Office politics

"Hou vas ek se!"* The gaaitjie's shout emphasized his irritation. We were hovering in that area outside the Mowbray police-station and the driver had started to drive, disobeying the gaaitjie's previous"hou vas!" The two of them had been beefing from Woodstock, which was odd. Sometimes gaaitjies and drivers make jokes, keeping up a constant chatter, and the gaaitjie will jump out and buy cigarettes and glass bottles of Coke or packets of fruit from the pavement outside the Shoprite in Salt River, with crumpled sweaty notes passed back from the driver's seat. Sometimes they just sit in silence, the gaaitjie shouting only "forward" or "hou vas" as the situation demands. But I've never seen an acrimonious working relationship.

So there we sat, a handful of commuters, all looking down or out of the windows, as the gaaitjie shouted his aggressive "hou vas, ek se!" from his precarious position in the open doorway. The driver lifted his left fist off the steering wheel and waved it in the general direction of the gaaitjie. He somehow managed to shout a mutter. Fist-wave, mutter-mutter. The gaaitjie responded with a "you must listen to me!" The driver responded with another incomprehensible shout. I took my phone out and stared at the screen with intense purpose. If I'd stumbled into a similar situation on immobile land, I would have extricated myself as soon as possible.

The gaaitjie swung back into the taxi and slammed the door. We stood stationary. He tapped twice on the door--the universal signal for both stop and go--and glowered at the driver. The driver revved the engine before taking-off. I guess when your office is public transport, there's nowhere to hide the politics between middle management and minions.

* Literally: "Hold fast/hold on, I say", Contextually: "Stop driving now!"