Jobs that could drive you mad : The taxi conductor

Jun 27, 2011

WORKING can be a big source of stress for many people and you have probably heard that the most stressful job is being the president of the US or an IT expert.

THEY drive you nuts; make you swear and curse, but you cannot let go because that is your livelihood. Do you get angry and frustrated at work everyday? Do you wish you could get up, walk out, slam the door behind you and call it quits? Starting today, Health & Beauty will explore those jobs that can make you go crazy. This week we kick off the series with taxi conductors. Alex Balimwikungu explores the job

WORKING can be a big source of stress for many people and you have probably heard that the most stressful job is being the president of the US or an IT expert.

Who has the most stressful job especially in Uganda? Chances are that many people will say they win that dubious honour, whatever their job may be.

In this series, we look at some jobs with the propensity of driving you insane such that by the time your head hits the pillow after a long day’s work, you are no different from someone in infant stages of lunacy and sometimes hallucinations are part of your daily life.

Raise your hand if you have never gotten in a fight with a taxi conductor, either physical or verbal. See, most of you are already guilty.

Have you ever spared a thought for what taxi conductors go through? Isn’t this the most stressing job on the market?

How does it feel dealing with over 200 or more passengers a day, from different backgrounds, moreover at an eye-to-eye level?

Just how can one deal with the honking, nudging, gesticulating and arguing they involve in on a daily basis?
Forget our prejudices against them and how we tend to look upon those failures in life who are generally identified with a foul bodily odour.

The few who have dared raise their voices against passengers have instantaneously been branded mad and the moniker has since stuck. We generally frown upon them. But just what goes on in the day of an average taxi conductor?

Jamada Serugo, a former amateur boxer-turned taxi conductor, admits the job is not a bed of roses. Since he was ‘privileged’ to get the job, plying the Kamwokya-Ntinda-Wandegeya route, he has barely had a wink of sleep but it is the least of his worries.

He even talks of the constant nagging of his wife, the mother of his two children, with a sense of wanton detachment.
“I am more worried about keeping a roof over my family’s head, putting food on the table, pleasing my boss (the driver), and keeping my job in this hard economy.

“My wife constantly complains of my perpetual absence from home, but I told her you can never take love to the shop in exchange for basic home necessities.
“I have to work with minimal rest if I am to provide for my family as a man. I told her she can leave if she cannot bear with my type of job,” says Serugo, who earns between sh5,000 and sh12,000 daily, depending on the day’s prospects.

Theirs being a competitive job, with no job securty, Serugo says loyalty to the boss (the driver) is paramount. You are at his beck and call.

Since most drivers want to make more money than what the Mugagga (taxi owner) demands, usually between sh45,000 to sh70,000 each day, they put in more hours and sleep well past midnight.

By 4:00am, he has to be up, as it is his duty to wake up the driver. Wake up a few minutes late and it is not uncommon for the driver to have lined up a replacement conductor, which means doom to his earnings for the day.

Serugo’s biggest problem, as is with many conductors who do not operate from the main taxi parks is juggling all that money, while remembering, as they go off, where passengers embarked from. “It requires skills I don’t possess,” he confesses.

He spends his day with people negotiating for fare, traffic policemen who bully them out of boredom, as well as stubborn and violent passengers.
His worst hours are between 5:00pm and 8:00pm, when the predominantly working class head home. Most mete their own frustrations at work on conductors.

Serugo has already served a jail term for punching and grievously injuring a male passenger who once slapped him after arguing over the fare.
Over and above, he feels taxi conductors carry too much a workload, work long hours are undervalued, bullied and constantly live in fear of failure to hit their targets.

To ward off the stress, he says, most conductors are armed with sachets of kuber, an intoxicating drug sold in shops and supermarkets disguised as a mouth freshener and packed in sachets similar to tea pouches.

Others equally arm themselves with sachets of cheap liquor and marijuana, which they smoke when out of harm’s way.

“Personally, I love arguments about football, especially the English Premier League. I could spend a whole day arguing about Arsenal.These arguments somehow relieve my stress,” he says.

Health implications
Dr. Wilson Winston Muhwezi, (PhD), a psychiatrist at the Makerere University College of Health Science, admits the job is stressful.

“They are human and like it is with all jobs, they need to work within an accepted schedule. It is pertinent that one works up to a certain point, takes time off to regenerate before resuming work. It is hard to retain your mental faculties performing such a job for more than 10 hours, seven days a week,” he observes.

Muhwezi admits that out of frustration, most taxi conductors relieve their stress on their spouses and are known to batter their wives. He believes most of them leave broken families and neglected children as a result of their job, although he doubts one can actually run mad being a taxi conductor.

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