One of my fare's today was telling me that she was a barrister up here in Barrow on a business trip from that there London and that it was her first time oop north. “Well, what do you think of the grim north?” I asked,” well I was baffled when none of the taxis stopped when I hailed them I had to take the number off the side and ring for one myself,” she said. I explained that most cabs here are private hire and that most hackney cabs also work for company’s when not on the rank. Then she went on to say (which a lot of visitors also say) how green it was and that she had been expecting a grim grey industrial town. Shortly afterwards we were going down from a high point at the top of Hawcoat looking out seawards over Walney Island towards the Isle of Man, and she was impressed by the fabulous views of the miles of empty sandy beaches. “I bet it gets busy during the summer,” she said and was very surprised when I told her that we get very few visitors.” Well someone sure wants their butt kicking “she said anywhere else and they would be promoting it for all they were worth.
A recent report shows that London Taxi drivers are Britain's grumpiest workers, according to a survey on Monday, while secretaries are the happiest.
The gloomy prospect of ferrying around strangers every day makes taxi-drivers laugh less than any other profession, according to the survey of 4 000 workers.
Drivers cited traffic jams, the rising cost of petrol, drunken passengers and frisky couples as reasons not to be cheerful.
Fitness instructors could lighten up too, with just 0.9% of them saying they enjoy a giggle in the gym.
Those in recruitment could also do with a good dose of humour, the survey said, as just 3.8% laughed regularly during the working day.
By contrast, 53.5% of secretaries said they laughed on a regular basis during a working day, with a quarter of those surveyed confessing that most of their amusement comes from watching the stressful lives of their disgruntled bosses.
Other workers scoring high on the laughter scale were, perhaps surprisingly, accountants - many of whom said they regularly played pranks or wound up their workmates to alleviate the daily grind - and teachers.
The results of the survey, conducted for comedy TV channel G.O.L.D. also revealed a correlation between laughter at work and days off taken sick.
The more we laugh, it seems, the less we skive.
