Good manners cost nothing but can be priceless to someone on the receiving end!

Let this be a lesson to everyone who deals with the public....I hope that cabby is reading this!

I hope your trip turns out better than this....

Kathy

I am surprised that you tipped him at all. Given his attitude to begin with I personally would not have tipped. Tips should always be based on friendly, prompt above the call of duty service. They should never be based on just doing your job. Nothing drives home the issue of "customer service" in any service industry more than the size of or lack of a tip.

We had the same experience last January in Cleveland. It was a terrible ending to a great vacation. The taxi driver really tried to make us feel guilty, but we were more disappointed and angry for being treated so poorly. We wrote down his name and license number before he sped away. The next day we reported him to the taxi service. We were certain they would be interested in how their company was being represented by a driver with a bad attitude. They responded with an apology and that they had disciplined the driver with a day off without pay.
Customer service is everything!

Steve, a few years ago I read a eulogy for the death of common sense. After more messed up business trips than I can count, I propose that we need another eulogy for the death of customer service. I believe the TSA started the decline and it has spread to airlines,rental car companies, hotels ,resturants, and to all the other nooks and crannies that cater to the business traveler. Over the past few years, I have noted less customer assistance and surlier representitives when you can find someone to assist. I think the only way this will change is if all business travelers band together and say we're mad as @#$% and we're not going to take it anymore!

Your article hits home when we talk about customer service. For those of us who repair and maintain the yellow banana fleet, we forget that the drivers who drive those buses are our customers.

Whether we work for a school district or a contractor carrier, or even drive a cab, we all need to instill into our daily lives good customer resource management.

Having made many business trips all over the country during my 25-plus years in the corporate world, I can totally sympathize with you on the aggravation of a delayed flight then a confrontation with a surly cab driver, hotel employee, etc. I never particularly enjoyed business travel for many reasons, some of which you just mentioned. You're certainly right about a school bus driver setting the mood. There was one afternoon this past school year when I wasn't in a particularly good mood and took it out on the kids a bit. One of the girls on the bus who I'd gotten to know quite well mentioned "What a mood I was in that day!" It doesn't go unnoticed and it certainly effects the kids. I can't even remember what had me feeling rather testy that afternoon, but I decided I wouldn't let it happen again. It's always easier to be happy and pleasant, even if you don't feel that way. You'll snap out of it soon enough once you get laughing and joking around with the kids. They can be good medicine for what might ail you. And as far as the corporate world is concerned, I'm more than glad to be out of it! I don't envy your business trips at all! Feel free to vent any time.

Geoff Bridgman, Driver
Pocono Mountain School District West
Mt. Pocono, PA

Steve, your comments are a very good illustration of how our attitude and demeanor affect others. I will read your story to the school bus drivers at our in-service training before school starts this month.

Floyd Gates
Moore Public Schools
Moore, Oklahoma

As a driver of motor coaches, transit buses, school buses and shuttle vans, I know that I represent the company. My passengers never meet the mechanics or support staff. My attitude and demeanor tell the passengers almost everything they will know about the service provided. Tip or no tip, gift or no gift, the driver must do the job he /she is paid to do.

Jim Kalin
Sunrise Busses, Inc.
Greenport, NY

To make a difference, isn't that what it is all about. I'm in the School industry, and I feel we a so fortunate to have the opportunity to impact the lives of our future generation with just a bit of kindness, and thoughtful
treatment, which takes so little effort. If we as adults do that, maybe it would be passed on by thoes children when they grow up and end up out ther in the service industry. It does pay to make a difference.

Many years ago, I was given the task of of building an apparatus to transport oxygen on a school bus (many years before there were any standards or products on the market) for a student and her nurse. I couldn't imagine why a student would need to go to school if they had to have oxygen and a nurse and my schedule was way too busy to stop fixing buses etc. to handle this job (hence the bad attitude). When I took a trip up to the house of the child to measure the equipment, I witnessed a child hooked up to a bunch of cables/hoses playing in a playpen with her nurse. One look at her face and it was like the beautiful face of an angel...more joyful, happy and content than any child I have ever seen. If I could, I would have hauled her to school myself right then. Needless to say, I jumped in and moved the mountains necessary to build the apparatus as fast as possible. Upon completion of the task, I called the administrator to get the kid to school right away. He advised that she was sick. Several weeks later, I called back to see if she was being transported to school yet and was told the child had passed away. Needless to say, from that day forward, for the last 20 years now, regardless of the circumstaces, any child that needs special attention to be transported gets first priority and first class service from this department. Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

I thought your article hit home. As I have Head Start drivers who transport 3 & 4yr olds, who families may be in crisis. The last thing the family needs is to have a driver with an attitude problem. I am using your story in my first day of training in Aug.

Hi Steve,

You are correct in your assertation
that customer service is #1. However, when bad customer service occurs, the blame for this sometimes has to be shared by the service provider and by the customers themselves. For drivers/workers who are paid near minimum wages based on the fact that customer tipping will be their financial "lifeblood", a cheap, abusive or
dishonest owner/operator boss can create the environment for worker's "bad attitude". Many times the customers are billed based on a driver being paid $20.00 per hour, but they are unaware that the company is only paying the driver $10.00 or less per hour. The customers assume the driver is well paid and they demand "five star" service while being arrogant and condescending to the driver. They may leave no tip, or an insulting tip.
Do you see things from a taxi driver perspective? Do you know how their industry works?
That cab driver has a right to select who he or she wants to pick up. Each cab driver is placed on a rotating service call list at the dispatch office, and also can have exclusive (regular)clients. The cab company must keep the rotating list going in order to be fair to all their drivers. A cab driver who accepts a short $10.00 fare, must then go back to the bottom of the service list (often numbering 100 to 250 drivers}. Also, when returning to the airport, the driver must surrender their priority waiting spot and go back to the end of the line. The Taxi driver had compassion for your situation and did you a BIG FAVOUR by taking you to your hotel and thus losing his/her service list position and airport parking priority. What did you give the driver for this? A 25% tip on such a short ride is perhaps $2.50!!!, an insult for sure. I would have tipped him 100%, perhaps $10.00, because I know what he/she had to sacrafice in order to get you safely to your destination.
While he/she was driving you, he/she might have missed a $100.00 fare with a tip that was greater than the total of what you paid to the driver! Yet the driver chose to take you anyway, because he/she had empathy for your situation. Sometimes, it is customer ignorance and arrogance that can demoralize and harden service industry providers, who are only human, and who must think of their family financial resposibilities because no one else does.
Next time you take a taxi, try to see things from the driver's point of view as he/she did with you by accepting you as a fare
regardless of their logistical inconvenience and potential financial loss.
I agree that the driver should have done a better job of masking his/her feelings, but the responsibity for creating the conditions that
caused the driver to behave in this fashion must be share by everyone involved.
As a school bus charter driver, I can relate to what taxi drivers are experiencing.

Best Regards,

Ray Sare - Spokesperson, Ontario School Bus Drivers' Rights and Safety Movement

I could not disagree more with the comments regarding responsibility for the conditions under which the cab driver works. It is certainly not my responsibility as a customer to assure the income of the service provider. It is not ignorance or arrogance that caused this driver's attitude. Mr. Hirano simply needed a ride to his hotel. It is not unreasonable to expect a cab driver to provide that. If the fair was not to his liking, he apparently had the right to refuse. However, he is not doing anyone a favor by doing the job he agreed to do when he decided to drive a cab. When he chose to transport Mr. Hirano to the hotel, he had a responsibility to provide good customer service without being rude. I also would not have given him a tip for rude treatment. If the system is not fair, then it should be changed. Until then, providing good customer service is very important. It is never the customer's fault that you are not paid enough to support your family!

For me, there are two reasons that would keep me from smiling and saying 'good morning', 'hello', etc. while making eye contact with the students as they get on or get off the bus. My thoughts and/or actions could be preoccupied. When I think about that a few safety discrepancies come to mind such as knowing the amount of students entering (or leaving) the bus, staying alert for traffic, and student safety violations to name a few. Obviously then, when I say 'my thoughts could be preoccupied', the thoughts are non-bus driving related.
The second reason could be that a student may 'rub me the wrong way'. A student may have a behavioral problem on the bus. The student could have a disregard (or disrespect) for me as an authority figure being a school bus driver. Without that respect I will lose control over this student and possibly other students depending on the problem.
I found that my approach to these two problems must be proactive and personal: set the parking brake, open the doors while my head is turned right always looking at the students as they enter, deliberately making eye contact, saying 'good morning, 'hello', etc., with a smile - especially for the student who is a behavioral problem because showing respect has a greater chance of respect being returned than showing no respect at all. Without knowing a student's homelife, or his school days with his peers and teachers, my 'hello' and smile may be the only one he gets all day.

Regarding Amy Romero's comments about the cab driver. Amy obviously missed many of the points that I was making in the letter to Mr. Hirano, especially the point that people are human beings, not robots. It's a good thing for Mr. Hirano that the cab driver had more compassion for his situation than Amy has compassion for the taxi driver's situation, otherwise Mr. Hirano would have had to walk, hitchhike, get mugged or sleep at the airport!!! According to Mr. Hirano, during the cab ride, the driver was attempting to be pleasant and concerned, but he was not impressed with the ammount of the tip. As the Native Indians say "don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins" We all have bad days and we all make mistakes. This doesn't justify poor performance, but the driver did say that he had a very bad day. Forgiveness and compassion are virtues that I appreciate when I am having a bad day. As Jesus Christ said: "he who is without sin, cast the first stone". In conclusion, Amy said "it is not my resposibility as a customer to ensure the income of the service provider". Well then I can be sure of two things; that many waitresses, taxi drivers, pizza delivery drivers, hairstylists, door men, newspaper kids, golf caddies, charter bus drivers and other tip-dependant workers would disagree with her, and that she herself has never had a job that relied on good customer tipping. Anyway, I hope that everyone has a nice day!!!!

Ray Sare

Steve,
I just returned from a miserable trip to Reno to attend and display at the STN Expo. My luggage, including the booth display did not arrive with me, coming after the show had ended on Tuesday, resulting in no clothing and, more importantly, no display.
On a positive note, I traveled to and from the airport frequently to check status of lost articles, receiving excellent service from the hotel shuttle driver. I explained my dillema and he could not have been more courteous or understanding, going out of his way to help in any way possible.
His kindness was refreshing and greatly appreciated.

I worked my way through Engineering School, on tips, and I was also a generally very unhappy person. It can be a rough life being so poor and seeing other people so well off. To have achieved perfection and to have always masked my feelings was something I do not think was realistically possible for me to do either. I guess I should say sorry to all the people I was less than estactic about as well; or I could just thank the dear Lord I do not have to do that anymore.

James Addison
Electronics Engineer

Steve,

It was nice to meet you in person at Reno. Your point is well taken and I hope you have better travel experiences in the future.

Sam

A long time ago... I rode public transportation to high school. every morning as I boarded the bus I smiled at a lovely woman who sat in the front on my way to join my friends in back. Needless to say as high school students we weren't quiet. After 4 years of high school, and smiles every monring, this woman presented me with a gift of a beautiful silk scarf. (durning that time silk was rare and very expensive). She told me she had been freightened riding with the rambrous students and my morning smile assured her she was safe amoung the "wild bunch". I still have that scarf.

To Don Bullock's point about the shuttle bus service . . . I received the same gracious service from one of the shuttle bus drivers at the hotel in Reno when I traveled back to the airport. It certainly helped to erase the bad memories of my earlier cab ride.

I have been driving 24 years as a bus driver and I always meet my kids with a smile. It not only makes me feel good but I understand in this day and time that the kids have alot to deal with all the peer preasure and the parents pushing them. So if I can make there trip to and from school safe and fun. This makes my day. Because you see this is our furture.

We all have had those unpleasant types of people to deal with and doing their best to disrupt our trips. The thing I always remember is the only person that has control of our attitude is us. So after the initial shock come back to earth and enjoy yourself