By Mette Engel Friis

When Søren Wallentin Nielsen answers the phone at Århus Taxi Company it isn’t necessarily a customer at the other end. He works nights and has grown accustomed to people calling up just because they want to talk.

It’s the middle of the night and the computers are relatively quiet. Suddenly a driver calls in with an alarm. He’s being physically attacked by a customer. Søren Wallentin Nielsen can hear it all and he tries, calmly, to talk sense into the aggressive customer, who won’t listen but keeps hitting the driver.

“This is horrible,” he says, “The cab is only four kilometres away, but all I can do is call for help from all the other cabs in Århus, while I try to calm down the man. Such an experience really makes you feel bad, because you’re so powerless. I try to act as soon as I can, by getting some help for the driver – a psychologist for instance.”

I feel better after I’ve done something. I also discuss the incident with my colleagues. We’re very close and can talk about everything, from unpleasant customers and drivers who make stupid mistakes to very personal matters. It means a lot to me to have good colleagues.”

Drinkers and poets

The work environment at Århus Taxi in the second biggest city in Denmark is also good in other ways. The company has recently renovated its offices and installed all new anatomically correct furniture as well as environmentally friendly screens, lamps, and floors. There is a steady supply of fresh fruit, tea and coffee. The whole place looks like a textbook example of a healthy work environment.

“It’s this sort of thing that makes me want to go to work. I feel appreciated. Even on a stressful Friday with a hundred calls on hold I can deal with my job because the environment and my colleagues make it nice to be here.”
Søren Wallentin Nielsen and his colleagues at the switchboards see to it that old ladies are brought home from the hospital, that kids are driven home from school and that tipsy suburbanites are taken to the city discos late at night. He talks to a lot of people every day: customers, drivers and colleagues. Sometimes a phone call is dealt with in 20 seconds. At other times a driver needs more time to discuss an unpleasant customer. Occasionally a lonely night bird will call up to read his poems over the phone.

“It often happens that people call us at night just because they need a person to talk to. If we have time, we talk to them for a little while. If we’re busy, we very politely get them off the line. We’re used to being a kind of spiritual adviser.”

Psychology courses

Most staff are not trained to deal with crisis situations or to communicate with different kinds of people, but through his union activities in HK (Union of Clerical and Commercial Employees in Denmark), Søren has arranged for courses in psychology for taxi company office workers. Here the participants find out how to tackle unpleasant phone calls or crisis situations for colleagues.

“It’s fine to get some tools you can use, but basically it’s all a question of empathy. It’s important to listen to other people and be there for them.” And staff do support each other at Århus Taxi Company, for instance when a female colleague once again gets a customer on the line who uses all known obscenities against her.

“It’s hardest for the women,” says Nielsen. “It’s limited what you can say to a man: idiot, fool that sort of thing. There are more words to be used about women and more ways to threaten them, and it does unfortunately happen that our customers take advantage of that.”

The threats are not carried out, but they are still unpleasant to listen to, particularly on a stressful night. The colleagues, however, discuss it, and when, eventually, the night staff leaves work at 07:00, they feel satisfied that once again their customers were brought home safely by one of the city’s 250 cabs.

Mette Engel Friis is a freelance journalist based in Denmark