I need to learn a similar lesson. My team lead isn't used to being questioned, and when I tried to correct him in a meeting it resulted in a big argument. I realized that I did so partly because I wanted to demonstrate my own knowledge. We were both being egotistical. Certainly he could have handled it better, but I could have avoided the problem entirely by finding a more tactful framing rather than correcting him publicly.
What a lovely article. There's a strong correlation between the energy you put out into the world and what you get back.
I often think that as I end up confirming a grumpy/aggressive person's expectation I'll be a bad customer, or confirming a kind/present persons's expectation I'll be a good one
They're popular in London too. The scam seems to be that if tourists don't arrange the price beforehand, it'll be arbitrarily inflated - they don't run a meter like a licensed taxi.
(London perspective), I've intervened from tourists getting scammed before from these guys, and they get violent very quickly. Especially fun because they have their gang all around.
Unlicensed, unmaintained, motorized vehicles on pedestrian paths, a miracle no one has been killed yet.
It's kind of insane, and is a microcosm of the UK's inability to do anything.
- Everyone hates them, from residents, to businesses, to the tourists that get harassed by them.
- There are multiple laws, that if the police wanted to, they could enforce at any time.
- Nothing gets done.
It is an impressive level of apathy from an already toothless government.
It's not that easy. He had those little chains strung across the side exits and wouldn't remove them until I paid. I told him they don't let you out of Canada with that kind of cash but he didn't believe me and laid siege to my day while eating a slice of pizza like a taco. The worst thing was that this was my second mishap with non-combustion locomotion that day. ...I still swear that was not the real Secretariat and that Central Park isn't in New Jersey.
Hm. Ok, well, I guess we would have handled that differently.
I had something similar happen in Germany, on the way from the (international) airport to a hotel the driver started some kind of spiel that suddenly his banking machine had broken and he couldn't take card payments. My friend/colleague Jaap who was with me said we'd pay cash and I said no way, and after fiddling for a bit with his phone (mine wasn't a smartphone) gave the driver a different address. When we ended up in front of the police station the driver became a lot more friendly, drove us to the hotel instead and suddenly found that his banking machine had miraculously started working again...
I find that by giving in to such fraud I'm helping to perpetrate it so I've vowed not to let it happen, at the same time there is always a chance that such an interaction would turn violent. After all, they've already decided they want to steal from you. My weighing of this is that they have more to lose than me because I'm a transient and they are not.
Easy to say from the comfort of my terminal, but some urban advice:
Remove the chains and get out; most important is your freedom and safety. They aren't going to risk prison for assault and battery. If they give you trouble, call the police immediately. Take a photo of them and text it to a friend. Don't act intimidated no matter what; it just makes them think they are getting somewhere with you.
Then offer a reasonable fare. If they don't accept, offer to call the police and let law enforcement sort it out. They'll take the fare.
If they don't let you out of a vehicle, that's kidnapping and / or extortion and a call to the police should resolve it quickly. In a functioning society, anyway.
I saw this not because I think certain types of jobs should be done by certain types of people, but because that's what I see happening. So even before reading I knew this guy was going to be unusual in all sorts of ways.
Haven't visited Oslo, but I thought Norway was largely a white-skinned population. Why would it be jarring to see a white person doing any kind of job, or are you referring to some kind of job division racism?
It's the classic racism/classism combo... a lot of taxi drivers are foreigners for example because it can be a stressful and low-paying job at the end of the day.
Yes, oddly compared to taxis my experience in the US with pedicabs is that they're almost all white men driving. More of a freewheeling low responsibility type of job rather than providing for a family type situation. I wonder what sort of social shift resulted in this?
If it's anything like the sport of bicycling in the USA, for a long time it's been a sport of caucasians, this is changing a bit but it trickles all the way up just from a sampling of who represents the USA at the Olympics and World Championships. Possibly a combination of the high cost of entry with the clique-ishness and the sport requiring quite a bit of free time and the support or money to have that much free time. Not talking about kids riding around the neighborhood but people who continue or start riding as adults, so not a social shift at all but existing demographics.
I often think that as I end up confirming a grumpy/aggressive person's expectation I'll be a bad customer, or confirming a kind/present persons's expectation I'll be a good one
Unlicensed, unmaintained, motorized vehicles on pedestrian paths, a miracle no one has been killed yet.
It's kind of insane, and is a microcosm of the UK's inability to do anything.
- Everyone hates them, from residents, to businesses, to the tourists that get harassed by them.
- There are multiple laws, that if the police wanted to, they could enforce at any time.
- Nothing gets done.
It is an impressive level of apathy from an already toothless government.
I had something similar happen in Germany, on the way from the (international) airport to a hotel the driver started some kind of spiel that suddenly his banking machine had broken and he couldn't take card payments. My friend/colleague Jaap who was with me said we'd pay cash and I said no way, and after fiddling for a bit with his phone (mine wasn't a smartphone) gave the driver a different address. When we ended up in front of the police station the driver became a lot more friendly, drove us to the hotel instead and suddenly found that his banking machine had miraculously started working again...
I find that by giving in to such fraud I'm helping to perpetrate it so I've vowed not to let it happen, at the same time there is always a chance that such an interaction would turn violent. After all, they've already decided they want to steal from you. My weighing of this is that they have more to lose than me because I'm a transient and they are not.
Remove the chains and get out; most important is your freedom and safety. They aren't going to risk prison for assault and battery. If they give you trouble, call the police immediately. Take a photo of them and text it to a friend. Don't act intimidated no matter what; it just makes them think they are getting somewhere with you.
Then offer a reasonable fare. If they don't accept, offer to call the police and let law enforcement sort it out. They'll take the fare.
I saw this not because I think certain types of jobs should be done by certain types of people, but because that's what I see happening. So even before reading I knew this guy was going to be unusual in all sorts of ways.
Nice read, thanks for sharing.