To understand the life of a person, you sometimes have to switch places with them, not always physically but mentally. We, too many times, believe that we know how this or that person, in a given profession, is supposed to think and work, in short: we stereotype them. We sort, and bundle people together, based on our preconceived notions.
Unfortunately, we all, at one time or another fall into this mentality. Myself , for example, used to have this weird ideas as to what kind of person became a taxi driver. That is, until a good friend of mine became one. The stories he would tell me about the different kinds of people he would pick up, were enough to make your hair stand on end.
Many a times he would, based on his gut instincts alone, just drive-by a person, and not pick them up. Aha! you might say, discrimination! Well, no..not really, you see, he quickly learned that being a taxi driver was a somewhat dangerous job. As he never knew if the person he picked up, was some kind of maniac, a criminal, or someone high on something -- and would try to do him harm.
As it sometimes would happen, that he would pick somebody up, against his better judgment, and was later faced with the choice of getting into a fight over the fare, possibly risking his life, or just getting the heck out of there, without the money -- but with his life. As he told me, the worst time was late at night, supposedly the best time to make more money, since people didn't want to take public transportation, but also all, unfortunately, when all the drunks and whacked out people would also be out there.
But he had a family to support, and he had to be driving the late shift. It finally got too much for him, when one night, one of his fares pulled a gun on him, and he was forced to talk this guy into sparing his life, after the guy robbed him of the little cash he had made that day. After that incident, he said that the money wasn't worth it, and got out the taxi-driving business.
I think of him whenever I hear some people complain about how rude, or prejudiced this or that taxi driver was to them. How would they feel if they could see the situation from his point of view.
