Pete Enters Parliament
Oct. 26th, 2006 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringAs you will recall, I had just started my first shift, accepted a fare to the airport and taken my first payment.
So, here I was, a vacant cab at the airport. Canberra airport isn't too remote, but obviously the optimum strategy is to get a fare back to town. To make money, I've got to have a passenger in the cab and the wheels turning, and if I'm driving back empty, i'm not earning.
However, airport rules are that cabs can't pick up from the kerb outside the terminal. Not usually, anyway. You have to drop off your passenger, go around the loop, wait in the cab yard, pay $2 to get through the boom gate, and then move onto the rank as directed. I'd looked at the cab yard when I came in, and it was full of waiting cabs. One thing that had been drummed into us at the training school, and that was that we shouldn't waste time hanging around the airport. If cabs were needed, the commissionaire at the terminal would call for them on the MDT well ahead of time.
So I headed back into town. A message came over the MDT that there were 20 passengers awaiting cabs at Parliament House. This sounded pretty good to me - they would likely be heading for the airport as Parliament had finished sitting that day, and although Members of Parliament get driven around by government chauffeurs, their staffers have to take taxis. So I turned off at Kings Avenue and climbed up to Capital Hill.
Australia's parliament house is actually built into the hill at the apex of the Parliamentary Triangle laid down by Walter Burley Griffin. It's a perfect setting for a grand and elegant building, and I love it. In recent years it has been disfigured slightly by security barricades, and even more recently the ring road around the building has been changed to one way, anti-clockwise. This is so that passengers may alight directly onto the kerb, but it involves some tricky traffic at beginning and end, and it means that if you go past where you want to be, you can't back up, but have to go around the whole great loop again.
Now, my idea of the work involved was that I'd pull up to a cab rank where there were passengers waiting, and cabs such as mine would come along and collect them. I could see the clockwork comouter simulation in my mind. Little Lego figures waiting at a shelter, a lego cab comes along, passenger hops into the cab, passengers move up one step in the line, repeat until you run out of passengers. This didn't match the reality I encountered, and there was a fatal mistake I had made earlier on, back at the airport, so my time here wasn't quite the doddle it appeared.
Firstly, it was peak airport time. Everyone wanted to get to the airport in time to make their flight, and preferably with enough time to spare that they could spend some time relaxing with a few quiet drinks in the Qantas Club. At the very least, they wanted to make their flight, thereby avoiding all the hassle and delay and expense of a missed flight, possibly having to stay in Canberra an extra night.
Secondly, the cab ranks at Parliament House aren't ones where you get a line of cabs waiting for customers. There's nothing to stop you driving up and waiting on the rank, but usually there's no action, so cabbies don't do it, and consequently people wanting a cab will make a booking, rather than walk down to an empty rank.
Ideally, as I approached, the system would have monitored my GPS location and offered me a job, based on the string of bookings. I would have gone to the appropriate location, found the passenger, and taken him or her to the airport.
Unfortunately, jobs are only offered to vacant cabs, and although I had no passenger in my cab, the system didn't know this, because I had neglected to clear the previous fare from the meter, and as soon as my wheels began turning again, the meter began adding to the amount. So my cab was apparently hired, and the money was racking up on the display, which I hadn't noticed.
I entered the ring road, and pulled up outside the Senate, where a couple of people were in that "I want a cab now!" attitude, complete with airport luggage. They approached me, quoting booking numbers. I certainly wan't going to steal a booking that was meant for another driver, so I politely refused their insistent advances, and drove on. Same deal at the Ministerial entrance. Passengers aplently, but they all had bookings.
I then moved onto the House of Representatives entrance, and here my troubles really began. There were a group of obvious travellers, all lined up, more or less. I pulled up at the first in the line, but he had a booking. "No, no," I said, "I can't take another driver's booking!"
"But I've been waiting for half an hour!" he wailed.
I was adamant. By this stage, others were edging towards me, asking me if I was here to collect booking 222, 777, 999... I was rapidly becoming the most popular man in Canberra, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. "Can you call for more cabs, then?" I was asked.
Ulk! Contact the base? How did I do that? I pulled out my manual and thumbed through it, seeking guidance. I also noticed at this moment, with some horror, that my meter was on, ticking away, and was showing a good ten dollars or so more than it had at the airport. How did I stop it? How did I make it return to zero? How did I get out of this awful situation? In another moment, people would be comandeering my cab at the point of a briefcase, maybe declaring a state of emergency.
The base rang back, "Go ahead Car 94."
I stammered out a long list of booking numbers, while any number of high-powered people looked on desperately, and with my other hand I punched feverishly at the buttons on the meter. I was doubly stuffed. Not only could I not accept a booking, but I couldn't even reset the meter. I suspect that quite a few of the people waiting would have happily paid what amounted to a $35 flagfall so long as I could get them to the airport, but I was waaay outside my comfort zone.
I did the only thing I could do at that point, which was to drive off in an empty cab and leave all those people standing, shaking their fists after me.
I found a quiet spot and finally worked out how to reset the meter. Bear in mind that this was one aspect that hadn't been covered on the course, and although I'd watched Mike when i was jockeying, it's one thing to see someone push the buttons and another to do it yourself and get it right.
As soon as my meter was clear and the status changed to vacant, I received a booking. Ministerial entrance, I drove around the loop, got there, and nobody turned up. I then got an urgent call advising that this booking had been cancelled. So I accepted another booking, driving around the loop yet again. this time I noticed that a flood of taxis had appeared, cleared away all the passengers waiting, except for the chap who had been at the head of the line. I smiled ruefully at him.
Another no-show when I looked for my second booking. Five minutes waiting, then I thought, well, blow it, obviously that guy isn't going to get a cab if everyone after him has gotten one, so i'll go pick him up.
Which I did. I explained that this was my first shift and we'd had it drummed into us that you didn't steal other driver's bookings. He wasn't going to the airport, just to a hotel in Civic. I pulled in there, he paid me in cash, and then wanted a receipt. Uh-oh. How did I get the little printer to spit out a receipt for a cash payment? It did this automatically for a card payment, but no matter what buttons I pushed in whatever sequence, it didn't work. Eventually I sent him away receiptless, making a mental note to find out how to make a receipt.
By that point I'd been hijacked by a chap anxious to get to the airport, except that "anxious" doesn't do his condition justice. I got him there, and although I took notes as to the details of he and all my other fares that night, I must confess that by about eight o'clock my brain had ceased to function, and I gratefully signed off early.
But one thing I won't forget, and that is that for all the instruction given me during my training, and for all the signed certificates, my learning experience has really only just begun. The older and wiser cabbies say that you never stop finding new ways to do the job.
At the very least, I said to myself as once again the vision of those haunted faces at Parliament House appeared in my mind's eye, at least I was able to get a few people to their destination, and even if I made a few mistakes, that's something I achieved that wouldn't have happened if I'd not taken that first, brief shift.
But I'm determined to do a better job in future. I've got a long way to go to be the perfect professional cabbie, but I'll get there. I'll look back and laugh at myself in the months and years to come, I'm sure. Anyway, buckle up in the back, there, and join me for the ride!
So, here I was, a vacant cab at the airport. Canberra airport isn't too remote, but obviously the optimum strategy is to get a fare back to town. To make money, I've got to have a passenger in the cab and the wheels turning, and if I'm driving back empty, i'm not earning.
However, airport rules are that cabs can't pick up from the kerb outside the terminal. Not usually, anyway. You have to drop off your passenger, go around the loop, wait in the cab yard, pay $2 to get through the boom gate, and then move onto the rank as directed. I'd looked at the cab yard when I came in, and it was full of waiting cabs. One thing that had been drummed into us at the training school, and that was that we shouldn't waste time hanging around the airport. If cabs were needed, the commissionaire at the terminal would call for them on the MDT well ahead of time.
So I headed back into town. A message came over the MDT that there were 20 passengers awaiting cabs at Parliament House. This sounded pretty good to me - they would likely be heading for the airport as Parliament had finished sitting that day, and although Members of Parliament get driven around by government chauffeurs, their staffers have to take taxis. So I turned off at Kings Avenue and climbed up to Capital Hill.
Australia's parliament house is actually built into the hill at the apex of the Parliamentary Triangle laid down by Walter Burley Griffin. It's a perfect setting for a grand and elegant building, and I love it. In recent years it has been disfigured slightly by security barricades, and even more recently the ring road around the building has been changed to one way, anti-clockwise. This is so that passengers may alight directly onto the kerb, but it involves some tricky traffic at beginning and end, and it means that if you go past where you want to be, you can't back up, but have to go around the whole great loop again.
Now, my idea of the work involved was that I'd pull up to a cab rank where there were passengers waiting, and cabs such as mine would come along and collect them. I could see the clockwork comouter simulation in my mind. Little Lego figures waiting at a shelter, a lego cab comes along, passenger hops into the cab, passengers move up one step in the line, repeat until you run out of passengers. This didn't match the reality I encountered, and there was a fatal mistake I had made earlier on, back at the airport, so my time here wasn't quite the doddle it appeared.
Firstly, it was peak airport time. Everyone wanted to get to the airport in time to make their flight, and preferably with enough time to spare that they could spend some time relaxing with a few quiet drinks in the Qantas Club. At the very least, they wanted to make their flight, thereby avoiding all the hassle and delay and expense of a missed flight, possibly having to stay in Canberra an extra night.
Secondly, the cab ranks at Parliament House aren't ones where you get a line of cabs waiting for customers. There's nothing to stop you driving up and waiting on the rank, but usually there's no action, so cabbies don't do it, and consequently people wanting a cab will make a booking, rather than walk down to an empty rank.
Ideally, as I approached, the system would have monitored my GPS location and offered me a job, based on the string of bookings. I would have gone to the appropriate location, found the passenger, and taken him or her to the airport.
Unfortunately, jobs are only offered to vacant cabs, and although I had no passenger in my cab, the system didn't know this, because I had neglected to clear the previous fare from the meter, and as soon as my wheels began turning again, the meter began adding to the amount. So my cab was apparently hired, and the money was racking up on the display, which I hadn't noticed.
I entered the ring road, and pulled up outside the Senate, where a couple of people were in that "I want a cab now!" attitude, complete with airport luggage. They approached me, quoting booking numbers. I certainly wan't going to steal a booking that was meant for another driver, so I politely refused their insistent advances, and drove on. Same deal at the Ministerial entrance. Passengers aplently, but they all had bookings.
I then moved onto the House of Representatives entrance, and here my troubles really began. There were a group of obvious travellers, all lined up, more or less. I pulled up at the first in the line, but he had a booking. "No, no," I said, "I can't take another driver's booking!"
"But I've been waiting for half an hour!" he wailed.
I was adamant. By this stage, others were edging towards me, asking me if I was here to collect booking 222, 777, 999... I was rapidly becoming the most popular man in Canberra, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. "Can you call for more cabs, then?" I was asked.
Ulk! Contact the base? How did I do that? I pulled out my manual and thumbed through it, seeking guidance. I also noticed at this moment, with some horror, that my meter was on, ticking away, and was showing a good ten dollars or so more than it had at the airport. How did I stop it? How did I make it return to zero? How did I get out of this awful situation? In another moment, people would be comandeering my cab at the point of a briefcase, maybe declaring a state of emergency.
The base rang back, "Go ahead Car 94."
I stammered out a long list of booking numbers, while any number of high-powered people looked on desperately, and with my other hand I punched feverishly at the buttons on the meter. I was doubly stuffed. Not only could I not accept a booking, but I couldn't even reset the meter. I suspect that quite a few of the people waiting would have happily paid what amounted to a $35 flagfall so long as I could get them to the airport, but I was waaay outside my comfort zone.
I did the only thing I could do at that point, which was to drive off in an empty cab and leave all those people standing, shaking their fists after me.
I found a quiet spot and finally worked out how to reset the meter. Bear in mind that this was one aspect that hadn't been covered on the course, and although I'd watched Mike when i was jockeying, it's one thing to see someone push the buttons and another to do it yourself and get it right.
As soon as my meter was clear and the status changed to vacant, I received a booking. Ministerial entrance, I drove around the loop, got there, and nobody turned up. I then got an urgent call advising that this booking had been cancelled. So I accepted another booking, driving around the loop yet again. this time I noticed that a flood of taxis had appeared, cleared away all the passengers waiting, except for the chap who had been at the head of the line. I smiled ruefully at him.
Another no-show when I looked for my second booking. Five minutes waiting, then I thought, well, blow it, obviously that guy isn't going to get a cab if everyone after him has gotten one, so i'll go pick him up.
Which I did. I explained that this was my first shift and we'd had it drummed into us that you didn't steal other driver's bookings. He wasn't going to the airport, just to a hotel in Civic. I pulled in there, he paid me in cash, and then wanted a receipt. Uh-oh. How did I get the little printer to spit out a receipt for a cash payment? It did this automatically for a card payment, but no matter what buttons I pushed in whatever sequence, it didn't work. Eventually I sent him away receiptless, making a mental note to find out how to make a receipt.
By that point I'd been hijacked by a chap anxious to get to the airport, except that "anxious" doesn't do his condition justice. I got him there, and although I took notes as to the details of he and all my other fares that night, I must confess that by about eight o'clock my brain had ceased to function, and I gratefully signed off early.
But one thing I won't forget, and that is that for all the instruction given me during my training, and for all the signed certificates, my learning experience has really only just begun. The older and wiser cabbies say that you never stop finding new ways to do the job.
At the very least, I said to myself as once again the vision of those haunted faces at Parliament House appeared in my mind's eye, at least I was able to get a few people to their destination, and even if I made a few mistakes, that's something I achieved that wouldn't have happened if I'd not taken that first, brief shift.
But I'm determined to do a better job in future. I've got a long way to go to be the perfect professional cabbie, but I'll get there. I'll look back and laugh at myself in the months and years to come, I'm sure. Anyway, buckle up in the back, there, and join me for the ride!
