Not Bloody Likely
- - I'm going in a taxi, said well-known Chirpy Cockney Fictional Character Eliza Doolittle.
I hate taxis. The first thing I hate is that the drivers frequently set off before you've put your seat belt on and you spend the first half-mile bouncing along trying to find the slot to put the fastener in, and feeling like an idiot.
So, knowing that rules can make one's life so much easier, I have introduced a rule, thus:
NEVER TIP A TAXI DRIVER WHO SETS OFF BEFORE YOU HAVE PUT ON YOUR SEAT BELT.
This rule removes a bit of the pressure from the biggest taxi dilemma, which is the main reason I don't like taxis: and it is How Much To Tip.
You drive along, watching the fare mount up. Not wanting to be too much of a cheapskate. Not wanting to be too generous.
"That'll be five pounds ninety pence, love." NIGHTMARE! If I give him a fiver then ten pence is just too little for a tip. If I add fifty pence, that makes it a very deliberate sixty-pence tip. Is that acceptable? Otherwise, I don't want to add a pound and ten pence, that's too much.
"Six pounds twenty." NOOOOOOOOO! I don't want to give him eighty pence as a tip, but neither do I want to wait while he counts out eighty pence in change, very, very slowly, staring at me as though I've just starved his baby to death, and neither do I want to tell him to keep fifty pence and give me thirty pence - - that's just too horrible.
So all my taxi journeys are taken up with thinking about these sorts of dilemmas and hence I am a nervous wreck in a taxi. Do other people worry in this way, or is it just me?
Today I came home in a taxi.
"That'll be four pounds fifty, love."
(I LOVE YOU, MR TAXI DRIVER)
"Thank you, here's a fiver, please keep the change."
All taxi journeys should be either four pounds fifty or nine pounds fifty and this is just to let you know that when I'm in charge this will be one of my first laws.
I hate taxis. The first thing I hate is that the drivers frequently set off before you've put your seat belt on and you spend the first half-mile bouncing along trying to find the slot to put the fastener in, and feeling like an idiot.
So, knowing that rules can make one's life so much easier, I have introduced a rule, thus:
NEVER TIP A TAXI DRIVER WHO SETS OFF BEFORE YOU HAVE PUT ON YOUR SEAT BELT.
This rule removes a bit of the pressure from the biggest taxi dilemma, which is the main reason I don't like taxis: and it is How Much To Tip.
You drive along, watching the fare mount up. Not wanting to be too much of a cheapskate. Not wanting to be too generous.
"That'll be five pounds ninety pence, love." NIGHTMARE! If I give him a fiver then ten pence is just too little for a tip. If I add fifty pence, that makes it a very deliberate sixty-pence tip. Is that acceptable? Otherwise, I don't want to add a pound and ten pence, that's too much.
"Six pounds twenty." NOOOOOOOOO! I don't want to give him eighty pence as a tip, but neither do I want to wait while he counts out eighty pence in change, very, very slowly, staring at me as though I've just starved his baby to death, and neither do I want to tell him to keep fifty pence and give me thirty pence - - that's just too horrible.
So all my taxi journeys are taken up with thinking about these sorts of dilemmas and hence I am a nervous wreck in a taxi. Do other people worry in this way, or is it just me?
Today I came home in a taxi.
"That'll be four pounds fifty, love."
(I LOVE YOU, MR TAXI DRIVER)
"Thank you, here's a fiver, please keep the change."
All taxi journeys should be either four pounds fifty or nine pounds fifty and this is just to let you know that when I'm in charge this will be one of my first laws.
posted by Daphne at 5:48 pm
1 Comments:
The only times I take a taxi are when I'm going to and from an airport so I'm not a frequent user by any means.
I sit up front in the non black cab type ones and watch with a sort of 'deer caught in the headlights' look as those numbers click over at an alarming rate and I see the total racing towards an amount that equates to half the price of my flight ticket.
When they introduce a complimentary drink and a choice of in-cab entertainment, then they'll get a better tip. I can take or leave the duty free goods though.
Until then I'll keep asking them 'when do you finish today' ? and 'been busy' ?
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