Chicago Cab Drivers are worse than a busted Flush Draw!!!!
Chicago is a big city. Make no question about it. Big airport, big buildings and hell it's even called, "The City of Big Shoulders." It is a vibrant metropolis that has within its borders everything anyone could want. Great food, a ton of entertainment options all year long, a diverse and educated workforce, political corruption to its highest order you name Chicago has it. But before you begin to think I am a shill for the Chicago Tourism Board I am going to clue you in to another commodity Chicago has in spades, Shitty CAB DRIVERS!!!!
Chicago's cab drivers are to driving what the Chicago Cubs are to baseball, a disgrace. And after fare increase after fare increase just riding in one of these donk driven vehicles costs a small fortune. So I think it is time to blow the lid off this bullshit.
It quickly becomes apparent that one important thing is missing in the Chicago cab driver equation---Common Sense. Imagine for a second that you?re working for the FAA and you are tasked to fill a control tower at O?Hare airport with some new air traffic controllers. Regardless of your knowledge about the specifics of working in control tower you can rely on common sense to broadly narrow down your search of potential candidates. For example, common sense tells you that the candidate has to have a working set of eyes so as to see the radar screen or look out the windows of the tower to watch the incoming and outgoing airplanes. Right? Common sense might also tell you that the candidate must be able to communicate verbally. Right?
Now apply the same basic tenets of common sense to driving a cab and what do you come up with. First off, the person should be a proficient driver. That means the person should know the rules of the road, the roads themselves, and how to operate the vehicle in a safe and efficient manner in all weather conditions.
Secondly, the cab driver should be able to communicate with their riders in a friendly and understandable manner. Right? Common sense tells us that without people to ride in the cabs there is no cab industry. So it is probably a good idea hire drivers who understand that driving a cab is a service industry serving who? The riders. The people who pay the fares.
Two little nuggets of common sense that I would use if I was running a cab company. But I am not running the cab companies in Chicago. Some politically connected Russian immigrant (Morris Markin) controls the majority of cabs roaming the city. I think when Morris moved here from Russia he brought the shady business practices his homeland is famous for to build his fortune but he forgot to bring common sense.
Here is the typical cab driver you can expect to encounter today in Chicago. A middle aged male, most likely brown or black in skin color, recently arrived to Chicago from a god forsaken, war ravaged third world nation. Take your pick, Mexico, Pakistan, Iran, Hati, Somalia, Nigeria, India, Palestine, Lebananon, Ethiopia most of Chicago's cab driving colony hails from some hornet's nest or another for a country.
In case your world cultures knowledge is a little bit lacking let me paint the picture for you. These countries, where English is not the first language, are places where life is not easy and in many cases transportation amounts to little more than a donkey pulling a cart at 2 MPH down a dirt road. And the ones fortunate enough to have mechanized transportation, they get to drive in a place where the only rule of the road is, ?There is no rule of the road!!!? I really doubt that cutting your teeth driving the streets Mogadishu is the same as learning at the State Farm Safe Driving Academy.
I can just picture the fat, lazy, leaders of Chicago?s cab kingdom sitting in a dingy office around a cheap card table, on cheap folding chairs, three empty Vodka bottles on the floor, and an 85??-inch flat screen blaring a shitty European Soccer game on the wall, while they discuss the state of their businesses.
I got a great idea. We always talk about how we hate the fucking passengers. Those whiney, cheap, annoying people who litter the back of our cabs with beer-induced vomit. We give them drivers who are more wretched than them. Angry immigrants, who couldn't find Wrigley Field from a piece of Wrigley Chewing Gum. A driver who uses one foot on the gas, one foot on the break, and one Bluetooth in their ear so they can talk loudly in their native tongue to someone from the homeland, while getting totally lost and building an inflated fare. It's perfect. My name is Morris and I am a genius. More vodka!!!
Kudos to Mr. Markin and the other idiots who are literally running the reputation of cab drivers everywhere right into the ground. My advice to visitors, take the bus.
