In a family from Helsinki, taxis have been driven for five generations. Grandma, mother and son have greetings from the taxi reform: Vocational skills back.
“Nights are for us”, says Kirsti Syreeni68, who still misses the wheel.
Also Jonna Engelberg46, and Roope Lilac24, all drive preferably at night.
They are granny, mother and son. They are all also taxi drivers. In this family, people have actually been transported for five generations, if you also count the horse rides.
The trio has bitter things to say about the taxi reform, but also a medicine to fix it: professionalism and pride back. Because this family really loves to drive.
“Summer morning night. You're coming along the road from somewhere when the sun starts to rise. You're such a jerk. That's the thing,” Jonna Engelberg summarizes.
Grandma Kirsti Syreeni became interested in cars at the age of four. When her father was repairing the car in the yard, Kirsti's legs were also visible under the car.
Already Kirsti's grandfather was a vossik, so he became a horse. Kirsti's father's profession was a taxi driver and the brothers drove rallies. Kirsti herself worked as a drunken driver for the “village kunds” in the evenings when she was young, it was a bit like a precursor to taxi work.
“Huhhuh, it was great, I got the car to use and I got to do everything in it.”
He had time to work, for example, as a payroll clerk and in a lunch cafe, but his first taxi shift was already in 1985.
Kirsti Syreeni drove a taxi for ten years in the 1980s and 1990s. Now he hopes the taxi industry will improve.
Daughter Jonna Engelberg traveled in her mother's taxi as a child while she worked. Homely, that word for him about taxis comes to mind.
Kirsti's employer had said that the girl would not be “at least a Vossika”. Probably because, as a teenager, Jonna once took a “running taxi” and got caught.
“There was some schism with the driver and I started running and he couldn't catch me. At home, mother invited me into the living room.”
The very driver that Jonna had run away from was sitting on the sofa. That means his mother's employer at the same time. However, he promised to hire Jonna later, if he straightens up. That's what happened in the end.
Jonna got behind the wheel of a taxi soon after gett
ing her driver's license as a result of betting. The driver's clothes were changed in the toilet of Kaarti police station.
Yes, when he was young he worked at a gas station and as a cleaner, but now he couldn't imagine being anything other than a taxi driver.
Jonna Engelberg has been driving a taxi for almost 30 years.
Son Roope Syreeni also accompanied her mother to work. Now he has been driving a taxi himself for five years. Although he is only in his twenties, he has also had time to train as a restaurant chef and ran a photography business between 2017 and 2021.
“I will be in the taxi industry as long as I can. You can't get me out of the industry.”
Roope Syreeni, who ran a photography company, also has training as a restaurant chef. However, the taxi industry eventually attracted him.
What is driving a taxi attractive then?
Freedom, everyone says.
“This is not a profession but a way of life,” says Roope.
Kirsti worked at a time when taxi drivers had working hours.
Jonna, on the other hand, has lived through change. When he started, there were still fixed working hours and a strict dress code with ties.
Nowadays, Jonna and Roope can drive when they want.
“I can go to work now or in 20 hours,” says Roope. Of course, you have to work hours to get bread on the table.
Trio talks about cars, driving and the job of a taxi driver with a big fire. They shine with professionalism, know-how and confidence in their own work.
They don't have a family business. Roope and Jonna drive for the same owner, a long-time personnel entrepreneur Urpo Pääkkönen.
We'll go over the basics.
Driver the bench is sacred. As a rule, also the center console, instructs Roope.
“In the past, the taxi driver very often left a magazine in the front seat because it was a reserved seat,” says Kirsti.
It is the place of a guardian angel, Kirsti and Jonna add.
The trio states that sometimes a taxi driver is like a truck, a policeman or a “skull shrinker”. In Kirsti's opinion, taxi drivers are like bartenders, “pretty good ears”.
There are many pleasant customer encounters. Soft toys and thank you cards have arrived.
The most important thing is good service. The doors are opened, the goods are put in the trunk and we see that the customers get on board.
The car is always decorated according to the season. At Christmas with elves and a small fir tree, at May Day with streamers and balloons.
The goal is for the customer to leave the ride in a better mood.
“And when there was an older person on board, I thought that maybe they don't have anyone else to talk to. The person coming for the ride from the hospital yard could have received bad news,” Kirsti reflects.
A trio in speeches they are not family only to each other. The whole community of taxi drivers is a family.
Or it was. The reform of the taxi act that entered into force in 2018 does not garner praise.
Roope sighs.
“The number of taxis grew incredibly. Now there are three times more drivers looking for a salary. At the same time, the number of customers has decreased.”
Professional pride and professionalism are also missing. Drivers are no longer trained as before. According to Roope, the current taxi test is “ridiculously easy”.
“I had to know all the streets of Stad by heart. I read the map like crazy and drove all night to learn,” says Kirsti.
However, the legal reform did not make Roope and Jonna doubt the industry. The will to fight came, Roope describes. The desire to serve even better.
For years holds incredible stories.
In the 1990s, Jonna ended up in Spain for a week in the middle of her work shift as a clothing model.
“I called my mother to ask if you would come and get a taxi from Seutula and bring my passport. I had a customer on board and he was missing one model, so I went along.”
The dark sides of the industry have also become familiar. Jonna has been threatened with a knife, a gun, tried to strangle her with a seat belt, she says. However, it is difficult to verify old case
s anymore.
How do you get over difficult experiences?
Driving, everyone says in unison. By continuing to work normally.
In the picture, Kirsti Syreeni sometimes wears the ears of the 1960s. Little sister next to me.
in the 1990's Jonna “wrestled” with an HIV-positive customer, he says. HIV can be transmitted through blood contact, for example. The infection scared me, luckily in vain.
Since then, Jonna's work equipment has included “customer removal gloves”. That's what his children named them.
Roope says that he took a model and digs his own from his pocket.
“These are for your own safety.”
Roope says that he was so unlucky that he also has heavier equipment with him.
“I've been wearing a bulletproof vest on the night shift for a couple of years now.
Of everything despite that they are not afraid. It happens and happens when you can everywhere else.
“I'm more afraid of four-legged animals, like deer,” says Jonna.
Kirsti says that he was saved from trouble. I had to use the emergency button once.
There were two men and a bag in the back seat. One of the men had to withdraw money. We stopped at the machine.
Suddenly one of the men grabbed hold. Kirsti managed to free herself and press the emergency button. Two colleagues arrived immediately.
The bag revealed a confusing surprise, small turtles.
“He had smuggled them on the ship. The bastards and the turtles went to the police station.”
Trio hopes that the taxi industry will improve. The speeches are familiar from representatives of traditional taxi companies.
“That these couple of thousand extra cars would be removed, this wild taxi system would be completely removed, so that it would become decent and safe again. And that this would provide a source of income for those who do this.”
“It would be really nice to get the safety and professional pride of the
industry back,” Roope and Jonna add.
And that there would be peace at work. That colleagues would be valued and everyone would be on the same page.
One this is essential in a taxi shift. Music.
In Jonna's case, colleagues know from the music genre whether it's worth approaching him or whether to let him spend his break in peace.
At the end of a good turn, it might ring, for example Matti Esko Trucker or Kake Randelin's It must be a long day.
Children's songs work especially well, they say.
“Hevisaurus The last mammoth comes quite often when you go home from the post to sleep. Good night last mammoth!Jonna says.
Three generations of taxi drivers have seen the change in the industry up close.
Kirsti doesn't drive anymore. He stopped after the mid-1990s after driving for ten years. Would you still like to drive a taxi?
“Yeah!”
Realities hit. The eyes should be cut first because he is night blind.
“But it would be absolutely wonderful for me to go with one of them one night.”
So let's agree.
“And what else would I like to do, yes, I would like a long, straight track with which I could press really hard.”
The drug of speed.
“It's that freedom,” says Jonna.
Kirsti is left dreaming.
“That it is.”
When the host, for whom Jonna Engelberg had worked for more than ten years, quit, Jonna organized a cup of coffee in his honor on the hood of a car in Helsinki's Asema Square. Below is a Youtube video of the event.
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