In which Benjamin gets yelled at by a taxi driver and becomes a robot salesman

Today I became a robot salesman. The future is now.

I really didn't plan on taking this job when I went for the first interview. It became more interesting when they explained the nature of the work: I would get to learn how to program industrial robots! It became even more interesting when the software company whose offer I wanted to accept caught up on its back issues of The Economist. They called my boss back to Japan, cancelled their plans to expand into Germany, and sent me the corporate equivalent of a Dear John e-mail. Thank you for a really wonderful time together, it wasn't you it was us, we just aren't ready for the kind of committment that you need... I get to send them a bill for my time, though, an innovation in being dumped that I wish I had thought of in highschool.

Thank heavens I didn't trust them to actually give me the full-time contract they spent the last two months promising me. I wrote an e-mail to these robot people accepting their offer, and today I went down to iron out the last details of my contract. A logistical problem forced me to travel the last two miles or so by taxi from the airport - the train stop at the airport just happens to be the closest to the office - and so I hopped into a taxi and asked the driver if he knew the name of the bus stop I needed to get to.

He glared at me. Without a word, he pulled out. Five silent minutes later, I pointed out that he had missed the intersection with the road my destination was on. Instead of turning around, he stopped the taxi and began yelling at me. I (referred to in this rant as "you stupid young man") had no idea what I was talking about, he (referred to in this blog post as "the provider of marginally the worst customer service I have ever encountered in Germany") had been driving a taxi for 27 years, there was no bus stop with the name I said, and he was taking me to the road with that bus stop's name by the fastest route. I apologized calmly but insisted that the bus stop did exist, that I had in fact taken a bus to it just a week previous, but indicated that if he was en route to the street after which the bus stop was named, then I knew for a fact that he was taking me to the right place. He began driving again, growlingn at me that no such bus stop existed. I asked, again calmly and politely, whether he might have a map of the city with which I could show him where I would like to go. He began yelling at me again, alarmingly this time without stopping the car, asking me somewhat confusingly whether I wanted to know his name, have his business card, or get his license number - I think he was confused by the word Karte, which can mean "card" or "map." My clarification of my question did little to quell the abuse, which by now had escalated so far beyond the pale that I could not really be angry about it, and was in fact beginning to find the whole episode rather amusing.

This very pleasant ride ended when he pulled over at what he insisted was the only bus stop on this particular road, pointing out proudly and loudly that it was not named as I had indicated. I knew that the stop I needed was the next on the bus route, so I told him that I would just walk. I also told him that I understood how frustrating it must be to wait in the taxi line at the airport and then get a low-paying customer, and that I had intended to give him an extra €10 to make it up to him, but that he was lucky to get paid at all considering his unique approach to customer service. Then I got out of the taxi and hurried the two hundred meters down this one-bus-stop road to the next stop, which happened to bear precisely the name I had indicated. And who should be stopped in traffic beside me as I walked by but my friend the cheerful taxi driver. I waved to him, smiled, and pointed helpfully at the bus stop as I crossed the street in front of him. Aaaah, catharsis.

The interview was significantly less interesting than the ride to it. I had spent the morning preparing the speech that I would use to defend my request (communicated earlier by e-mail) for a somewhat more reasonable salary and overtime pay (their first offer had been to pay me more in exchange for not paying me any overtime, their clever way of saying "we'll pay you the same but call it something else.") Then my future boss sat down across the table from me, smiled cheerfully, and, before I could draw breath to begin pleading my case, said he thought I was right. I found this a somewhat unbalancing negotiation tactic, but it didn't leave us with a lot to argue over, so I signed the contract, got introduced to the robots I'll be working with starting next week, and headed out.

On my way home I opted to take the bus.