Fighting For Illogical Justice

Those few words from my driver’s mouth changed everything.

It was a warm, sunny late afternoon in Jakarta when I got into a small green tuktuk. I had spent the morning and early afternoon exploring the city and eating all the amazing food.

I decided to get a tuktuk back to my hotel rather than jumping onto subway as it was a bit quicker. And thought it would be more relaxing. But I missed one key factor in making my decision.

As I stepped out of the tuktuk, the driver looked at me and demanded “25”.

It caught me off guard. I thought he must have made a mistake, so I asked “How much?”.

“25” he replied with a straight face.

I responded, “We agreed it was 20 (before I got in).” I knew he was taking the opportunity to exploit me. He barked back “There was traffic so now 25”. I could feel my blood starting to boil.

The amount itself wasn’t the issue – I was planning to give him 30, 20 for the trip and 10 as a tip.

While I had been in the tuktuk, the moving air had been keeping me cool. But as I stood just outside next to the tuktuk, the humidity was getting to me. With traffic zipping around me, making me more irritable.

I argued with him for 10 minutes until he accepted the price we agreed.

It made no sense arguing with the man for 5,000 rupiah (when speaking, they usually removed the thousand so “5,000” would become “5”). That was the equivalent of 10p. If my manager ever asked me to work for 10 minutes for 10p, I’d laugh him out of the room.

But there I was arguing.

I wasn’t fighting for the money. I was fighting for justice.

But justice for 10p wasn’t worth 10 minutes' effort. And the anger that came with it.

I wish I had just told him I was going to give him 30,000 rupiah but because he tried to cheat me, I’d give him the 25,000. He would have known that his thieving cost him and I would have saved money and time.

And I wish I could learn from my experience. I’ve had many interactions with people like this and I still haven’t.

It’s one of those irrational behaviours I might not ever be able to get rid of.

But reframing this type of behaviour from a stupid, illogical decision to a stupid emotional one, where I’m fighting for justice and not pennies, makes me feel less bad about the situation.

Well, slightly. Even thinking about that man is annoying me.

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