Cybermen

I have noticed some of our local taxi drivers wearing Bluetooth headsets lately what’s that all about I wonder. I mean guys its not as if you are going to be getting loads of important big time business calls, maybe the wife telling you your teas ready or to get a pint of milk on the way home but that’s about it.
 So why put yourself through that discomfort and wear them all the time? Some drivers actually walk into the office wearing them much to everyone’s amusement.
 Maybe they watch too many science fiction movies and like to pretend to be astronauts or cybermen. Well this is earth calling guys and telling you that you look right lemons. 
What topped it for me was when I saw a guy driving his cab across Walney bridge with a large Bluetooth in one ear and actually holding a mobile phone to the other ear.

Dumbphones

When someone seems to be talking to me from the seat directly behind nowadays, I have learnt not to answer straight away. 
This is after a couple of embarrassing incidents when I have answered them only to realise that they were actually talking to someone on their mobile phones and not actually to me. 
This mainly happens when they have the phone set to silent or vibrate mode and they then get a call, or they suddenly decide they desperately need to call someone right away and it cant wait a few minutes till I drop them off.
 Mobile phones to me can be very anti-social things, many times I have had three or four passengers in the taxi and instead of talking to each other they are all talking and texting to other people on their smartphones.
And I really really hate it when children are asking mum questions or trying to talk about their day and the mum completely ignores them because they have to urgently  update facebook or text back to some rubbish on messenger!
  The other anti-social thing that winds me up is when they get in the taxi wearing earphones and then turn the music down to tell you where they are going and then turn it right up to the max again for the rest of the journey.
 Some folk have it that loud that that I can hear the music louder than the car radio, that surely must be damaging these antisocial music fanatics hearing in some way.

Mobile Bad Manners

When someone talks to me from the seat directly behind me nowadays, I have learnt not to answer straight away. This is after a couple of embarrassing incidents when I have answered them only to realise that they were actually talking to someone on there mobile phones and not to me. This mainly happens when they have the phone set to silent mode and they get a call or they suddenly decide they need to call someone and it cant wait a few minutes till I drop them off. 
Mobile phones to me can be very anti-social things many times I have had three or four passengers in the car and instead of talking to each other they are all talking and texting to other people on their mobiles. The other anti-social thing is when passengers  get in and turn there MP3 players down to tell you where they are going and then turn it right back up again for the rest of the journey.
 Some have it that loud that that I can hear their music louder than the radio, that has got to be be damaging to peoples hearing.

Jail Phone

A strange letter arrived at the local Taxi office that I work from the other day.
It was headed as coming from Her Majesty's Prison, which one I won't say to protect the identity of the letter writer. The writer explains that they had been picked up by one of the Acacia taxis a while ago and then found that they had no cash to pay the driver. Whether this was maybe an attempt to do a runner or not we don't know so let's give him the benefit of the doubt eh!
Anyway, the driver must have had the good sense to not let him get away with it and promptly asked for the guy's phone as surety.
 So the prisoner was explaining in the letter from jail that the next day he had been arrested and then sent to prison. What for he doesn't say in his letter so lets hope it isn't anything too bad eh! 
He didn't know who the driver was or what car he drove and only gave the street which he had been picked up from and a rough date.
 Amazingly, when the operator radioed over and asked if anyone knew anything about it a driver answered right away and confirmed that he had the guy's phone.
The prisoner asked in his letter if the driver could keep hold of his phone until he was released from incarceration in a few months' time.
Luckily, for him the driver readily agreed to this. But as no one was willing to write back in reply to the prisoner I guess that he will have to remain in suspense tucked up in his cell until he is finally released.     

Mobile Phones in Cars

This is what happens when the driver in front of you is using a mobile phone and negotiating a roundabout. I dont think the driver noticed the blue car on the inside lane

Mobile Phones

Is it me or are the public at large generally thick when it comes to using mobile phones.

Normally if you can't hear the person on the other end then you would turn up your volume a bit but a passenger in the car this afternoon was on a call and he couldn't hear what his mate was saying and demanded that his mate "Turn HIS volume up so that his mouth is louder". (His words, not mine)

When you turn the volume up on a phone you are increasing the level in the ear piece. Not the mouthpiece. He then went on to say to his mate that he couldnt hear him for all the music in the background. Wouldnt it have made sense if that person had left the room and moved somewhere quieter before attempting to make the phone call.

DON'T TEXT AND DRIVE

Voicemail Gadget

Picked as fare up earlier this week and he proceeded to tell me all about his mobile phone and how the voicemail on it no longer works. Before I could say anything, he then went on to tell me that he had dropped the phone and the voicemail hasn't worked since and do I think that he may have broke his voicemail.

Are some people really this thick. I did suggest to him to take his phone to pieces and give it a shake and see if there was a small chip in there that spoke when he touched it and if there was then he has to take it to the local phone shop and ask them to put his voicemail back in his phone as it had fell out.

Wonder if the idiot really did go to a mobile phone shop.

Whilst on the journey he asked me what I knew about CD players as all his CDs were jumping. I suggested he needed a new stylus for it (like they used to have for playing records). I wonder what the store staff will think when he asks for a needle for a CD player.

Maybe I shouldnt wind the passengers up but some really do ask for it.

The Cover of a mobile phone

Earlier this week I picked a fare up and took her home, dropped her off. She paid the fare got out the cab and I carried on to my next job. Nothing wrong with that.... Lets move forward 3 days....

3 days later..... She rings the office saying she may have left her phone in my cab. Now at this point I have probably picked up a lot of fares in the last few days and if it wasnt in the cab then its possible anyone could have taken it. As it happens a quick search of the cab revealed a lump down the back of the rear seat. Having to get my hand down and wriggle it around under the seat I managed to grab what felt like a mobile phone and slowly pull it from under the back of the seat.

When I got the phone out and looked at it the cover that holds the battery in place was missing so I guessed it had come off whilst trapped underneath the seat.

It took near on 20 minutes for me to get my tools out and start removing the rear seat so that I could find this persons phone cover. What I did find was about 8 pennies, a train ticket and a receipt for something but no phone cover.

I decided not to hang about any more on this, put the seat back in the car and went to deliver the phone to the lady who had lost it and explained that it was stuck solid down the back of the seat and I couldnt find the missing cover.

Her reply....... Oh that... I knows its missing, I lost it a while ago.

Meanwhile I had been looking for a part that wasnt there.

The things we do for customers. If only she had explained this to our telephonists when she rang up about it in the first place...

Bah....