Life's a cab ride of experience

Some people work at one job through an entire career. My dad was a train driver. He drove locomotives powered by coal, diesel and electricity but essentially that is the only career he had. So he knew a lot about the railway, its officials, its system and how it functioned.

Many of my father's generation and my own were similar 'one-career' individuals, staying safe, secure and building in the process a thorough professional knowledge of the work they did. That was in India. I'm not sure what it's like now, having been away a while. But here, in Sydney, it isn't rare to meet someone who, by his fifties, has held a variety of jobs.

Manuel is one such example. A qualified civil engineer, he migrated from Portugal where, as he says, his political leanings to the left caused him to stagnate in a right-minded administration. An engaging speaker, he tells of how during his university days in Portugal he constantly battled the temptation to skip classes.

Once, he says, he took seven spins on the same roundabout while he decided whether he should take the first exit (to his mate's house, and a good time) or the third exit (to the university and some dull lecturing).

Anyhow, once he arrived in Australia, Manuel's held not one but 14 different jobs! He says he discovered a sense of adventure in trying out newer workplaces that is unlike anything he's ever experienced.

And so, he's been a kitchen hand, a chef, opened a bistro and closed it, worked on a farm, attended evening college to improve his English, obtained a further diploma in architecture, and driven a taxi for four years to help pay his way through college. It is in this latter field that Manuel had the most memorable experiences, some touching, a few of them just short of scary.

He tells how in the beginning he was naive enough to be fooled a few times into allowing passengers to run off without paying. After that he learned to lock the doors until the money was handed over.

One time this caused confusion with a passenger who claimed he was claustrophobic and demanded the doors be unlocked. The wily passenger - another fare evader - tried several times on this trip to hop out after ordering, 'Stop here'.

But each time the cab drew to a halt the passenger would reach for the door handle and attempt to open the door, whereupon Manuel, observing the passenger's furtive movements in the mirror, would pick up speed and driver further only to be ordered, 'Okay, stop here'.

Finally, of course, Manuel - wiser from earlier encounters - pulled up at the nearest police station, locked the doors and in his turn ordered the passenger, 'Hand over the fare, please'. Needless to say the man was carrying no money.

Manuel, out of the goodness of his heart, let the man go. Only a few days later, another taxi driver was beaten unconscious by two young women high on some hallucinatory substance.

That driver never recovered, sadly, and the two offenders are doing time. Manuel says he too would have put up stiff resistance and confronted dangerous, weapon-wielding passengers if he knew he was being cheated out of his legal wage.

Just a week after listening to Manuel's experiences another taxi driver made news. This man being sought by the police for nearly running over a passenger who had paid her legitimate fare, got out of the cab and was waiting for the driver to return the change. The driver, not wanting to do so, attempted to speed away, dragging the woman along and running over her foot before she was able to pull free.

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.