Who wants to be a cabbie?- The Malaysian Insider
October 13, 2010 - Seriously, who does? Clunky vehicles, long irregular hours, traffic jams, rude customers, low variable pay, and no prospects of promotion can make Jack a very crabby boy indeed. I guess taking customers for a ride literally and figuratively is probably the only entertainment that pays a little extra as well as relieves the monotony of the job. Cabbies are usually quite chatty for perhaps the same reason; anything to relieve the tedium.
But if you are at the receiving end of their whims when you are hot, tired and just have to get home, it can be less than pleasant experience. You fly in to KLIA, take a train to Sentral and as you walk up to the prepaid taxi counter you come across a notice which says that there are no taxis between 5-7 pm. You walk out and see lots of taxis, it’s just that they don’t want to go anywhere as it is ‘all jammed lah’. Refusing to go buy the meter, taking long detours or flat out refusing to go anywhere that you want to go are a familiar litany of KL taxi users. And no amount of training, enforcement sweeps or complaints seem to be able to eradicate this menace. You may still learn to put up with it till you take one trip across the causeway and realise that not all cabbies are the same. In certain parts of the world, they are actually known to be paragons of exceptional customer service. Spotless uniforms, clean cars with GPS, they will actually take you where you want to go without the mandatory indifference to what the official meter may call the fare.
So what is the difference between their cabbies and ours? Is there something in the very nature of people who take up this job in our country that makes them resistant to change, however attractively it may be packaged, or however severe the penalties for breaking the rules may be?
There are actually some perks of being a taxi driver that have appeal to a certain kind of person. Are there people who could not or did not want to get higher education and who dislike physical labour and like office hours? Also those who like a nap now and then, who are not particularly ambitious, who’s only certified skills are that of a driver and who do not see the need to go rushing around pointlessly to make more and more money, are those who would find a cabbie’s life particularly interesting. Sound familiar?
This is why enforcement of the rules as applied to taxi drivers is somewhat lax. Compared to more serious, violent crime, prosecuting somebody for demanding a little bit more money from a person who is obviously better off since she can afford a taxi does not seem like such a big deal. Also, is there a possibility that the people entrusted with enforcement see a little bit of themselves in the cabbies and are therefore lenient? After all, low pay, long hours, tedium and low promotion prospects are not the preserve of taxi drivers alone.
As passengers too, many of us intuitively regard them the same way and tip them much in the manner of pizza delivery boys. This superficial empathy is born out of our understanding of how while their job is essential, it is not something we can imagine ourselves doing.
Is there any hope then for a solution that leads both cabbies and their customers to a mutually beneficent place? What if we removed the ‘perks’ of the job as it stands today and replaced them with more universal perks?
For instance what if we operate our taxi companies like corporations, with a small fixed wage plus variable pay, decent shifts, medical and retirement benefits for the front liners, i.e. the cabbies and give them promotion avenues? In general, if we treat them like colleagues rather than menials, things should work better. Technology can also play a critical role in monitoring driving and behaviour patterns of drivers today.
Basically we need to make the job more desirable to those who want a career, and less desirable for those who want a job. This would probably also entail eliminating small (one taxi) entrepreneurs from the trade to ensure a level of standardisation of customer service and encouraging more controllable competition.
40 ringgit from Ikea to Bangsar, did you say?
But if you are at the receiving end of their whims when you are hot, tired and just have to get home, it can be less than pleasant experience. You fly in to KLIA, take a train to Sentral and as you walk up to the prepaid taxi counter you come across a notice which says that there are no taxis between 5-7 pm. You walk out and see lots of taxis, it’s just that they don’t want to go anywhere as it is ‘all jammed lah’. Refusing to go buy the meter, taking long detours or flat out refusing to go anywhere that you want to go are a familiar litany of KL taxi users. And no amount of training, enforcement sweeps or complaints seem to be able to eradicate this menace. You may still learn to put up with it till you take one trip across the causeway and realise that not all cabbies are the same. In certain parts of the world, they are actually known to be paragons of exceptional customer service. Spotless uniforms, clean cars with GPS, they will actually take you where you want to go without the mandatory indifference to what the official meter may call the fare.
So what is the difference between their cabbies and ours? Is there something in the very nature of people who take up this job in our country that makes them resistant to change, however attractively it may be packaged, or however severe the penalties for breaking the rules may be?
There are actually some perks of being a taxi driver that have appeal to a certain kind of person. Are there people who could not or did not want to get higher education and who dislike physical labour and like office hours? Also those who like a nap now and then, who are not particularly ambitious, who’s only certified skills are that of a driver and who do not see the need to go rushing around pointlessly to make more and more money, are those who would find a cabbie’s life particularly interesting. Sound familiar?
This is why enforcement of the rules as applied to taxi drivers is somewhat lax. Compared to more serious, violent crime, prosecuting somebody for demanding a little bit more money from a person who is obviously better off since she can afford a taxi does not seem like such a big deal. Also, is there a possibility that the people entrusted with enforcement see a little bit of themselves in the cabbies and are therefore lenient? After all, low pay, long hours, tedium and low promotion prospects are not the preserve of taxi drivers alone.
As passengers too, many of us intuitively regard them the same way and tip them much in the manner of pizza delivery boys. This superficial empathy is born out of our understanding of how while their job is essential, it is not something we can imagine ourselves doing.
Is there any hope then for a solution that leads both cabbies and their customers to a mutually beneficent place? What if we removed the ‘perks’ of the job as it stands today and replaced them with more universal perks?
For instance what if we operate our taxi companies like corporations, with a small fixed wage plus variable pay, decent shifts, medical and retirement benefits for the front liners, i.e. the cabbies and give them promotion avenues? In general, if we treat them like colleagues rather than menials, things should work better. Technology can also play a critical role in monitoring driving and behaviour patterns of drivers today.
Basically we need to make the job more desirable to those who want a career, and less desirable for those who want a job. This would probably also entail eliminating small (one taxi) entrepreneurs from the trade to ensure a level of standardisation of customer service and encouraging more controllable competition.
40 ringgit from Ikea to Bangsar, did you say?
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