This morning, I came across one of the most dreadful taxi drivers in Taiwan. And for goodness sakes, I’ve come across some of the worst. For example, drivers who don’t really know where the hell they’re going or try to cheat you by going around in circles.

They really do give Taipei a bad name. 🙁

Imagine being a foreigner and getting onboard one of the taxis, only to find out that they’re stuck with a rude driver.

But this morning was the worst.

Since I wanted to get to work on time, I took the taxi. Little did I know, it was the taxi to hell.

Things started off pretty smoothly till we got to the freeway. The taxi driver said it was traffic and the cars weren’t moving so he wanted to use a different road. Since I ride to work everyday, I knew there was no alternate road and the traffic would die down quickly.

Then he abrasively shouted, “My car doesn’t have gas anymore! Do you want the car to die in the middle of the freeway?!”

When I heard this, I immediately thought, “Why are you accepting passengers if you don’t have gas anymore?! Are you freaking nuts?!”

Without warning, he swerved off the lane, and took the other road. Then we drove and found a gasoline station and he filled up the tank. He kept on repeating, “It’s traffic so we had to move off the road.“

But after we filled up the tank, we returned to the SAME DAMN road and continued on our way! 🙁

Afterwards, he looked at me, opened the window and started smoking!

*$#(*$#*$(**&%@&*()*!

I asked him politely to close the window, but he rudely replied, “Wait till I finish smoking.“

What’s worse, when we got to our destination, he wanted me to pay the full fare! I was like, “No way, even with traffic, I don’t need to pay that much, especially since the additional charge is for you to fill up your gas tank.“

Finally, we agreed to pay a lower price, actually the maximum price I’d pay when I take the taxi to work.

Of course, given his very rude behaviour, I called to make a complaint. Guys, if any of you come across some bad taxi drivers, be sure to get their name and taxi number and call 2725-6888. The people there are mighty helpful.

People take the taxi for the added speed and convenience of getting from point A to point B. Given the premium price that we pay, we expect to get some service. It irritates me that I’m paying 1,000% more than if I take public transportation, only to end up just getting more pissed off and later to get to my destination than expected.

Bottom line is though, I’m more irritated by the behavior of the taxi driver than the situation itself.

If the taxi driver was polite enough to tell me of the situation and ask me if we could just pass by a gasoline station because he hadn’t noticed that he has already ran out of gas, I wouldn’t had minded. But since he was shouting at me and being rude in the process, that made things a lot worse!

As the book Blink had reported, they found out that in cases where patients sue their doctors, it wasn’t really a matter of competence, but rather, how doctors handle their patients. They found out that the more time a doctor spent with a patient on average, the less they get sued.

It just shows how important your emotional intelligence or EQ is in life.

Argh, still pissed. But glad there’s a number I can call to make me feel all better. Wallclimbing tonight, yay! Till tomorrow! 😀