I recently booked a cab of a popular cab service. The driver arrived before time and was very courteous. We stopped at a traffic signal when an auto rickshaw driver asked the cab driver about how he could also buy a car and start driving cabs.

The signal was about to turn green. The cab driver told the auto walla hurriedly that buying a car for driving cabs is not a good deal and that he should be happy in what he is doing right now. The auto walla seemed discouraged. The signal turned green and the auto and the cab parted in separate ways.

I am the sort of guy that people find comfortable speaking too. I do not know the reason. Maybe it is because I look harmless and friendly. So the cab driver started a conversation on his own. He said that he had told the autowalla not to buy a car as it is too much of a burden.

I asked why, to which he replied that the car costs approximately 4-5 lakhs and auto costs around 1.5-2 lakhs. Also , since he drives a cab he is dependent on the rides booked by individuals through the company whereas autos can be more readily approached. He also mentioned that he had purchased the car on an EMI and had to manage in such a way that he could repay the loan as well as manage his family.

 

 

And so he went along with pros and cons of car vs cab. I didn’t show much interest as I was not interested in the economics aspect of driving a vehicle for other people.

A little later he started pouring his heart out and what he told me is the reason for this blogpost.
I do not like talking with random strangers , especially those who tell about their personal lives to strangers, but I am glad that he did so as he taught me many things.
He told me that he belongs to a middle class family like me and that he has no other option other than to drive a cab as of now. I asked him what he used to do before.

He said that he had done 6 businesses before and was successful in all of them. He mentioned that he was so successful that he has even built a nice 3 BHK house over a plot where he still lives with his wife and son. But then things didn’t work out and he was now driving cabs.
He told me that he had started a restaurant business where he was very successful. He targeted a niche market where he just sold different types of thalis and it worked very well. He had many repeat customers who liked the food for quality and value for money.

But then his brother suggested that they should expand by adding more menu items. He told me he did so and then he had to hire more staff. He said that the staff was unmanageable as they had to provide the staff with salaries , a place to stay and also meals for twice a day.Gradually the restaurant lost its repeat customers due to degrading quality because of distributed focus and they were unable to keep up, then they had to let the staff go and eventually to avoid losses they shut down the restaurant.

The place belonged to his brother , so the brother rented out the restaurant to someone else. In this way the bother continued to earn but the cab driver earned nothing now from it.
I was saddened to hear his story. I told him that why doesn’t he hire a driver to drive his car as a cab and give him some salary and do something else on the side. This would help him earn more. He told me that it wasn’t profitable. Also if the driver were to cause an accident , he would have to pay a lot. So he drove the cab himself so that no accident takes place and all goes smoothly.

From his talks regarding the difficulties faced in handling the restaurant staff and his fear of hiring a driver to drive his cab , I gathered that he finds it difficult to handle people under him.

He told me that being a chauffeur for a cab service was a good profession as he had the liberty to decide his timings. He told me that he had worked in businesses where he would spend 16 hours a day and come home tired and with tensions. He said what is the use of earning money that you can’t even spend happily. So he worked as a driver for 8-10 hours a day. He said that it helped him to maintain work-life balance.

He said that his son was as old as me.He told that when his son was born there was some issue with his birth and he was born mentally handicapped. But he said that he never let it be a disadvantage. He trained his son to travel in a bus and also taught him how to take care of himself but still his son was dependent on him as he could not work.

He told me that he attends some religious gatherings and that helps him to stay calm and be forgiving.

But , he added , there was one thing that bothered him a lot.
He said that his father-in-law had expired long ago.His father-in-law had  some shops which he had put on rent and that his mother-in-law derived rental income from these shops.He said that since his mother-in-law and wife had always got money without working for it , they never knew the value of it and hence they always criticized him for not earning enough and therefore didn’t respect him.

 

I thought for a while.

The guy sitting infront of me was from a semi-affluent family who had done many businesses but none of them lasted , he helped his challenged son to lead a closer to normal life , he drove cabs to earn money, he worked 8-10 hours a day for complete strangers and wasn’t appreciated by anyone.

He was like everyone else. A person following an unrewarding career who still works hard for necessities, sacrifices for family , is  paranoid that people whom he trusts will fail him , tries to find inspiration in something bigger than him , but still at the end of the day feels like a failure as no one appreciates him enough.
Isn’t this a common thread that binds us all together ?
Aren’t we all facing similar issues?

I thought how could I help him. The first thought that came in my mind was to give him some extra cash. That thought was immediately negated by the next better thought that what this guy needs is not money or sympathy , what he needed was appreciation.

 

I decided to tell him what I had read in books and what I felt personally.

I said , and I am paraphrasing ,

“I have to go somewhere and I am getting late. I do not know what to say, I am very young in age than you. All I can say is that you have faced many issues in life with no fault of yours at all. Now you cannot go back and change things.You can only do with what you have in hand.
From what I gather you find it difficult to manage people. Find something in which you don’t have to rely on any staff and that you could handle yourself.
Write down on a page about what happened , how could it have been avoided , what did you learn from it and how you can now use that learning to have a better future. Don’t show this analysis to anyone else as people won’t understand. I hope that something good happens to you very soon”.

 

I wish to follow my own advice some day.  🙂