Taxis and Claims

It's 9pm and ticking. I'm blogging from the office, waiting for 10pm, the eligible taxi claim time.

Last September, when I was greener than green in the company, the taxi claim time was 8pm. Perhaps it was I who submitted dubious claims, my boss decided he was being too lenient by allowing claims from 8pm. Starting from November, the rules were changed to 10pm.

Inevitably, the new law sparked much protest from my colleagues. Angry emails (some written in caps) flew back and forth (The announcement was unwisely done through a cold email and it was not accompanied by an explanation). The management decided to relent a bit by allowing dinner claims from 8pm. Taxi claims stayed at 10pm.

10pm is an impossible time to get a taxi. Taxis pass by all the time but none will stop, not even those with the Taxi sign lit. Even when I prepare to fork out $4 on booking fee, it takes 30 minutes just to get through to the automated operator (and no taxi will stop during this period).

How ridiculous. We are already slogging so hard, working 14 hours a day. What we want to do is to quickly get home and bathe and rest. And we have to spend 30 minutes just to wait for an available taxi who will pick us up?

And why won't the empty taxis stop?!?

I'm gonna see if the situation improves or I may start a petition to get the management to bring forward the claim time to a more reasonable 9.30pm. It's 9.38pm now. Time to start calling the taxi company so that I can get one at 10pm.