What it feels to be a TAXI DRIVER in Zagreb City

Since I was a little boy, I liked cars.
Before I was let behind a actual steering wheel, I had no choice but to play car driving/racing video games.
From need for speed series to gta I & II, I loved driving games.

Grand theft auto 2 pc game

A few years back, I was working in a tele sales company as an investment consultant but I was kinda sick of the whole picture, the company I was working for was not giving me much choice but to leave and one day an old friend approached me and asked me would I like to a drive a taxi instead. My first answer was "I did think about it but never went through..". He conviced me to do it.

In my country, there are many thing you have to do before anyone in this city is going to let you drive a taxi. First you have to finish professional driving school which takes about 6 months with aproximately 12 exames. Then there is this so called "taxi exam" which is created exactly to make money and make people come again. It's a board of people taking 2 groups each month, asking unanswerable questions and letting 2 in 20 finish because the other 18 has to come again and ofcourse, pay again. First time I went there they failed me and I was very dissapointed. The second time I barely made it through, but I did!

There are several work options when it comes to beeing a taxi driver in Zagreb. You can choose a corporation-like company, work 12 hours a day with 1 day free in the week, very shitty money, no life.
If you're a bit more "luckly" you can find a private taxi driver with several cars and if he hires you it could potentially be better , but not much, money will probably be the same, maybe some hours off work but not too much.
The third and the best option is to ask the city for your own cab licence and wait for it.

Radio Taxi Zagreb plate

Here is the problem, I have been waiting since early 2014. I had to make some money while waiting, so I started working for the corporation like taxi companies. I managed to stay there for about 1 year and then I quit and I started working for a private taxi driver a couple of months. At the end I found a company that kinda lets you work for your self but the taxi fares are so cheap, its not really possible to make money unless you spend 15 hours driving EVERY SINGLE DAY.... So I broke down my taxi driving expirience into two big sections:

POSITIVE:

-My driving skills are better then ever, when you do something every day over and over for a few years, you get really good at it.
-Navigation & route planning: All your brain does is calculate the closest way to get from point A to point B
-Knowing your city: I know every corner of my city now, and while the rush hour is active, I can get home from any point in the city within 30 minutes when using normal routes would sometimes take hours.
-Meeting new people: This is one of the things I really liked (mostly) , I met a lot of nice people in my cab.
-Clean car: I personally got this routine to clean my car every day.
-My personal favourite: Sometimes there is not much work, so I could hang my legs on the dashboard during a nice day :)

hot summer day with not much work luckily

NEGATIVE:

-Car accidents and agression: This is a serious problem, from my expirience , people are the worst in the morning rush hours. Everybody is angry and they want to fight. Not to mention people are tired, miserable with their lives in the morning and that only brings more chaos.
-Weekend driver: This can be the worst. I spent almost two years working every weekend for that extra cash. And honestly, the cash is good, but when you have to pick up 30 different drunk/drugged people thoughout the night, something is bound to happen. I had people puking, fights breaking, police etc.
-Runners: People who want to ride and dont wanna pay. If I really worked as a private taxi driver with my own licence, I would have no problem with a runner now and then. But that beeing said, working for a taxi company or for a private driver, this is slight different: your paycheck is already shitty and every penny missing from that taximeter has to be in the car when you return it, every thing else goes from your pocket. Thats why I caught the second guy that tried it, took his vallet out of his pocket, took exactly how much money was on the meter when he ran away and gave him back his vallet.
-Taxi "Scum": In my honest opinion, a very big number of taxi drivers around the world is scum. All the competition between companies and private taxi drivers, shit that goes on the streets with these guys, from fights, drug deals, pimping, mafia etc... At the end, if you ever had any problem with a taxi driver, on behalf of all these guys take MY apollogy, I returned every single phone, personal item, or money left in my car. Never took a dime. Good karma? Probably.

photo I took around 5am driving the terror shift (guy puked inside and outside the company car which I had to clean for an hour)

I am not satisfied with a job without creativity and that is why I decided to leave that all behind me. I was never gonna "make it" as a cab driver anyway, I'm a video editor, filmer and a graphic designer with a proffesional driving school. Why be a driver? I will tell you the answer: I had no choice back then.

I quit when I found out about Steemit!
Yes you guys, helped me A LOT! After months of driving a half broken car, with the money I got from steemit I managed to fix it completely, I also helped my mother out a bit because she got fired 2 years ago. Not only that I got more time for myself, but I was finally able to help out some people that are dear to me. I also started a Youtube Gaming channel, something I always wanted to do but did not have the time. Thats why I will never forget how a group of people from all around the world helped me get out of a really bad spot in life. MUCH LOVE GUYS! <3

Vermillion666