My favorite thing about Taxis in Singapore has to be how friendly the drivers are.\u00a0 A close second is the fact that the lights on top of the cab will tell you if if a cab is empty or occupied, unlike in Chicago where the lights don’t really mean anything.\u00a0 Taxis are an important means of transportation for those living on Singapore island.\u00a0 Owning a car is discouraged, due to the high population density, through the mandatory purchase of a Certificate of Entitlement (COE) which costs about $100K USD.\u00a0 On top of that, a car will cost you about $100K . So, suffice it to say that Singaporens love their public transportation options.<\/p>\n
On my way home from the night safari, I took a cab home.\u00a0 The driver was a wealth of information.\u00a0 As we talked, he told me about his family, and his son working in the US for Google, and his own prior business he had owned which had gone out of business.\u00a0 He spoke of his deteriorating health, and the need to get a job to pay the bills, which ended up being as a cab driver.\u00a0 During our drive he shared with me his 5 secrets to a happy life:
\n–Don’t let your job become your life; take time for friends and family
\n–Be your own boss, so that you can capture the benefits of the effort you put into your work
\n–Being a hard worker can create opportunities
\n–Making decisions thoughtfully but quickly will help you be successful
\n–If at first you don’t succeed, try again.\u00a0 Eventually you’ll figure it out<\/p>\n
Later the following week, I took another cab and the driver told me about the business side of the taxi industry.\u00a0 Cab drivers are considered business owners, who lease a cab from a cabline, and pay a daily rate for use of the vehicle.\u00a0 Because the drivers incur the charge everyday, they often will work 7 days a week for long hours.\u00a0 The driver told me that on top of that, he was not treated well by passengers.\u00a0 He just wanted to be seen as a fellow human being, but his passengers would almost ignore his existence.\u00a0 I suppose everyone likes to be valued, even cab drivers.<\/p>\n
Somone I met in Singapore complained about how cab drivers will ask where you are going before you get into a cab, and then if you are not going in a direction they want to go, will refuse to take you.\u00a0 He explained how it upset him, that it would make it take longer to find a cab to take him to his destination.\u00a0 I understand his frustration, but also see it through the cab drivers eyes too.\u00a0 And so when that happened to me, when a cab driver refused to take me back to my hotel, I remembered the long hours that Singaporean cab drivers work, how they are not valued by some passengers, and said “no problem.”<\/p>\n
Lessons Learned<\/u>
\n–People want to be valued and appreciated
\n–Looking at situations from other people’s perspectives could make the world a better place
\n–Per my cab driver, you can do anything if you don’t take failure as an option.\u00a0 Keep trying until you get it right<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My favorite thing about Taxis in Singapore has to be how friendly the drivers are.\u00a0 A close second is the fact that the lights on top of the cab will tell you if if a cab is empty or occupied, unlike in Chicago where the lights don’t really mean anything.\u00a0 Taxis are an important means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"geo":null,"yoast_head":"\n