Recently there was a Reward function where one of the yester year actress was invited. When I asked about the choice, they said that they could not afford another actress who asked for Rs. 1 crore for a 2 hour visit/talk in her city of residence – no travel I mean.

Doctors, chartered accountants, actors, trainers, coaches, ….all professionals REGULARLY turn down clients who cannot afford them. There is no outrage over this. Imagine Deepika Padukone quotes Rs. 25 crores for doing a film – and the producer goes to another actor. There is nothing wrong with this, is there. In fact DP may even be proudly saying “I turned this down”.

However on a day it rains heavily (like 26 July, 2019) we think taxi drivers should listen to us.

Every client that we seek or when a client seeks us, we have to decide whether it is worth spending our time with him or her. We need to see how much time we are spending, how much we will earn, how much risk we are taking (vs willing to take)…..and then take a call on doing or not doing the work.

Take the case of an EMPLOYEE taxi driver (kaali peeli, Ola, Uber, Meru…its just a brand)…staying in Mumbra (very common). He is in Bandra and wondering how to go home..when he gets a request to go to Kandivili. From his taxi he can see the Western Express Highway choc-a-bloc in traffic. He knows that the fare should be Rs. 400 ..now he decides to quote 3x of what he thinks is normal. For a professional it is the MOST POLITE WAY of saying no. However, one client comes up to him and says “I am willing to pay Rs. 1200….I must reach my house soon”. The taxi driver has weighed the effort, the risk, the gas that he will burn, the desire to reach home safely…..he does a trade off.

Personally i do not think it is wrong. It is a choice that he has made. Nothing wrong.

Let us decide to recognize the right of younger and less successful professionals to also decide with whom to work, what to do, how much to do…..financial freedom is class agnostic. So is risk management…

  1. Beautiful!!!!
    If we can hop jobs and reject offers, all the while we expect FIxed fare from our city service providers. I remember auto guys saying the same… You are willing to pay surge pricing,but ignore our meter+20bucks.

  2. Awesome thoughts… Equality for all!
    I recently read a news of Rahul Bosevgoing bananas over being surcharges in a 5 start and ranting about it on social media. I wonder for how many events where he has been a chief guest , he has not charged a dime.

  3. Yeah the driver can levy 3x or 4x from a willing customer, but imagine if he starts doing it on a normal day because there is a bus strike or something. Imagine the NDRF men demand 3 times the salary for agreeing to rescue Mahalaxmi express passengers because they are in a situation where they can demand more. Or even a doctor demanding more money to treat people during a tragedy just to take advantage of a desperate situation people are in.
    These standalone taxis and autos dont charge passengers fairly in most cities. They are used to extorting people, so such specifications of risk, reward are not applicable to majority of them

  4. Unless a offeror has something ‘distinct’ to offer, the alternatives available will cut your moat position. Take this example of taxi driving. The concept of shared ride apps is catching up like fire so much that a ride taker could share the unoccupied seats of a person (who already needs to) travel from A to B at a smaller cost like 20Rs. Here the person offering the ride is a someone who is not taxi profession and is not bothered in negotiating fare because he has to get from A to B at that time anyway. Whatever/Whoever he picks on the way is some pocket change for him for petrol sharing. For the person travelling with him, fills the app wallet with 20 bucks and they get the ride damn cheap like 20 Rs… Taxi and Auto Driver brutes who ‘demand’ exorbitantly are at disadvantage in the coming days. One can look at the website called quickride. This is just an example, and not applicable to all professions in plain vanilla. However, we got the concept sir, it was just about this example you picked…

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