A Ride Around the Town

[skyring]

First day of my taxidriver training course. I dropped Kerri off at her work, and then headed out to Fyshwick, to Kembla Street where the company headquarters (including the training room) is located.

At this point I should really confess that although it's been over twenty years I've been in Canberra, I really have little idea of the street names in Fyshwick. I navigate by bookshops, and the street names are really just extraneous noise. If I have to go to a specific place, I look up the map.

I'm not alone in this. A mate admits that he has a page torn from a street directory ready to hand to navigate around Fyshwick.

I think I'm going to have to learn the names. I now know where Kembla Street is. It's across from where Winchbooks used to be, and the taxi offices are beside the academic remainders warehouse, which I must keep out of if I am to remain solvent. A whole warehouse full of recent and cheap books...

I was beating down the door at 0830, half an hour before the course began, and luckily Brian, one of the instructors, was passing by the front door and let me in.

So I got a head start on the rest of the course, and was busy leafing through my stdent kit when the other four students filed in, spot on nine.

I got a nice big binder full of all sorts of good referenece material. Pleased to see copies of the relevant legislation included. It's always nice tho see the bottom line, rather than have it filtered though several interpretations and summaries.

Lots of good gear and I really only had a quick impression of it all before we started.

Welcome from the instructors, a bat and ball team of Mick (tall and skinny) and Brian (short and chubby). Both have a good sense of humour and I'm looking forward to the next few days. There's a lot of material to be covered, but this pair will make it interesting and enjoyable, with anecdotes and banter.

Greetings from the fleet manager who declared the course officially open and spent a lot of time saying "okay".

We then had to fill out a 40 question test on local knowledge, such as the locations of taxi ranks, shortest routes, points of interest, street names and so on. Each question had a statement to which we were to answer True, False or Don't Know: "The Senate is located in the Queen Victoria Building." My score was 57.2% and there was a thicket of "Don't Know" answers.

Then we filed out and took our seats on a minibus for a day of sightseeing, taxidriver style.

This was great fun. First we went out to the airport to learn how the rank worked there. This can be incredibly busy at certain times of the day and year. Passengers arriving to catch planes just as parliamentary staffers want to head to Parliament House. And there's only room for five cabs on the rank.

We heard from Scott, the carpark manager, and another chap (whose name I misremember) who was the comissionaire. Both of these chaps keep the cabs flowing smoothly and make sure everyone follows the rules.

At 1000 it was reasonably quiet, just busy enough for us to get a sense of how it all works. Brian, who was driving us, was scornful of the airport. "Drop your fare in front, and unless you get another passenger immediately, don't hang around. Get back out in the suburbs and earn some money."

Cabbies who sit in line at the airport carpark aren't making any money. Message received.

We then had a look around the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Royal Military College, adjacent to each other and a good source of work. Sit on the ADFA rank, Brian reckoned, and you were in line for jobs in both training establishments, two big Defence offices, and the suburb of Campbell. Good to know this.

At ADFA we learnt about "The Rock", a big rock in the middle of the cadet accommodation blocks that is the popular pick up and set down spot for the cadets. "You won't see that name in any street directory," we were informed.

The whole day was like that. Like my day of jockeying, I got to know all these little nuggets of information that are likely to be incredibly useful in the months and years to come. Brian kept on pointing out hotels, buildings, ranks with the magic words, "you'll get a lot of work out of there."

One got the sense of people just lining up in the foyer to call cabs.

We poked our noses into the great public buildings. High Court, Parliament House, the National Library. Each had its pick up and set down zones, usually two or three per building, and we had to know them all.

Lunch was at Hughes shops. Brian knows all the best snack bars, and as he tucked into a hamburger and potato scallops outside in the sun, he confessed that his wife would be livid if she caught him eating such food.

Good burgers, and I washed mine down with a ginger beer. I also washed down a couple of headache tablets. Cramming too much stuff into my brain always makes it hurt, and the sun on my scalp wasn't helping.

After lunch we looked around Canberra Hospital, Woden, Tuggeranong and had a big finish in Civic, where we were shown the six taxi ranks. City South, City East, West, North, Main and Centre.

A quick look around the embassy district in Yarralumla and then back to the school, where we filled out the same test as before (except this time there was no "Don't Know" option. I guessed at a couple of questions, but I was happy with my final score of 90%. The other four students had all improved, and one chap scored 100%.

Homework was given out - learn the locations of all the ranks in the city and the shortest routes to various places from City Main and Ainslie ranks - and then we were set loose.

I enjoyed the day. I can make a go of this. And I reckon I can do very well at it.

Comments

[thebiblioholic.livejournal.com]

Apparently in New York, if a cabbie gets a "short fare" out of the airport, they're allowed to bypass the holding area if they come right back to the airport.