| Tom
Whitbread’s department has been renamed Compliance rather than
Complaints… Forty job
rule
Once again we have had a complaints meeting where among those
drivers appearing were those who had not fulfilled their commitment
to the Society - to complete 40 data despatched jobs in every month
throughout the year. We have drivers who go on holiday for 2 weeks
coming back and still completing 80 jobs before the end of that
month! So drivers who say they are going away for a week and will
not be able to complete 40 jobs are really taking the pee out of the
hard-working drivers who are constantly helping us hold onto our
work.
To be off the road for a week in overhaul still enables you to
fulfil your duty to help us retain the work we have fought so hard
to obtain from other taxi circuits. We have also gained accounts
from private hire, but do drivers who complain about PH taking our
work, help us out? Not on your life! They just stand outside the
watering holes belittling the drivers and management who have put in
such a lot of sweat into gaining these accounts and covering their
work.
As you will see from the Complaints meeting results (shown
elsewhere in this issue), drivers have been expelled for not
complying with the rule appertaining to the 40 jobs coverage, which
in the official rulebook that is registered with the Industrial and
Provident Societies.
I don’t know of any other industry of self employed men and women
who have to be coaxed, bribed or threatened to do their own work
that helps pay for their families to have food on the table. In a
time when there are people crying out to find work, we are giving
our clients the opportunity to go to another supplier because our
service level is lower than they have come to expect from
Dial-a-Cab.
Credit Cards
We still have drivers who, for whatever reason, are not going
through the correct procedure when accepting a credit card street
hiring or one obtained via the system. If you are unsure on the
procedure, give Daren, the trainer, a call to arrange a quick
10-minute refresher course.
Do not forget to make sure you have charged the administration cost
and always carry a pad of spare credit card receipts, just in case
you have a problem with the terminal. If you do have a problem,
always put the clients credit card under the third copy of the
receipt pad and rub a penny or other blunt object over the card to
get an imprint. This proves that you had the card in your
possession, then when the client signs the receipt - check the
signature!
You will then have a receipt for the client, one for yourself
and if there is any query, you will have one for us to forward to
the bank.
Which drivers are sick?Once
again could I ask that if you know of any driver who is off work
with a serious illness, please let us know - assuming the driver in
question is unable to do so him or herself.
If you are a regular reader of Call Sign, you will
have noticed that some drivers have castigated me for not sending
them a get well card when they were off work. I know that our
technology is the most advanced in the taxi trade, but up until now
Brian has not been able to get me a crystal ball to see into the
future! So I have to stick with the old tried and tested method -
the taxi driver’s bush
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telegraph. When you are laid up in hospital, it’s nice to get a card
to remind you that the staff and drivers are thinking of you.
It is so sad when I hear of a driver - or someone in his / her
immediate family - who is dying. These may have been friends that I
have built up during the 30+ years I have been on Dial-a-Cab. It is
at these sad times that a simple card can mean so much.
Destinations in Outer Zones
If you are given an AD destination that turns out to be an outer
zone (eg NN99, E50S or W50S), please contact the Call Centre before
the end of your journey and inform them of the destination. They can
then change the destination from a zone code to a place name that
the client will understand when it appears on their invoice.
Taking advantage of Code 21
We have some drivers who are trying to take advantage of the system
when running to a pickup. They are pressing their arrival
(code 21) button when the meter reaches £4.20, even if they have not
reached the pickup point. Do they not realise that our GPS picks up
their position and the amount on the meter when they press the code
21 button? This being the case, you are breaking the Society rules
and stealing from the client. If any driver is caught committing
this offence, they will be dealt with at a Complaints committee
level and that has the power to suspend or expel any driver.
Party political broadcast of behalf of the
Compliance Officer!
Once again Tony Blair and his National Criminal Party have excelled
themselves with prisoners walking out of open prisons on a weekly,
if not daily basis. Then we have Geoff Hoon saying that we should
not put any restrictions on all the immigrants who may be flooding
in after next year. This Government are also allowing immigrants to
claim for children they say they have left in their home country. So
not only do I go out to work to support my family, I am now
supporting non-existent sons and daughters of illegal immigrants.
Mr Blair and his party have done far more harm to the British Isles
than Hitler ever did. They have demoralised the British people to
the point that hundreds - if not thousands - are leaving to live
abroad. Now we hear they are going to reduce prisoner’s sentences by
10 days to keep the prison population down. Soon it will be
prisoners going for a quick shower and haircut - then out!
Why do we bother with Judges and Magistrates? If they ever do use
their power and give a realistic sentence, it will only be reduced
on Appeal and the killers and rapists will be back on the streets
within the year. When a foreigner commits a murder, they plead
mentally unstable and get sent to a cushy hospital or let off a
custodial sentence. If they are that mad, how did they negotiate
getting getting from their country to the land of milk and honey…
the British Isles? Why do we not follow the example set by the
French many years ago and use an island to which you could send
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all of your
most serious offenders and then send all the murderers and rapists
there with just the basics to survive and let them fend for
themselves. Make sure the island is too far away from any other
land, so as not to allow them to swim and escape. Anyway, as many of
these criminals have taken away - or ruined - a life, why should
they have any luxuries? Do not allow them TVs, video games,
computers or gymnasiums.
To all the woolly sock brigade of do-gooders who preach that you
should not treat them with anything but kindness, you have failed.
So let’s go back to the tried and tested method of punishment for
the crime they have committed.
To the imbeciles who want habitual criminals let out of prison
early, perhaps if we put them on their own in a dark alley with one
of these criminals, they would then see how stupid they are. If the
do-gooders were put into that position, the adrenaline rushes at 100
mph, your backbone turns to ice, sweat begins to pore from your
forehead and seep from under your armpits and you realise there is
no escape. Then you know you’re facing real life. Until then, they
have only read of the torture and mutilation, but now they are
facing it. And after being in that position, would they still back
Tony Blair and his idiots? I don’t think so…
I have spoken to numerous people on this subject and as soon as I
say that I never voted for Tony Blair, they immediately respond that
they never either. I have yet to find anyone who did vote for Mr
Blair! Someone must have, otherwise the vote counters were corrupt!
Fighting at a cashpoint…
I recently had a fight with a young black man at an HSBC
cashpoint in Mare Street, Hackney.
Unbeknown to me, as I started to tap in my PIN number to withdraw
some cash, he was standing behind holding up his mobile phone and
videoing me inputting my number. He then came up to me, leaned onto
the machine with an envelope in his hand and I heard a button being
pressed. I grabbed his wrist and smashed his hand on the side of the
machine. That made him drop the bankcard that he had extracted from
the machine.
Then like a typical Englishman, I became more interested in
retrieving my card from the floor instead of belting him again. In the time it took me to bend
down, he and the partner he had with him ran to the door and escaped.
What annoyed me as much as anything were the crowd in the bank
who witnessed what had occurred and then parted to give the
criminals a clear run to the door. Bank officials said it was
pointless calling the police, as I had got my card back. This was
after their CCTV had recorded the whole incident!
The police are not interested in chasing a criminal, even if you
have given them all the evidence they need. It would mean them going
out and looking for someone, which could end up with them having to
do some work or maybe getting a whack.
Emailing information
I am trying to build up a file of DaC driver’s email addresses so
that important DaC info needing to be sent quickly can go on same
day. This could apply to anything and is not linked to complaints.
If interested, send an email headed ‘Driver emails’ to tomw@dialacab.co.uk
and I’ll put your address onto the file…
Tom Whitbread
DaC Compliance Officer
Tom’s views do not necessarily
reflect those of anyone from
Dial-a-Cab but are his own… |
