go on, just one
(the best one mind)
Ok here's one that always makes me laugh, but a bit of back ground info first:
My company started trading from a council house kitchen on a local housing estate, 1 car, 1 driver, and 1 person on the phone, before the end of our third month we got ourselves evicted. The neighbours were complaining about the noisy diesel cars (can't really blame them) coming and going at all hours, we had managed to get up to running 3 taxis by now though, and i knew that a move into town was imminent, in these early days all the taxi's were mine. We moved into a very small office just away from the city centre, we stayed there for a year or so building upto a fleet of 8 or 9 cars.
Things at this time got a little out of control as my fleet size was growing without a proper infrastructure being in place, we quickly out grew our second office before the end of my second year. Then out of the blue another taxi company who were working from the the city's longest serving taxi office, approached me to see if i would be interested in buying them out. Their company had a good reputation and a great office location so of course i was interested, unfortunately all my money had gone into expanding our fleet which was now upto about 18 or so cars, it was an opportunity that i couldn't refuse and ended up just buying the lease for their office and not the taxi business with all it's car's.
Once i got moved into our 3rd office in less than 3 years, we started to attract quite a lot more drivers, more often than not these drivers were experienced and at one time or another had worked for the company that were in my new office before me. Now onto the main story:
One of these drivers was Trevor, a middle aged, over weight, unwashed, string vest and all, typical taxi driver type, Trevor was a compulsive liar, you could tell when he was lying.....because his lip's moved, all the lad's made Trevor the butt of their jokes and it all seemed like harmless fun. A job came in off the phone from a local radio station, it was to pick up a national celebrity from the train station and take him to the radio
for a live interview, i told all the lad's about the job and also that he was live on the radio in an hour or so. Trevor was the next driver out so he was the lucky driver to go and pick the celebrity up, the job went well and the celebrity was delivered safe and sound with plenty of time to spare. Just before the start of the live interview Trevor arrived back at the office, within a few minutes the interview began and about 10 of the drivers were eagerly listening in on the office radio:
Radio dj: welcome Mr x how are you?
Celeb: I'm fine thanks
dj: how was your journey?
c: pretty extraordinary actually!
We all look at Trevor and our ears pricked up.... the interview carried on
dj: can you elaborate?
c: yes, i came up from London on the train and was picked up from the train station by the nicest taxi driver i've ever had the pleasure of travelling with
dj: yes please carry on
c: well it turns out the taxi driver had just won £500,000 on the football pools last weekend.....
At this point all the drivers and i look at Trevor just as he's starting to change colour, he changes from his normal dirty beige colour to several shades of pink and eventually crimson, Trevor doesn't say a word!....and the interview continues:
dj: what?........and he's still driving a taxi for a living?
c: yes.....i was amazed too! so i asked him why he was still driving taxi's and not sat on a beach in the Bahama's somewhere living the life of Riley?..... the driver told me that he didn't drive taxi's for the money and that he only did it for pin money!
dj: what a great story
c: he also told me that he would miss his work colleagues immensely if he wasn't to have the normal day to day banter with the other drivers.
Trevor certainly had a lot of banter with the drivers after that pork pie!
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