Dawn of Evils
*singing*...birthday month..birthday month...I LOVE September coz it's my birthday month...I know the month's name a mouthful but I don't really care...coz September is definitely my...birthday month..birthday month..*singing* If you think that is bad, look at it this way world..it's a week till my birthday! There's no way I am steering away from being neurotic during my darn birthday month!
Okay, on to a more serious topic. You know how I occasionally talked about taxi drivers especially in the past when it was so freakin' hard to get. Now it is easier coz of the price hike..geez...as people will not opt to take taxi even when they are freakin' late for work. So, some others like me who have doctor's appointment will no longer suffer from extensive wait. At most, ten minutes.
And im not done yet. I just realised upon writing this entry, why the taxi drivers...ten of them in total...didn't stop when I tried to flag down. Yes, you heard me right...TEN FREAKIN' TAXI DRIVERS....didn't do what they were supposed to do which is to pick me up and send me to the destination. But then a secon realisation just hit me. So far, from what I know, only the Comfort taxi drivers have this anti booking system thingey going on in which they will not be manipulated for the drivers' own selfish use like when they seriously had no booking but the 'on call' signal is flashed. See, make life difficult for others especially when they needed taxis when there is a long freakin queue. Now who is paying. Back to wat happened to me on Sunday and so freakin' early in the morning which is 6.08am.
I can instantaneously go into a defensive mode and be all 'yelly' in my blog but ever since that day, I had cool myself down a bit. But I am still not happy and would continue to be all moody actually if not for one kind taxi driver. What can I say...I had to attend this National Event..organized by my company...and had to be there a bit earlier as the buses would come in before the launch of the event. I was gonna run late but it wasn't so far to the event site from where I stayed so I figured half an hour prior to the meeting time would be sufficient. AND GUESS WHAT?!! I had to be so annoyed till I actually broke down and dunno how many people in slumberland could actually hear me talking out loud in annoyance while trying to subdue my tears in when my mother called to check how I was doing outside at the crack of dawn outside. At first I found her first few calls to be annoying as I was feeling rather stressed out because time was running out and no taxi was in sight. Then it hit me...hard...as I realised what was wrong: my attire. I was obviously dressed for some sporting event and then these taxi drivers...I guessed they knew I was going for the so-called big event at some major recreational park and there might be a traffic holdup. So one way to avoid such hold up was not picking me up lah so what was so hard about it. Hrmph...yah.....what was so freakin' hard about it. Im stuck there lah on the same bloody spot! bloody hell...
It was so bad that it drove me insane that I was pratically breaking down on the phone and when off the hook for awhile from my mum, I was actually mouthing out curse words. It was so not me to curse in public and the fact that I was alone and the only signs of people were at the bus stop which I didn't even have to make use of my toes to count how many of them were there. Can you imagine..i was becoming so flustered that no taxi was around initially for like twenty minutes and when they started coming, none..of...them...stopped when I hailed them down. At first I thought they were in a hurry to change shift or what but none of them had the indication that they were 'busy' but had that infamous 'taxi' logo signalling that they were available. But yet, when they slowed down infront of me and then scooted off soon or they just had to see my attire like few metres away and thats it..'adios amigos!' I guess all my cursing was justified huh....so the next logical thing for me to do was to lodge complaints against these taxis. So I took out my pen and paper and started writing down the numbers but by the time I started to take notes, more 'hired' taxis came around and these were genuinely occupied by people. I managed to take down two taxi licence plate numbers which didn't stop and it was unlike me also to lodge complaints easily unless I was really pissed off and I couldn't stand my own annoyance against such people...much more than them being the supposedly annoying ones.
I was also getting panicky not only coz I was getting late but because of an impending road closure and as much as I had no choice but to come down for the event, I didn't want to get stuck in a road jam either. Okay, fyi...I was late and by the time I got a taxi which was almost an hour later, hrmph.........it was already 6.50am. Prior to that, I was getting my hope slightly high when my mother's intense persuasion finally got me to whip out the phone to call the taxi company to book for a cab. I was actually against calling of cab through the booking system not coz of the extra charges (in fact, you don't even have to call for a cab to be charged with the 'extras' nowadays), but how cab drivers could easily manipulate us by going out of their hiding corner and appear out of nowhere right infront of us in a jiffy. And that's extra $4.oo dollars for you, thank you very much. I know life is hard as a taxi driver but what about me? I am also struggling to make ends meet and transport expenses are getting way out of control here the more 'connected' we are in our sunny island of boredom..I mean...Singapore.
Whatever it was, the thing that stole the icing was when I thought that my time of waiting was almost up when I got the taxi number of the taxi coming down to send me to my destination. At first I was kinda worried no taxi would take up the booking upon knowing my destination and it was a short relief after I was able to jot down the number of the taxi coming to fetch me. Five minutes later, I saw the 'on call' sign and it was almost at the brink of stopping from around 3 to 4 metres until HE TOO decided to scoot off. I actually tried to hail it down too when I noticed that the taxi was slightly turned as if it was veering off to the next lane nearly reaching to me. And yup, apparently, he noticed my attire too despite knowing before hand the destination. What the fark......never read meh the destinations on your farkin' control panel..you farker?!!!
When I saw him driving off I turned around and I saw his face looking at his rear view window, he looked like he felt bad for driving off like that as he stopped at a zebra crossing few metres away from me. My mum again called and asked what happened like did the taxi driver come already and when I told her what happened, she got mad too and insisted I call the taxi company back and make the complain and demand the driver to come back. I did and the kind operator said he would try to call the driver for me while I hold the line. Meanwhile, as I couldn't afford to wait that long also, I was trying to hail down at least two cabs which I saw were empty but yah, didn't stop either but I couldn't write down their numbers as my hands were occupied.
So the operator got back at me after managing to get hold of him and he said that he would u turn back to my destination. Guess what again. Just him alone...I wasted twenty minutes which explained why I finally took another cab at 6.50am after I hit the 6.30am mark..the time I was supposed to be there already. Oh, he didn't u turn at all and ten minutes....would it take someone who just left the point of destination...TEN WHOLE MINUTES..to just make a farkin' U TURn? DONT THINK SO...see ah..and I was trying not to be yellish in this entry.
After waiting for a cab from the crack of dawn, and no jokes about that, I got a taxi whose driver was absolutely non biased at all. When he knew where I was going, he didn't look like he was regretting picking me up only saying that there would be a road closure later. I said yah so Im kinda in a hurry before they closed the main roads for the event. I was lucky that the road closure was not such a big scale one...only thing was that they put barricades inside the smaller lanes to close the access to the drop off and alighting point carparks for the 300 over transport buses our company hired.
Anyway, I wanna thank the kind taxi driver who even went into the carpark instead of just alighting me at the entrance of the rather big carpark coz I felt bad that he needed to go out again after that. But he insisted and went in and dropped me off very near to where I was supposed to be. I thank you and I promise to send a letter of commendation to your company for your very kind deed and hopefully, you continue with your efforts to make a good clean honest living. You will be duly rewarded..I mean not by me...but hopefully, in the form of your own good fortune as like what I said, our kind of jobs..it is not easy to earn big money. We're like the small fries in a city where they think they're as ambitious as America but the poor becomes poorer and the rich becomes richer apparently.
So it didn't end off on a bad note as I was almost on the brink of giving up and just head home and report sick. Some people...sometimes just one only...can make your day. The rest? You'll suffer i tell ya...after snubbng me...you..will...suffer for making me miserable at a time when I should be cosy in bed and dreaming of kissing Lee Ryan or any hotties. You will suffer...
Okay, on to a more serious topic. You know how I occasionally talked about taxi drivers especially in the past when it was so freakin' hard to get. Now it is easier coz of the price hike..geez...as people will not opt to take taxi even when they are freakin' late for work. So, some others like me who have doctor's appointment will no longer suffer from extensive wait. At most, ten minutes.
And im not done yet. I just realised upon writing this entry, why the taxi drivers...ten of them in total...didn't stop when I tried to flag down. Yes, you heard me right...TEN FREAKIN' TAXI DRIVERS....didn't do what they were supposed to do which is to pick me up and send me to the destination. But then a secon realisation just hit me. So far, from what I know, only the Comfort taxi drivers have this anti booking system thingey going on in which they will not be manipulated for the drivers' own selfish use like when they seriously had no booking but the 'on call' signal is flashed. See, make life difficult for others especially when they needed taxis when there is a long freakin queue. Now who is paying. Back to wat happened to me on Sunday and so freakin' early in the morning which is 6.08am.
I can instantaneously go into a defensive mode and be all 'yelly' in my blog but ever since that day, I had cool myself down a bit. But I am still not happy and would continue to be all moody actually if not for one kind taxi driver. What can I say...I had to attend this National Event..organized by my company...and had to be there a bit earlier as the buses would come in before the launch of the event. I was gonna run late but it wasn't so far to the event site from where I stayed so I figured half an hour prior to the meeting time would be sufficient. AND GUESS WHAT?!! I had to be so annoyed till I actually broke down and dunno how many people in slumberland could actually hear me talking out loud in annoyance while trying to subdue my tears in when my mother called to check how I was doing outside at the crack of dawn outside. At first I found her first few calls to be annoying as I was feeling rather stressed out because time was running out and no taxi was in sight. Then it hit me...hard...as I realised what was wrong: my attire. I was obviously dressed for some sporting event and then these taxi drivers...I guessed they knew I was going for the so-called big event at some major recreational park and there might be a traffic holdup. So one way to avoid such hold up was not picking me up lah so what was so hard about it. Hrmph...yah.....what was so freakin' hard about it. Im stuck there lah on the same bloody spot! bloody hell...
It was so bad that it drove me insane that I was pratically breaking down on the phone and when off the hook for awhile from my mum, I was actually mouthing out curse words. It was so not me to curse in public and the fact that I was alone and the only signs of people were at the bus stop which I didn't even have to make use of my toes to count how many of them were there. Can you imagine..i was becoming so flustered that no taxi was around initially for like twenty minutes and when they started coming, none..of...them...stopped when I hailed them down. At first I thought they were in a hurry to change shift or what but none of them had the indication that they were 'busy' but had that infamous 'taxi' logo signalling that they were available. But yet, when they slowed down infront of me and then scooted off soon or they just had to see my attire like few metres away and thats it..'adios amigos!' I guess all my cursing was justified huh....so the next logical thing for me to do was to lodge complaints against these taxis. So I took out my pen and paper and started writing down the numbers but by the time I started to take notes, more 'hired' taxis came around and these were genuinely occupied by people. I managed to take down two taxi licence plate numbers which didn't stop and it was unlike me also to lodge complaints easily unless I was really pissed off and I couldn't stand my own annoyance against such people...much more than them being the supposedly annoying ones.
I was also getting panicky not only coz I was getting late but because of an impending road closure and as much as I had no choice but to come down for the event, I didn't want to get stuck in a road jam either. Okay, fyi...I was late and by the time I got a taxi which was almost an hour later, hrmph.........it was already 6.50am. Prior to that, I was getting my hope slightly high when my mother's intense persuasion finally got me to whip out the phone to call the taxi company to book for a cab. I was actually against calling of cab through the booking system not coz of the extra charges (in fact, you don't even have to call for a cab to be charged with the 'extras' nowadays), but how cab drivers could easily manipulate us by going out of their hiding corner and appear out of nowhere right infront of us in a jiffy. And that's extra $4.oo dollars for you, thank you very much. I know life is hard as a taxi driver but what about me? I am also struggling to make ends meet and transport expenses are getting way out of control here the more 'connected' we are in our sunny island of boredom..I mean...Singapore.
Whatever it was, the thing that stole the icing was when I thought that my time of waiting was almost up when I got the taxi number of the taxi coming down to send me to my destination. At first I was kinda worried no taxi would take up the booking upon knowing my destination and it was a short relief after I was able to jot down the number of the taxi coming to fetch me. Five minutes later, I saw the 'on call' sign and it was almost at the brink of stopping from around 3 to 4 metres until HE TOO decided to scoot off. I actually tried to hail it down too when I noticed that the taxi was slightly turned as if it was veering off to the next lane nearly reaching to me. And yup, apparently, he noticed my attire too despite knowing before hand the destination. What the fark......never read meh the destinations on your farkin' control panel..you farker?!!!
When I saw him driving off I turned around and I saw his face looking at his rear view window, he looked like he felt bad for driving off like that as he stopped at a zebra crossing few metres away from me. My mum again called and asked what happened like did the taxi driver come already and when I told her what happened, she got mad too and insisted I call the taxi company back and make the complain and demand the driver to come back. I did and the kind operator said he would try to call the driver for me while I hold the line. Meanwhile, as I couldn't afford to wait that long also, I was trying to hail down at least two cabs which I saw were empty but yah, didn't stop either but I couldn't write down their numbers as my hands were occupied.
So the operator got back at me after managing to get hold of him and he said that he would u turn back to my destination. Guess what again. Just him alone...I wasted twenty minutes which explained why I finally took another cab at 6.50am after I hit the 6.30am mark..the time I was supposed to be there already. Oh, he didn't u turn at all and ten minutes....would it take someone who just left the point of destination...TEN WHOLE MINUTES..to just make a farkin' U TURn? DONT THINK SO...see ah..and I was trying not to be yellish in this entry.
After waiting for a cab from the crack of dawn, and no jokes about that, I got a taxi whose driver was absolutely non biased at all. When he knew where I was going, he didn't look like he was regretting picking me up only saying that there would be a road closure later. I said yah so Im kinda in a hurry before they closed the main roads for the event. I was lucky that the road closure was not such a big scale one...only thing was that they put barricades inside the smaller lanes to close the access to the drop off and alighting point carparks for the 300 over transport buses our company hired.
Anyway, I wanna thank the kind taxi driver who even went into the carpark instead of just alighting me at the entrance of the rather big carpark coz I felt bad that he needed to go out again after that. But he insisted and went in and dropped me off very near to where I was supposed to be. I thank you and I promise to send a letter of commendation to your company for your very kind deed and hopefully, you continue with your efforts to make a good clean honest living. You will be duly rewarded..I mean not by me...but hopefully, in the form of your own good fortune as like what I said, our kind of jobs..it is not easy to earn big money. We're like the small fries in a city where they think they're as ambitious as America but the poor becomes poorer and the rich becomes richer apparently.
So it didn't end off on a bad note as I was almost on the brink of giving up and just head home and report sick. Some people...sometimes just one only...can make your day. The rest? You'll suffer i tell ya...after snubbng me...you..will...suffer for making me miserable at a time when I should be cosy in bed and dreaming of kissing Lee Ryan or any hotties. You will suffer...
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