Friday 25 February 2011

Kisses All Round

The time is 19.24 as I arrive at an apartment block for 19.30. I’m booked to take four young ladies to a bar some 15 miles away. I send a text message saying ‘I'm outside’. Reply states “10 minutes, us girlies still getting ready”. “Ok, no rush” I respond. A quarter of an hour passes and the phone rings “We need a man, get inside!”

Usually, I stay with the car when meeting someone at their home address. It makes things easier and avoids potential delays. There is good reason for this logic because sometimes, if you leave the car, you never quite know where you will end up or what you will be asked to do!

I ascended the stairs and heard the reassuring cry “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out”. It sounded strange. I entered the apartment and the situation became clear. One of the ladies was in the bathroom with a locked door. The lock broke and now she was trapped inside. With a stud wall and outward opening aperture there was no opportunity of forcing the door! Everybody had tried to free the internal lock but it was definitely broken.

One of the girls rang a Fireman for advice but the door wasn’t moving. It left just one option and that was to go ‘through’ the door. Equipped with a small power drill and a saw, I began chain-drilling the panels. First the tie came off and then a top button had to be undone. I really wasn’t expecting this I thought! It was a long time since I’d called on my engineering skills but right now, I was on a mission and nothing could stop me (except the occasional muscle cramp).

Some 45 minutes later and with the final stroke of the saw, a rather large hole appeared. So too did the relieved young lady inside. At that moment, I became a hero and cheers could be heard all around. The girls then remembered they were late and within a flash I was back to being their chauffeur. I did however receive four kisses on the cheek at the destination and the crowd outside the bar looked very surprised!

Maybe they thought I was a lucky guy?

Friday 18 February 2011

It’s The Culture That Is Different

It never ceases to amaze me how people ask the strangest things. Last year I met a Businessman at the airport and shortly after, he made a phone call then turned to me and said “Take me to the Circus”. I said “Ok” and proceeded with his request. You just have to play it cool sometimes and go with the flow.

On other occasions, I get asked about things that seem usual but if the passenger is not from the UK it could in fact be very unusual. Take for example a Japanese couple on a tour of north Wales visiting the castles. As we drove along we passed a low-loader carrying a static caravan.

The husband tapped me on the shoulder and asked in a stern but inquisitive voice “What… what is this”? Slightly confused and hoping I gave the right answer, I replied “Caravan”. The passenger also looked confused but proceeded “What for”? After a few seconds of thinking time I responded “Second home”.

Now, for anyone who has travelled along the A55 in north Wales will know, there are many caravan parks. This delighted my passengers because every time we passed one they declared proudly “SECOND HOME! SECOND HOME” and snapped pictures on their digital camera while giggling to themselves. No doubt all their friends in Japan also know - mostly because they filled two memory cards full of them!

Tuesday 15 February 2011

It’s All About People

Usually I post my blog on a Friday but last week I was on the motorway when a car crashed in front of me. I pulled over to help. My passenger jumped out too and we both ran back to the battered car embedded in a crash barrier. Its driver was semi-conscious and in pain.

It is nearly ten years since I began driving for a living and I have met some people in that time! The work has changed since the early days of inebriated passengers on a Saturday night but I still remember meeting someone in the first weeks of doing the job. He was going out for his daughter’s birthday but told me she had died two years earlier. He opened up and said he could not sit at home and be upset. He preferred to go out and celebrate the short time he’d had with her. I found that hard to comprehend. If you have never been in that situation though, how could anybody understand his thoughts, feelings or emotions?

A lot of people think that a driver’s job is to just to drive but it is so much more! It is to take care of passengers and the people you meet in life. Now I drive for business customers but find individuals are mostly the same – they all have something going on in their life and they all have emotions that make them human.

As for the injured driver last Friday, we stayed with him and reassured him until paramedics and fire crews arrived. We watched them cut the roof off his car but gladly, I have heard today that he survived and is on the mend. What a relief!

Friday 4 February 2011

The Chauffeur Blog

In the first few years of developing my Chauffeur business it was hard going, especially when I used to do all the administration work. Over time however, I’ve found good people to work with; attracted the right customers; built solid administration systems; employed robust technology and things have fallen in to place.

I started letting go of key responsibilities and a team dynamic has developed. For me, delegating is great as first of all you get to see other people grow, secondly it adds redundancy within the business and then finally it provides time to do other things like write a Chauffeur blog.

Over the last few months I’ve written about delegating, technology, time-out, new ideas and lots of things involved with building a business. I suppose the thing is, now I’ve written about the boring stuff, I should start writing about the more interesting part of the job – such as the people.

As a Chauffeur I’ve met people from every corner of the globe such as A-list celebrities, Government Advisors, Millionaires, TV personalities, Managing Directors, Chief Executives, Lap Dancers, Cosmetic Surgeons, famous Musicians, Engineers, Futurologists, Specialists, War Veteran’s and many more. Maybe now it is time to blog about their journeys?