
As for new drivers who don't know the roads, I find that quite a few have interesting stories about their past careers as managers; bosses of now-defunct companies; or, once, an experienced stagehand on TV dramas I watched as a kid.
Then, there have been strange encounters of the taxi kind, like the driver who kept up a string of ghost jokes when I asked to go to Lim Chu Kang cemetery, or that uncle who wheezed a lot and looked like he had his eyes closed but still got me home safely.
So, while I can count a few idiosyncratic taxi rides, I remember few truly bad ones and even those make for a good story later.
Mr Reed later clarified that he wrote his tirade because he cared about Singapore's reputation. He also amended his claim to "a minority of taxi drivers", who he said are a "black mark on the tourism and business marketing of our otherwise amazingly run city state".
As a marketing person, he also doesn't see them "as being consistent with the modern and sophisticated Singapore brand".
I prefer to see the taxi drivers I encounter as people trying to eke out a living in a city full of demanding passengers in a rush. They're not just cogs in a well-oiled economy meant to take passengers from point A to point B.
You can also see them as small business owners trying to maximise their profits under a complicated fare structure.
That would help answer some of Mr Reed's questions, like why they prefer to queue at Changi Airport for a few extra dollars.
The irony is that Singaporeans are collectively up in arms in defence of our taxi drivers but, frequently, we are the ones who complain about how impossible it is to get a cab here, or how the cabbies take longer routes.
The fact is that it is not easy to be on the road for long hours every day, having to deal with all sorts of passengers.
So, Mr Reed, our taxi drivers may not live up to your ideal of efficiency but, if you see them as not mere automatons, you may discover that they are weird and wonderful people in their own right. I should know, my dad's one too.
Remember this about human nature. You don't remember a good deed played for you a thousand times but you never forget the one in a thousand inadvertent bad. Think about your boss after reading this.
