Like So Many Others, I Am Losing My Noodle

As oft repeated here, no one is immune from the negative affects inherent to taxi driving, and of course including myself in this occupational equation subtracting from good sense which too often resulting in regrettable behavior.  All the UK tourist said last night was "Do you know the way to the Space Needle Travel Lodge?" prompting my "Are you new to travel?" meaning I wasn't impressed with the "nature and tone" of her inquiry.

And her response was to become withdrawn and feel insulted which is natural enough when one thinks they are asking a simple question which instead draws a less than expected answer.  While my purpose was basic enough, wanting her to understand that there is a better way to direct the driver, I feel stupid because the last thing I need to do is address every minor passenger indiscretion as something much bigger than it is, colloquially known as "making a mountain out of a molehill."  Yes, I too can play the fool.

And why did I lower myself, becoming petty and dumb and less than polite, revealing the worst, not the best of my numerous mental states?  Because I was tired, business was slow and and lately I have had too much of cab driving, just like Robert Frost in his poem "After Apple Picking," lamenting he has picked too many apples and is no longer having any fun, even dreaming about all those apples hanging upon laden boughs.  Thankfully my taxi dreams remain few, the living awakened nightmare bad enough, making taxi "as I know it" my handy excuse for being less than civil and acting idiotic and dumb.

But the bottom line for me is that I don't to hurt anyone at anytime for any reason whatsoever, my immaturity a poor justification for being unkind.  It is said in developmental psychology that abuse begets abuse but truly I have no excuse because I understand too many passengers hold an inherent bias when interacting with cabbies.  It isn't going to change any minute, hour or day soon.  There is only one person I can and wish to control, being me and only me which is how it should be.  Amen!

Oh Uber!

Uber's latest mistake, failing to report that 57 million passenger and drivers had their personal information compromised by hackers, has resulted in the Washington State Attorney General suing Uber due to there being a legal obligation for notifying the State of any breach within 45 days.  That everyone only found out over a year later means that Uber will be facing legal action both here and elsewhere, the fines potentially in the millions of dollars.

Can I ever forgive the Seattle City Council for opening the doors to Uber?  No, I never will, causing amazing hardship for me and all my fellow cabbies, resulting in many unforeseen consequences which, as I just noted, includes my "bitter" tongue.

Do I think the City Council will either ever truly care about the damage caused or reverse themselves?  No, I know they won't do anything but feel important and self-congratulatory, continuing to do what they always have minus real understanding, their decisions not empirical but instead never extending beyond the haphazard and theoretical, having sunk the ship by steering into hidden reefs.

Not a wise or helpful way to pilot a city over and through regulatory seas but as I repeat myself, when you don't care, you don't care and that is simply the way it is, the next upcoming Uber surprise changing nothing now or in the future.  Traditional naysayers  and wild-eyed prophets will shout "We are doomed!" and you know, they couldn't be more correct upon the subject, all of us cabbies sinking beneath the surface of the bureaucratic waters, non-schooled fish our only aquatic friends.