Monday, January 04, 2010

Danke For The Tips, Herr Cabdriver



The complete and utter disregard for the customer in German tipping situations never ceases to amaze me. Normally, I'm amazed by the disdain or disinterest by waitstaff in bars or restaurants, but last night our cabdriver entered the fray.

After our 10-day trip to France, my dad's back was sore, we were tired and didn't feel like dragging our bags home from the station in the snow and ice, even though it's a short walk. Our cabdriver immediately informed us that we could've walked to the other side of the train station for a cab closer to home. He then spent the rest of the drive home criticizing us for our laziness and whining about how he'd had to wait 30 minutes to get to the front of the cabdriver queue. His rant lasted up to, and throughout, the payment process.

I kept my counterarguments to myself at the time, but here they are:
1. We should use the other side of the station - If I'm taking a cab, why do I want to drag my bags 200 yards through a crowded train station when there's a cab stand 10 yards from the base of my train platform?
2. We could walk - When combined with public transport, this is of 99.9% of cab rides in the dorf. If you feel so strongly about pedestrian advocacy, you're in the wrong line of work.
3. His wait, only to get a short fare - That's a damn shame. However, this is clearly a slow night and you should be happy you got any fare.
4. Our laziness to cab a short distance - Look, asshat, this is why you have a 5.50 Euro minimum fare. I had planned to give you 7 or 8, but you just moaned your way into only 6 -- and that's because I didn't want to be around you long enough for the change.

2 comments:

Chad W said...

And with that... I'm caught up.

Spectacular winter-on-the Rhine pictures in the Best-of-2009. Actually, a lot of good ones in all the collections.

gulabl: my bosses, for thinking I'm getting any work done the day after a 16-day holiday.

thirph: the noise you make when you realize that while you made a snarky comment about the word verification, you forgot to actually TYPE the word verification!

jtingermany said...

Glad you got caught up after I deleted all the "Chad is a bad friend for not reading regularly posts". Though those were popular with Steve.