Can I Call You an Uber?

Raise your hand if you have ever taken a ride in an actual, honest to goodness taxi.  I suspect your age will influence whether you actually have or not, but more commonly it seems that ‘ride-sharing’ has become the trend when it comes to getting from point A to point B sans your own car or public transit.  For a short time, I was an Uber driver, and while this could probably be a category all to itself (a theme which I’m sure will come up again), I’m only going to focus on a few particular riders that stood out for this particular story.

                Firstly, there were many couples. In many cases, one was super drunk, and the other was apparently stone cold sober.  Inevitably the drunk one would share all kinds of information to the extreme discomfort of their sober significant other.  I would usually try and be as comforting to the sober member as I reasonably could.  Luckily, I never had anyone who got sick, or passed out while I was giving them a ride.

                Next there comes the college students.  Often traveling in groups of 3 or 4, they ranged from being super talkative, to sitting almost stone faced, barely acknowledging me, let alone their companions.  Commonly they had been drinking, or were on their way to drinking, which may have influenced their talkativeness.  These were also the group that commented most frequently about the fact that I drove a stick shift.  Many of them had no idea what it was, and while this may be a “millennial cliché” the reality was that a whole bunch of them really didn’t have a clue as to what a manual transmission was. 

                However, there is 1 ride in particular that deserves its own story here. A rider I picked up at a car dealership.  As you’ve probably noticed, many stories require some background info to properly convey the gravity they have, and this is no exception.  Back in the early days of Uber, the onus was on the driver to make the rider happy, there by getting a better rating.  If your rating was too low, your account would be frozen.  If you rejected to many riders, or too high a percentage of riders, your account would be frozen.  If you chose not to wait for a rider, even if they were taking way too long to reach you once you were at the pre-determined meeting spot, you would likely get a strike.  To many strikes, and you guessed it, your account would get frozen.  

                The rub was that if you were someone who did nothing but drive for Uber, you had a distinct advantage when it came to the numbers game.  A person like I was, just driving now and then to earn some extra cash, had to pretty much take all comers, because even one rejection, one bad review, could drop my percentage to an unreasonable number.  I ended with a single one-star review (all the rest were 4.5 or better), and 2 rejected trips.  My percentages were fine, but even those small blips caused a huge hit to my numbers. 

                It was a Saturday evening, which are typically very busy, and I had just finished dropping off my first rider at a bar.  It was just after six, and no sooner had I dropped him off when another ride popped up.  I indicated I was on my way to pick the rider up, which was only a mile or two away.   Upon arriving at the location, I was happy to find it was a car dealership.  I had taken a few people home from dealerships, often because they were dropping the car off for warranty or other repair work.  These were usually pretty easy, no drunks, talkative in a way I could easily relate too “Yeah, they’re just out to rip you off!” or “Good thing you had that warranty huh?”.  As I waited, an employee of the dealership came up to the car to ask if I was there to trade it in.  I chuckled “No.” and said that I was picking up an Uber rider here.  He kind of wrinkled his nose and said hold on, running back into the main showroom.

                After a moment, a young woman exited the dealership and walked up to my car. She got in and I swiped that the rider was present, and the trip was starting.

                Okay, sorry, one more thing about Uber that I should have mentioned. At this time (and maybe still) as the person driving, you didn’t find out the rider’s destination until after you had picked them up. This was meant to deter drivers from ignoring riders who needed to be taken to less desirable locations.

                Anyway, the trip map came up, and I had to do a double take. Having grown used to seeing estimated trip times in the 10 to 20-minute range, I was confused by this trip’s estimated time of two and a half hours! Not really keen on getting a strike, and realizing that I would make as much for this one trip as I likely would doing multiple runs around town that night, I called my wife to warn her where I was going, and I headed off for Winston Salem, North Carolina.

                The length of the ride notwithstanding, this is one of my most memorable rides for a number of reasons. The woman I had picked up was from South Korea. She had come to the states to attend Wake Forest University. She wanted to purchase a car and had come to South Carolina because the taxes here are evidently better. Having Ubered down that morning, and not finding a car she liked evidently, she now needed a ride back to school.

                This ride, one way, without hitting traffic or any other problems, came out to about $300. I can only assume the trip that morning had cost her about the same. I guess in terms of saving on taxes, maybe this was a sound investment, but I can’t exactly confirm that. She spoke English but spent at least half her ride talking on the phone exclusively in her native language.

                She spent the other half sleeping. Here I’m going to pause and just say, I guess I’m glad I was the one who got the call for this ride. She spoke openly early in the ride concerning the fact that she had no relatives in the states, and that she had told her father her plans for that day, but only him.

                I’m not trying to disparage Uber drivers, at this point I was one. But there are plenty of stories, including one from the very town I live and was Ubering in, concerning people being attacked, assaulted, or even murdered. And this goes both ways, as drivers get attacked on occasion. Ultimately, the trip took an extra hour due to a football game being played that night, thus closing off the main road needed to reach her dorm. We made it, but it was a bit of an adventure.

                As we pulled up to her dorm, the next part of this odd encounter kicks in. This was back before you had an in-app option to ‘Tip’ your driver. As she realized it was pushing nearly 11pm at this point, she offered me a $10 tip to go and get myself some dinner. I was appreciative, and certainly accepted the offered money. She then however said the following (I’m going to quote this, because this is exactly what she said).

                “So hey, I know it’s late and all. My roommate’s brother says you can crash on the couch at their frat house if you’re tired.”

                I politely declined, took my $10, bought myself some Arby’s for the road, and headed home. I ran that final sentence back in my head several times, which again, is exactly what she said. Putting aside all of the other strangeness about that night, the question really just put the icing on the cake. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how the conversation on the other side of this equation went. “Hey, some old dude just drove me back here from South Carolina. You think he could come crash on your couch?” I probably missed out on a killer kegger, but I had done my job, and was glad to be going home.

                I’ve got a few other Uber stories that I’ll probably share, down the road as it were, but this one sticks out as maybe the most ‘unique’, so I wanted to get it out.

                Until next time good readers, take care.