[Razzy]

Originally Posted by Desi

Razzy, yes, I'm brown. Born and raised in Canada, but of east-indian descent.

jpsum: I bought a Bimmer because I can. University in Canada is actually pretty cheap, $5,000/2 semesters. I only "had" to work a little bit driving the cab to pay for my tuition and necessary expenses, and then voluntarily worked for more hours because I wanted a bimmer. Simple. Plus its not like I pumped every penny I made into buying a car.

Everone else: Glad you liked the first one. I'll post more when I get home, taking the cab out tonight for a few hours. Plus I'm aggravated as hell, my Bimmer was rear-ended and I just got it back from the dealership and it looks like shit. I wanted to trade it in on an e92 and now they are offering me like $6k less because of an $8,500 repair, and all for something that I had no control over (I was stopped at a red light...).

Haha, how did i know . And about your bimmer, that really sucks. Why does it look like shit after getting it back from dealership?

[808six]

MOOAAR

[808six]

DO THE asian gang fight, securing a rape conviction, and the legendary fare, and crazy nights first!

[jrsbeamer335]

that was a good read! and man i would've motorboat those silicone tits

cant wait for more stories!!!


fuhkk; dont keep us waiting too long

[samwoo2go]

This reminds me of that "Taxicab confessions" show on HBO

[Boost Gomez]

Subscribed.

[c0nstant]

probably one of the best threads ive seen in OT in a while

[Express]

this reminds me of the streetsweeper tales. anyone read that?

[MMXIII 650i GC]

Originally Posted by express705

this reminds me of the streetsweeper tales. anyone read that?

I did a quick google search on them to see what you were talking about...

Pretty entertaining stuff. Everyone should check them out - its a good read if you have some time to kill.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/7280872/A-...-Sweepers-Tale

[Express]

its a sad story. i cried.

no homo

[Desi]

Backstory

It was the beginning of summer 2006 and I was in between my first and second years of University. It is worth noting that this was mere days after my 19th birthday and that I was otherwise unemployed.

So right off the bat, lets answer the obvious question: Why? Well, you see, in Ottawa a "Taxi Plate" is required to operate a vehicle as a cab. A plate goes for, today, $250,000 and can be purchased and resold. There are some intricacies to the system, but the gist of it is that no new plates have been issued since the '70s and they are rather solid investments. My father happens to own one of these plates, and uses it to make a living off of. The plate can only be put in his Will to someone who is a licensed cab driver, if nobody in the family has the license you forfeit the plate. Therefore, just about every taxi-plate owner's son at some point or another ends up having to get the license just in case. I had been putting it off for a while but I figured why not just get it out of the way. Plus my dad never had a night driver on his cab so, being unemployed and all, I would have a summer job after this. So I registered for the Taxi Driver Training Program at the local community college and was on my way.

The first part of the process is a mandatory English test. I tried to get out of having to do it by showing my High School Diploma, University Registration, but alas I had to be subjected to a day of testing to see if I comprehend English enough to be able to take the course. Needless to say, this was hilariously easy. The pass mark: 75. My Mark: 498. I'm actually kind of curious to see what I screwed up.

So, needless to say, I was admitted into the course. First day I show up, grab a seat in the back and am just screwing around killing time before class starts. There is always 2-3 people in my position in every course, those that are taking it not really because they want to become cab drivers but because they need to satisfy some legal bullshit, and I quickly met the other guy in my position: a guy that had just graduated med school. Anyways, this guy is still a pretty good friend and we helped each other slack our way through this brutally boring month long class.

The class itself was divided into two components: Area Knowledge and Customer Service, and was taught by two different teachers who we'll call Dave for the former and Bill for the latter. Dave, total hardass that took himself way to seriously; Bill, embodied the the term "awesome old white guy". Dave's area knowledge class was supposed to be the challenging one but really wasn't that difficult, but holy shit was it ever boring. Bill's customer service class on the other hand? Awesome. We got to race wheelchairs and powerscooters through the halls ("so we know how constrained the person in one is"), did "projects" on local tourist attractions (I copy/pasted the wikipedia article and even put on the bottom "sourced from wikipedia" and got an A+), got to watch hilarious movies about "taxi driver safety" that were produced in the '70s, and got to act out "situations" (as lame as it sounds, it turned out to be absolutely hilarious watching middle-aged guys with thick accents pretending to be drug dealers pulling guns on eachother and shit).

Come exam time, everybody cheated. Dave was a bit of a hardass so we had to sneak around a bit but we all pulled it off. It was really just myself and my friend, who were both born and raised in this city, helping the other guys who mostly just recently immigrated here identify and find certain places. Bill's exam was just as awesome as his class. He hands out his exam, goes to the front of the class, turns his chair to face the board and starts reading the paper. We're ALL cheating and not even trying to hide it, we're talking... not whispering. Even better is that we were cheating on questions that were literally as difficult as "When someone waves at you from the street you a)Speed past them b)Pick them up c)ignore them if they are black d)run them over".

Needless to say, I passed. I went to City Hall and got my freshly minted taxi license. I could have stopped there but I decided I wanted to try actually driving for a little while at least since I was unemployed. To be able to drive my dad's cab I had to get approved by the company he is contracted to and be taught how to use their dispatch system. Usually you have to go through a day of training and then take a test that they only offer once a month, my dad helped me out and went in and made some noise and they let me write it weeks early and forgo the "training". This test was even more ridiculous. It wasn't difficult at all, and was made even easier by the fact that they had me write it in the driver administration office where drivers were coming and going the entire time, every single one stopping and talking to me and offering unsolicited help. At one point a guy even grabbed my test sheet and filled out a few questions for me. Again, needless to say, I passed. We left the office and my dad gave me a 30second run down on how to use the dispatch. This was a Monday, and come Tuesday I was out on my day one shift.


(Sorry, this one was a little light on the action. The backstory does help add a lot of context though. I promise that all the future ones will have some more action in them.)

[Desi]

Originally Posted by Razzy

Haha, how did i know . And about your bimmer, that really sucks. Why does it look like shit after getting it back from dealership?

My username perhaps? The bodyshop did a horrible job at repainting the car. In fact, our taxi body-man would have probably done a better job than the clowns at the dealership. I'm going to refrain from commenting further since come Monday I am seeing a lawyer about taking legal action against my insurance company and naming the dealership as a co-defendant. Not just for the shit work, but this situation has really just gotten out of hand.

[Express]

pretty funny.

[len56]

MORE MORE MORE

I likey this thread

[Razzy]

Originally Posted by Desi

My username perhaps? The bodyshop did a horrible job at repainting the car. In fact, our taxi body-man would have probably done a better job than the clowns at the dealership. I'm going to refrain from commenting further since come Monday I am seeing a lawyer about taking legal action against my insurance company and naming the dealership as a co-defendant. Not just for the shit work, but this situation has really just gotten out of hand.

I wish you the best of luck. And about the whole indian thing, I was just playing, I too am Indian .

Oh and your stories. Need I say, FUNTAASTIC!

[MCMLXXXIX]

cool

[Desi]

The Hooker

Fast forward about six months from where we left off. I am now into my second year of university and starting to get a little bit more comfortable driving the cab.

It was a typical Friday night up until this point. I'm driving down the main drag of the seedier part of town; it's not really that bad, but it is about is dirty as it gets in our mild-mannered government town. I'm driving along and these two people wave at me to stop. Now I don't really give a fuck and will pick up just about anyone, but I was still a rookie and didn't normally stop for people in this area. I figured what the hell, lets give it a shot. I stop and two people jump in to the car. One a scantily clad woman and the other an intimidating looking large black man both get in the back seat. They just want to go to a convenience store down the street and then come back. So I turn the meter on and start going. They start talking to each other. I can't help but to overhear. Now people tend to either forget that there is someone driving them that can hear what they are saying or they really just don't care. Based on the conversation, I figured out that the girl is a hooker (and coked out of her mind), and the guy is her "protection" that watches from afar. Not a huge deal, I've had hookers as customers before.

So about a minute or two later I pull up into the convenience store parking lot, and the guy gets out and goes inside. A few minutes pass and the girl looks at me and shouts "HEY! I know you!". At this point, I'm thinking "What the fuck? Where do I know this crackwhore from?!". She's like "We were in a class and discussion group together last year!" I look and the rear view and my jaw dropped. I worked on several assignments with this girl! She was super timid and a "good girl" type persona. After an awkward silence she asks me if I'm still in school, to which I respond "Yep, I just do this part time, what about you?". Her answer? "Nah, I dropped out. I'm running my own small business now".

Small Business? I've got to say that I've gotten quite good at maintaining my composure when customers say some stupid shit, but I nearly lost it there.

[MCMLXXXIX]

LOL!

[TK-421]

Lol at both stories. And nice thread tags too

[Hawkeye]

Awesome stories! Subscribed!

[Blake]

LOL

[choicez]

More please...hope these are true stories.