An elite cabbie

It's official! I'm an elite cabbie!

In theory, if not practice. Let me explain.

I drive a taxi belonging to a man who also owns 25 other cabs. He has about a hundred people, all told, within his organisation, ranging from drivers to mechanics to clerks. I've mentioned before that he's a skillful manager, and I'm very pleased indeed to be part of his team.

At the moment all of his cabs wear the Canberra Cabs livery. Canberra Cabs is one of the three "in-house" brands belonging to the monopoly taxi company here in the ACT, and it is by far the most numerous. The others are "Silver Service", consisting of larger and more luxurious cars, driven by more experienced drivers, and "Elite", which are ordinary Ford Falcons like my cab, differing mainly in the brand name, although they are aimed at transporting the "suit" end of the market.

I'm happy to give anybody a ride, but I must admit that I tend to focus on "suits", preferring to work around the Parliamentary zone, where my customers are mainly senior public servants, journalists and the arty end of the tourist trade. The sort of people who appreciate jazz, are frequent travellers, know a Monet from a Manet and so on. I can have some long and thoughtful conversations with these folk, rather than chatting about the weather.

Actually, if you want to know the truth, I'm happiest with a cabbie or ex-cabbie as passenger. We tell each other cabbie yarns and have a wonderful time.

Anyway, the owner rang up the other day and let me know that he was converting some of his newer cabs to the Elite fleet, Taxi 165 was one of these cabs, and consequently I'd have to become an Elite driver. My cab is the BA model of the Ford Falcon, rather than the older AU, and as I've always thought of it as a limousine rather than a hack, any upgrade in status is welcome.

First step was to attend a training course, and as these are held on Wednesday nights, that meant interrupting my shift to attend. Luckily the course only takes an hour or so, and comes after the afternoon peak has died away. I usually pause for dinner at that time, anyway, though my idea of a meal break is more like ten minutes, rather than sixty.

We had five cabbies in the class, all looking like they had more experience on the roads than I, and we settled down in the upstairs conference room, me with my Moleskine notebook and McDonalds cappucino, ready to learn what makes an Elite driver.

Stan, the fleet manager, turned up to instruct us. Stan is the man responsible for standards and discipline amongst cabbies, and although he's a nice enough chap at normal times, he's also a big beefy bloke who takes no nonsense, and my taxidriving behaviour is aimed squarely at avoiding the square of carpet in front of his desk.

He handed out a few sheets of paper describing the rules of behaviour expected of Elite cabdrivers, and then spoke for an hour on these rules. Frankly, I was appalled. We had been told exactly the same things in taxi school, and I regarded them as the minimum expected of a professional cabbie. I don't need anybody to tell me to tuck my shirt in and keep my shoes clean. Or to focus on the needs of the passenger.

I agreed with everything he had to say, of course. I was just sorry that they had to be restated. I think that my fellow cabbies shared this view, judging by the comments passed. One driver had an issue in complying with requests by the passenger to change the radio station, seeming to think that this might be an imposition. From my point of view, the passenger hires the whole cab, and the radio is part of the equipment. If he wants to listen to a radio station that's not my favorite one, that's fine by me. A happy passenger equals a happy cabbie, and when they hop out of the cab, I can change the music back to whatever I want.

It all comes down to filling the needs of the customer, and that's really the bottom line in any business enterprise.

I finished the session, dumped my empty coffee cup in the bin, and got back on the road. A few days later I called in for the second part of the process, a one on one interview with Stan after he had had the opportunity to review my record as a cab-driver. My sins have been pretty minor, I think, and I doubt that any of them made it through onto a permanent record. Certainly I have had no traffic infringements, though that's probably because nobody official has been around in the dead of night to make a list of my large number of illegal u-turns!

I managed to satisfy Stan that I agreed with everything he had said, and that I did my best to live up to the company's motto about exceeding the customer's expectations, and he smiled, said that he was happy for me to join the Elite fleet, and printed up a certificate, stating that I have shown the necessary professionalism to be accredited as a driver for the Elite Taxi network.

This means a lot to me. I'm a professional driver, and recognised as such. Just yesterday, I had a passenger who was so impressed with my driving from the airport that he took my number and booked me for the return trip. He emphasised that he was such a control freak that he rarely felt comfortable as a passenger, but that he had complete faith in my driving skills.

I wouldn't say that I'm a great cabbie (or a great driver, for that matter), but it's good to know that I'm on track.

I've got to hustle myself along and buy some Elite uniforms. My Canberra Cab clobber is dark blue trousers and light blue shirt, which is a good combination, but the new uniform will be tan trousers and green shirt, which is even better, considering my eye colour. I've always felt happiest wearing green.

Does it pay more? Well, no. But it makes me feel better, and that's a bonus. A happy, smiling cabbie translates into cheerful customers.

Tropical Canberra

It's been real tropic island weather here recently. Fine, hot days followed by an afternoon or evening storm. Nice to get the rain, of course, but I prefer my precipitation in a less concentrated form.

Last night before midnight, I heard rumbles of thunder, like a continuous growling. Got out on the balcony and it was a brilliant moonlit night on one side of the sky, and on the other was a huge mound of luminous white mashed potato, lit from inside by lightning. It was a glorious spectacle, but I was kind of hoping that it would stay on the other side of the Mawson-Dickson line. Fill the reservoirs, not the streets.

Alas, it pelted down about an hour later. Thunder, lightning, torrential rain, and then ever-increasing hail. Cabbies usually like hails, but not last night, not this little black duck!

I thought about doing something about the two cars we've got parked out in the weather (the new one, and my neice's, parked temporarily at our place while she's interstate), but figured that if the hail was severe enough to damage cars, it would likewise damage my tender pink skin. Besides, there was a creek running down the driveway, through the carport and past my office door, bearing leaves, branches and little icefloes of hail. I checked on the chooks, but they were safe in their pen, all huddled together in one of the nesting boxes, a solid little cube of brown feathers and drowsy eyes.

So I went back to bed, pulled the covers over my head and went to sleep. As best I could, anyway. I'm still nursing a cold and a blocked up ear, and sleep isn't as easy as it could be.

And in the morning's light, I find about a tonne of mud and gravel that needs shifting. No damage to the cars, thankfully, but it looks like half of Civic is shut down, some roads a metre deep in ice, roofs collapsed, flooding in shopping centres and schools, major traffic problems as the morning peak hits.

I'll probably take over the cab later today from a very haggard day driver with a swag of horror stories.

And then I'll likely have to battle another tropical storm myself...