In the Business of Boundaries: Lessons From A Sunrise Cab Ride

Oxford Circus

In my youth, while working in retail administration on Oxford Street, I was asked or coerced into doing a stock take once the store had closed one evening. For reasons that, to this day, baffle me, the stock take took all night. The manager gave our small team cash to get a cab home. I emerged onto an eerily quiet Oxford Street, with the sun peeking over the buildings. 

I managed to raise my tired arm to hail a black cab. The driver pulled over. I told him where I wanted to go and I slumped into the seat ready to be whisked off to my warm, comfortable bed. Before I could properly settle in, I saw the cab driver hesitate. Then he turned around to me and said, “You’ll need to pay up front.” I beg your pardon?!

For anyone unfamiliar with a London black cab, the fare is metered and determined by distance and time. Unlike a minicab, which has a set rate for distance, the final fare would not be calculated until I reached my destination some 9 miles away. 

I sat in the seat, fatigue setting into my legs but rage boiling in my chest. I had the cash in my pocket and more than enough in my purse (yes, this was well before the contactless era). 

I concluded that he thought I couldn’t pay and/or I was going to jump out of the cab and evade the fare. A logic he had constructed based on only a few things he could see. Before I could say anything, the ancestors picked me up and I got out of the cab. As I was closing the door, I showed him the cash from my pocket and said, “I have the cash.” 

A few moments later, I hailed another black cab. I told him my destination, no questions asked, no upfront payment request and he whisked me home.

This experience often comes to mind, and it did so recently because it is a powerful example of boundaries. More importantly, it highlights that boundaries are a constant work in progress, shifting depending on the situation.

With the cab driver, there was no way I was going to give that man one rusty penny, even if it wasn’t my money. The cost to violate my spiritual boundary was too high.

At work, being young, eager to succeed and dazzled by the city lights, I had not set clear boundaries around work or my time. This, coupled with the mismanagement of others, meant I was standing on Oxford Street at sunrise, exhausted and enraged. It’s in moments like this that most boundaries are formed.

Setting boundaries at work or in a business setting can be challenging, as there is often office politics and the need to earn a living to contend with. However, it shouldn’t feel as though all of your morals or values are being eroded or that the line between your personal and professional life is fading away. Reclaiming that line starts with knowing exactly where it should be drawn.

To help you identify where you might be struggling and to establish clear work, physical and emotional boundaries, download my free Setting Boundaries Workbook.