This past week, my job as a rideshare driver has confirmed my belief that America needs to institute a mandatory service industry internship for all citizens. Anyone who plans to eat at a restaurant, shop in a retail store, or take an Uber home from a tipsy evening out should understand what a completely thankless job working in the service industry can feel like. It boggles my mind how rude and completely disrespectful Americans can be to anyone “serving” them.
As a young, twenty something, I did my stint as a server at Chili’s. I admit I was terrible at it, my fake smile skills are seriously lacking. But it made me a better person and, of course, a better tipper, than I ever might have been. If every entitled Forever 21-er in the U.S. had to spend six months trying to please the un-please-able, I think we’d have a more pleasant country. At least, a kinder nation.
I quit my career as a mechanic a little over a year ago because the hours were too much. You can’t be a part-time mechanic. I understand. People want their cars back. Fifty hours a week plus alternating Saturdays was not earning me any coveted Mother of the Year trophies. Children grow up in the blink of an eye. I was missing everything. I became a driver for Uber and Lyft because I can choose my own schedule. If I need an afternoon off for double Field Day duty, I don’t have to request it. I just take it. That’s the thing I love most about my rideshare job. After fourteen months, there are several things I DON’T love about my job, the worst being repeat conversations! Ugh, almost every passenger I have talks about the same thing- the weather or my job. I don’t want to discuss the rain in Colorado anymore. Trust me, we’re all over it! And if one more person asks me if I like driving for Uber/Lyft, I think my head might explode. Especially because I feel like I can’t give an honest answer without repercussions from my “employers” or in my customer ratings.
A couple of things about Uber you may not know:
1) Tips are not included. If I drive the minimum fare, one to two miles, the ride costs you $4. Uber takes one dollar off of every fare for a “safe rider fee” then they take an additional 20% commission. On a four dollar minimum fare, I make $2.40. There is no tip included. As drivers, we’ve repeatedly asked Uber to add a tip button to the app like the Lyft app has but we’re still waiting……
2) We pay our own gas, parking, maintenance, etc.
3) There is no hourly wage. We keep 80% of our fares minus the $1 safe rider fee, period.
4) Drivers have to maintain a 4.6 rating out of five stars to remain on the platform. Each customer we drive has the chance to rate us. I’m perfectly fine with this but a lot of people think four out of five stars is good. It’s a B, right? If I’m rated 4 stars, it’s a failure. I risk deactivation. The worst is the passengers who rate me poorly because of surge rates or traffic jams, like I’m somehow in control of these things. Actually, the worst is passengers who rate me poorly because I refuse to cram more than four passengers in my car because a- it’s a Forester, not a clown car and b- it’s illegal!!!!! Or the passengers who give me one star because I won’t let them drink their PBR or Silver Bullets in my car. Again, it’s illegal! I don’t really feel like I should be risking my driver’s license for your crappy beverage.
5) Uber has cut their fares 50% percent in the last year, which is fantastic for passengers. We’re almost have the price of a taxi cab but the driver’s have gone from earning $2 a mile down to 95 cents a mile (!!!!!!) with a tiny raise back up to $1.10 per mile (varies per city) Imagine your boss telling you that your $20 per hour job was dropping to $15 per hour then $10 per hour. Then imagine every customer you drive asking, ” How do you like driving for Uber?” And rating you poorly for answering honestly. It’s pretty degrading.
My new “office”
My last few “shifts” have been pretty nightmarish. It started Friday night when I picked up Leah and her equally inebriated BFF. Their pickup location was wrong which is somehow always the driver’s fault but I found them and successfully transported them to the drop off location after fifteen minutes of inane, mind-numbing chatter.
My next fare was a group of foreign women. They refused to cross the street to the parking lot I was safely pulled over in to pick them up so I had to drive around the block before they would enter my van . (Insert extremely annoyed eye roll) As I’m driving them 1.2 miles to a light rail station ( my favorite kind of $2.40 lucrative fare) my phone starts ringing with the caller I.D. showing Uber passenger. When I’m working, Uber scrambles my number so passengers can call me with directions, etc. I have this contact saved as Passenger. I ask the ladies in my van if anyone is calling me. It’s happened before where I get a pocket dial while driving someone but they tell me it isn’t them. I decline the call because- I’m working, it’s rude, and it’s unsafe. After declining five “passenger” phone calls, I finally pick up. It’s the wasted girls I just dropped off wondering if they left their phone in my minivan. I explain that I’m driving another passenger right now and as soon as I drop them off, I’ll search my van and return their call. They LITERALLY call another seventeen times until I finally reach the light rail station to drop off the perturbed ladies who actually take a minute to search for the lost phone before leaving to catch their train. I thank them and apologize for the 22! phone calls during their ride. Sure enough, my phone is ringing AGAIN. I tell Leah there is no sight of her phone on my floor and suggest she borrow another friend’s phone to call hers so I can listen for ringing. She finds it on the ground where she fumbled it getting out at her destination. I thank her for the ridiculous amount of phone calls and get on with my clusterf@#k evening.
Next up, I pick up a couple about my age taking their parents out to dinner. I pull into the loading zone in front of their building but the genius landscaper put river rocks out to the curb and the 60-somethings don’t feel like twisting a brittle ankle walking across the rocks to my van so I pull a few feet off the curb to safely load my passengers. Sure enough, Johnny Law pulls up next to me in his DPD vehicle to inform me that I’m blocking traffic with this maneuver. Thanks Captain Obvious, just trying to help out the elderly in-laws, give me ten more seconds… Sheesh cannot win tonight.
The next day , as if Friday night was not trying enough, I picked up a group of five day drinkers. It took me almost ten minutes herding this wasted group into my van. One passenger actually jumped into the front passenger seat over my pretty sizable center console like this is some kind of Dukes of Hazard flashback. The last straggler showed up with an open family-size bag of Doritos and crumbs coating his face. I pulled into traffic with a bad sense of foreboding. (Surely I can say sure enough at least more time here……) Sure enough! Not two blocks later they spot a sixth inebriated friend in need of a ride at a green light (Natch!) They throw open my left rear sliding door so he can dive into my Caravan like it’s some kind of freaking swimming pool deep end. Drunk number six is wearing at least a bottle of some hideous smelling cologne and everyone but me (the fuming driver) laughs and plugs their nose at how ridiculous he smells. I get them to their next bar and get out to make sure everyone gets out safely and SURE ENOUGH!!!!!! dumbass Dorito boy dumps the remains of his Doritos all over the back seats of my car. Seriously WTF!!!!! Spike, the ride requester, and least drunk of all these hooligans is mortified and tries to gather cash from his friend to tip me for the debacle. I explain to him he can tip me through the app so he shows me his payment screen where he’s tipping $20 as penance for this mess. I peel out, furious, heading to the nearest car wash to vacuum this mess before I can continue driving. And…….. Sure Enough, that jackass switched his tip from $20 to $5 before hitting submit which I found out on my daily summary. Grrrrrrrr! 
I know this sounds like my jobs sucks every day but for every ridiculous or petulant and obnoxious person I drive, there are at least five rides that go smoothly with people I really like talking to. Like the guy who recognized my Brand New ringtone ( as in Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don’t not like the opposite of Super Old) leading an awesome conversation about all the times we’ve seen our favorite bands live. Or the mom I drove last night, three years behind me on her parenthood journey with a 3 and 5 year old constantly feeling like a Mommy failure in this ridiculous new world of competitive parenting. We both reassured eachother that we’re doing an awesome job and raising mini humans is tougher than anyone warned us about.
I know this isn’t my dream job. I shouldn’t complain but sometimes a little venting can’t hurt. Besides, my dream job is working at any job part time, enough to pay my bills and have the time to be the soccer Mom I always dreamed of being, (hopefully raising better adults than the Dorito D bag) so thank you for making that possible. My point is, please please please, find some manners, respect, and common courtesy when dealing with your service industry peeps. If you can tip, Tip! Please rate your drivers fairly, knowing that a four star rating could cost them their job. Try living the golden rule…… and if anyone needs a promo code for free rides!!!! Or a driver referral to try this dream job out for yourself!!!!!
Lyft promo code= DANA2247 5 free rides up to $20 each or sign up to drive for a $750 bonus!
Uber promo code = k69ug $20 off your first ride
