[reificator]

> a positive "they treated me like a human being" or a negative "no, they were rude"

That's the whole range eh?

[onion2k]

Yes. Anything else wouls go against the sworn secret oath that every taxi driver lives by.

[reificator]

No I'm just sad that treating someone like a human being is considered a positive and not... you know... the absolute bare minimum someone could do.

[onion2k]

I'm just sad that treating someone like a human being is considered a positive

Sure. Everyone should be sad about that. There are plenty of people out there who don't have any willingness to treat people in service jobs like driving a taxi with any sort of humanity. Too many people will just ignore the fact that these people are living, breathing human beings with feelings of their own, and treat them as if either they don't exist, or that they exist to serve them. It's quite appalling.

Treating someone like a human being means having kindness, respect, and empathy for them. It means not expecting them to demean themselves just because you're paying them to do something. It's treating them well even without knowing them.

It's quite a high bar apparently, and a lot of people out there don't manage it.

[reificator]

> It's quite a high bar apparently, and a lot of people out there don't manage it.

It's not a high bar. There's just a surprising number of people that are really good at playing limbo.

[Wires77]

> A lot of the time it'll be "they were OK", but occasionally you'll get[...]

Missed this first half of the sentence.

[reificator]

So our range is somewhere around:

- They were OK

- They treated me like a human being

- They were rude

There's no room for "We had an interesting conversation" or "They gave me some good advice" or "I think I made a new friend"? Not even "They seemed like a good person"?

The maximum is "They treated me like a human being" which is somehow above "They were OK"?

[yukinon]

I can't speak for the Parent commenter, but I get the feeling you are taking what he said a little too literally. Those were simply examples of what could be said during the process. Their reply was not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the responses.

[reificator]

My previous comment, perhaps.

My original point, however, was to highlight the fact that "They treated me like a human being" was given as the example of a positive interaction.

Which is absolutely absurd. And I don't think I'm taking that too literally.

[yukinon]

Again, can't speak for OP, but I doubt it was intended as an example of a positive interaction - rather it's meant to be an indication that there was NOT a negative interaction. Again, those words are just examples of what could be said. They weren't saying "This is absolutely the words we used and built an entire decision of someone off of" or even anything close to "This is the range we specifically had".

I get the impression everything was relatively informal in the process they described. In forums like these, it's about looking at the spirit of what they were trying to say and get across.

[bibinou]

You must be fun in taxis.

[Shocka1]

I was thinking the same. I get the whole Hacker News "being a contrarian just to be a contrarian" thing, but this specific thread has gone much further than I thought it would.

[mcguire]

To be fair, defending 'being a n asshole' is hard to do.

[reificator]

Wait I'm an asshole? For being upset that treating taxi drivers "as a human being" is considered a positive interaction instead of the absolute bare minimum of a respectful member of society?