Whenever someone calls for a cab in the city of Austin, the call goes to our communications center aka comm center. Basically, we pay a hefty fee for these folks to answer the phone and dole out the trips based on GPS positioning among other things. I know very little about the comm center or about the goings on in there, but over the last couple of days, I’ve gotten a glimpse of it.

A couple of days ago, we got a message over the computer that said:

“Please remember to drive courteous [sic] and keep a safe distance. It’s a must.”

They always send out messages like that, always with at least one but usually multiple grammatical errors. A few minutes go by, and then we get this one:

“So true, but if Nisha would’ve been respectful with that cell phone and got some damn sleep then she wouldn’t have to worry about trying to get the heat off her and Colleen is just a bitch.”

I’m wondering, who are these people? After a few more minutes, we get this one:

“Please disreguard [sic] that last message”

Followed by:

“All cabs, the whine goes on forever and the drama never ends in the comm center”

These were messages that were sent out to all the cabs in the city. Perhaps someone may have typed into the wrong message window?

Yesterday, there was more drama. We got a message that said:

“Please limit your voice requests since its [sic] Friday and really busy tonight”

After a few minutes we get:

“Yes, we know that you pay for our service and we apologize for sending out the previous message. We will get to everyone as soon as we can. Thank you”

Oh yeah, a voice request is when a driver requests to speak to the comm center over the radio by voice. I seldom do a voice request and I can’t see why other people would need to do so many that the comm center people felt overwhelmed, but what do I know.