24 hours: Arnold Garchow

CLAIRE ALLISON

Arnold Garchow has been driving taxis for about 16 years, owns three, and since December has been managing Timaru Taxis.

Up until a wee while ago, I wasn't an early riser, but I've got my health a bit on track, so I'm keen to get up and going in the mornings now, and I'm normally down here by 8am.

I always have breakfast before I come to work – it's the most important meal of the day.

I come in here, and first off is just to say hello to everybody and make sure there's no dramas. Then it's sit down and sort out all the company drivers' stuff from the previous day, write up all the charge-ups and sort out all their floats and everything.

Up until December we were all owner-operators – but the company decided to have a change in direction.

One of the company maxi taxis is on 24/7, there's three drivers on a three-week roster to cover that. And we've had a couple of owners leave, so the company has taken over those two vehicles as well.

It's just a big change in direction for the company. We moved from Cains Tce to here (in Dee St) and we've got a different dispatch system, it's all on computer now.

We've got 21 vehicles in our fleet – and there are probably a dozen vehicles out there working at the moment. There are the unforeseen things – one of our phones on the taxi stand outside Hallensteins broke down over the weekend, so we're trying to find vandal-proof phones. If there's a bump to a vehicle, I've got to liaise with insurance, drivers, panel beaters, and try to cover the shifts while that vehicle is off the road.

Today I've got a meeting at 1pm with Land Transport, going over area knowledge, and legal requirements. I have to do an exam to run an ATO, an authorised taxi organisation.

I'm in the office most of the day.

I'll come down here at 8am, and try to get away between 2pm and 3pm so I can go home and do some of my own bookwork. Last night I came back and did half-an-hour office duty for one of my cars. And tonight I've got a business meeting at 5.30pm, and then at 7.30pm a pipe band meeting.

Sometimes I break for lunch, but this week I've been working right through until I finish here, so I have a quick bite when I get home.

Phone calls – we get account inquiries, people wanting prices for jobs, and with doing it for so long, I can give them a reasonable idea. We do a lot of ACC work, special-needs school runs.

People don't realise what a varied service we offer. We can be picking up and dropping off a parcel, right through to a taxi fare to Picton, Invercargill, Wanaka, Omarama, Haldon Station. It's not all around town. Christchurch is quite regular, Dunedin happens every so often.

We get businesses that we cart parcels from A to B for. We've got a lady who orders something from Couplands and we go down and pick up and take it to her, and we do that with prescriptions. It's all part and parcel of our job description.

On the whole, Timaru people are pretty good.

Since I've taken over as manager, I've had only one official complaint. You'll get the odd customer complaining about a 20 cent difference in the fare – it might be when the car stops at lights and the meter ticks into waiting time. So you explain that to people, then most are happy.

Most of the drivers should know the shortest way from A to B but a lot of customers like to go the long way, even when you've shown them another way is shorter.

At night time, I'll usually only come in and do a bit of dispatch. Our cars get rostered on to do a certain amount of dispatch to let the operators have a meal break. And sometimes I've got to come back in and sort some floats out.

The odd day I'll come in at 8am and get away at 7pm. A wee bit depends on the time of the month and what dramas happen during the day time.

Problems? A lot of people don't understand why we won't allow them to drink in the cabs, but with the liquor ban area in the centre of town if we bring somebody in and they get out of the cab with an open bottle we can be held liable. And after they've had a few drinks they're quite happy to drop a half-empty bottle on the floor, so that makes a mess.

It's the same sort of thing with eating – it makes a mess, the next person who gets in sits on something, and it stinks the cab out.

Probably one of the biggest issues is when people ring for a cab, making sure they keep a look out for it. When we get busy, especially on a Saturday night, we can be 20 minutes, half-an-hour behind, and every one of those customers who makes us wait because they're not looking out for us puts us further and further behind.

We're not allowed to toot after 11pm. A lot of drivers will try to flash the lights at a house. But I wouldn't get out and knock on a door at night, so I don't expect anybody else to. And I'm not a little fellow.

Most drunk people are happy people. You get the odd one that gets aggressive, but a lot of that can be dealt with by driver attitude. But I say to all the drivers, if you can't put up with them, stop and turf them out. There are a lot of reasons we can turn a fare down, and being drunk is one of them.

But on the whole 99.9 per cent of our passengers are absolutely brilliant. And that's why we all do it. It's meeting those 99.9 per cent of people that everyone gets on well with.

Not paying? We're fortunate here that it's small enough that we will come across them again. And within our company it spreads very quickly if an address has a bit of a problem. We've got a debtors book, and we write them down, and you'll see a repeat address, so we just don't go there. They'll find they have got to start walking.

There haven't been many problems here. There have been some minor assaults. With the last one the vehicle did have a camera in it. In 16 years, I've never been assaulted. I've been abused a couple of times.

A lot of it is how you deal with customers, you try to defuse the situation, or stop and say "get out". And if worst comes to worst, jump out of the cab and leave them.

It's a good living, but you're not going to get hugely rich out of it.

Four-wheel driving is a major thing. I've been involved with that since about 2000.

I joined the South Canterbury 4WD club and was president of that for six or seven years. I'm involved with other 4WD clubs now, but over the last two to three months I haven't been out anywhere near as much as I'd like to. I've got a daughter who is really keen on it as well. We've got three 4WDs and one VW beach buggy, so we've got plenty of choice.

We've got 13 vehicles at the moment. It's lucky I'm on a back section with a long driveway, and have a very tolerant neighbour.

The ideal is, at least once a month we'd be away for a 4WD trip – whether it's a day trip or the weekend, just to get out and enjoy our environment.

Within that, I've got into environmental issues, and I'm on the Pareora River Management Group doing the reviews of the minimum flows. I've been asked to speak to other river groups on 4WD issues.

I'm a member of the Combined 4WD Club in Christchurch. It's a group of Canterbury 4WD clubs and fighting for 4WD access is our main issue.

I started off with the pipe band about 20 years ago by carting a band around Timaru at one of the national contests that was held here. Then I got slowly involved with the Timaru Highland Pipe Band, taking them away on bus trips, and then they asked me to come on to the committee, so I joined the committee, and two years later, was made president.

No, I don't play anything. I've got no musical bones in my body. But I enjoy the company of the people; it's a mixed age group, from young people through to older ones.

Now it's the South Canterbury Highland Pipe Band, to more reflect the membership. We've got members from throughout the region. The contest season is from November, and finishing up with the nationals in March. We're right at the top of Grade 4 at the moment, so we've got a good chance we'll move up to Grade 3.

I don't watch a lot of television.

Quite often when I've got to do the bookwork for my own cars, that can take me into the evening, anywhere up to 8, 9pm, sometimes a lot later. I'm usually heading for the sack 11pm, 12pm, but I have been known to do bookwork up until 2am.

My family at the moment say to me, "are you off home?" when I'm coming to work. But I actually enjoy it.

It's more than a job, it's a passion.

I've been operating my own cabs for quite a while and doing the manager's job is another challenge which came at a nice time. I needed another set of challenges to keep the mind working.

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