Today was a great day… but it started sh*t and nearly ended up Sh*t, with a capital ‘S.’

I was off work today, and so I decided to do something. The weather was perfect in Beijing. Not too hot, not too cold, and the sky was saltire blue.

I was travelling light. I get grabbed my iPhone, power bank and passport so that I could get into places. I need my passport to buy tickets or prove that I pre-booked the tickets for pickup.

The tickets had booked we’re for the Beijing Planetarium. I had never been to a planetarium before, so I was pretty stoked to be going today. Everything was set, and because I was travelling to the other side of town, in Beijing that is a fair bit of a distance, I called a premier taxi using the usual app.

The taxi would take ten minutes to get to my place to pick me up, but I just accepted it on the app anyway. Never one to cause a fuss.!!

The taxi driver called me to confirm and right away it was a ‘boom’. He was so grumpy on the phone that I nearly cancelled the trip. The thing is, I didn’t know how to cancel using the app, so I just left it.

Anyway, he turns up a bit later than the app had suggested, and he is as grumpy as he was on the phone. Ok, I thought, I will just ignore it and go with the flow.

Throughout the ride he had an attitude problem that was already threatening to rain on my perfect day.

I got to thinking that the people in the service industries can impact the mood of the people they interact with. For instance, they can change the attitude of a happy family who have been saving for months for a trip out, and because he gets in an argument with a grumpy as f*ck tack driver, the father of the family ends up stressing him and the whole family out. I know that’s happened.

Before you stick up for the service industry guy, I am that guy, so I understand both sides in this judgement call. I am on the customer’s side for the outcome, though… (98% of the time)

This guy was beginning to annoy me, but being a stoic in mindset, I was letting it slide.

I got out of the taxi, left no tip on the app and placed a negative review. Job done.

Onwards and upwards to the planetarium. That experience was so good I decided to jump the metro and get to the ancient Beijing observatory. The ancient observatory did not fail, that was also a brilliant little experience, and with the fantastic weather, it was beginning to look like it would be a day to remember.

It turned out to be a day to remember for the great experiences but also for the taxi journeys which were sh*t bad. I say Taxi journeys, plural because I took a taxi to get some food and used the same service.

I got another grumpy b*stard who, like the first guy, was determined to ruin my day.

Not today f*cker, not today.!

I ignored him, despite his attempt to further aggravate the situation. Stoic to the end, me!

I don’t know why the service was so bad today. It is never like that in Beijing, but it is the holiday weekend and the traffic was a bit on the hectic stress side. Maybe that was the case, but it doesn’t excuse the sh*t service.

I remember reading earlier in the week that we have 86,400 seconds in a day and if someone was p*ssing you off for a hundred of these second why would you let it bleed over into the other seconds that you have left. It is just easted time and wasted energy.

If it was £86,400 and someone stole £400, you might be pissed off, but you still have £86k, but would you throw more money at the thief? Would that make you feel any better, tossing away another £2k? Of course not, so why the f*ck would you do that with your own time.

Screw that, the driver(s) was not getting any more of my seconds. I was going to use what I had left on enjoying my food and for making the best of my evening.

Check out my dish…

That was time well spent!!

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