"More than good intentions"

I put the title in brackets because it is also a name of a book by Dean Karlan about how only having good intentions is not a good enough reason to solve a global issue, such as poverty, for example.

I used this as the title of this post because I might be living through a real-life example of one aspect of what the book is about. Here goes:

I am currently traveling with my former boss, who is visiting Cambodia with her husband from the U.S. We were heading to Kep to spend a few nights there. Every time I come to Kep, I contact this tuk-tuk driver so he can bring me around, and I pay for his services.

He has been very welcoming to me, and I trust him.

This time, I didn't come alone and didn't do the booking, so I am not the first to know when plans change. As usual, I contacted him and asked if he is available while I'm here with my former boss, so we can pay for his services to bring us around on his tuk-tuk. I first told him we were coming on the 11th, but then plans changed, and I immediately updated him that we were coming on the 10th. Then another plan changed, and I didn't get to use his tuk-tuk services for the past few days.

The 2nd night I was here, I received a 4-minute voice message from him, and he was telling me that he is at loss, because I kept changing my plans, and now he didn't get any income, because he canceled all other customers to wait for me.

I then felt very bad and was not sure what was best to do besides apologizing continuously. He never told me that he had other customers waiting for him, so I genuinely thought he was available, and I kept him updated right away when I knew that the plans had changed, and I understand how this was confusing and unfair to him.

I didn't mean to do this.

The moment I thought of this phrase: "I didn't mean to do this", I thought of the book "More than good intentions" mentioned above because it is true that I didn't mean to make him cancel other clients' requests for me. In fact, I didn't know he had conflicting demands, as he never shared that until afterward - BUT I still hurt his income for a few days, as he claimed, because he was expecting me to use his tuk-tuk service while I was here.

I could say that I learned my lesson, but my action had a much more negative impact than I thought I did, and at this time, I'm not sure what I can do to make up for it. He already blamed me for it, and I apologized. I hope to do better next time.