Amateur Hours (New Year's Eve 2024)

New Year's Eve is one of the most lucrative nights of the year for rideshare drivers. You make twice your usual rate on average, which also means that... you are twice as stressed about making good choices for profit taking. It is what it is.

I started New Year's Eve with a need for Lyft points to clear December's requirement, so the first four hours are spent on one platform, not optimizing for surge or prime areas, and... stink. Lots of rides to low density places, no surge, no tips, no conversation, and I can't wait to get to the points requirement. I think I'm there as my bladder is bursting and I'm local to my home, so I pull in, get relief and discover... nope, one point (out of 860) short. GAHHH. It clears soon after, and I pivot to two platforms...

Only to discover that Uber is also playing Screw the Driver games with surge areas that disappear on activation, using up my margins for avoiding inefficient rides, and by the time midnight rolls around, I'm staring down the barrel of nothing more than a better than average Tuesday.

After the clock strikes, my luck changes, and I find myself in a college area (short rides, high prices, full cars so I don't even really feel that bad about the surge, since they can spread the pain). After 90 good minutes of this, I'm in hailing distance of the daily goal, especially if I complete a Quest.

Uber Quests are "beat the clock" promotions where you get a bonus to complete a number of rides before a deadline. Having already completed two earlier and less profitable rounds, I'm now in the finale: 3 for $35, on top of the surge price and possible tips. In other words, nearly consulting rates. And I'm out of margin for being picky, so anything that comes down the pike is one I'm going to take. Rideshare Gods, activate! Form of... good stories for later!

The first ride takes me across the border to Pennsylvania. Leaving the app on means I won't get any fares until I get back across the state line, but I will accrue whatever surge price is happening on my way back. Which means my first ride will be, along with the second ride of the Quest, an extra twelve bucks... and it is, of course, stupid far away, and a shared ride for a single passenger, which will take me back into Pennsylvania to do the whole thing again. Joy.

I drive the 15+ minutes to Bordentown, a well-off little town south of Trenton that has a rather unfortunate police history of making sure that people from Trenton do not go there. It's not exactly my favorite place to be. I roll up on my pick up point, at which moment two male-female white couples try to enter. I have the option, at this point, to either ignore the rules and give these cheap chuckleheads what they want for less, to an area I don't want to go... or I can tell them no and cancel, while making no money. Most times, I just eat it and three-star the passenger, because the majority of shared rides are not doing so out of anything approaching eco-friendliness, but tonight... nope. I drive away as the meatiest of the guys showers me with profanity, and was I smiling to hear it? I'll leave that to the imagination.

The next fare is again 10 minutes away, but at least it's coming back 25 minutes in what's likely in state, and if I'm going to close out this quest by 4 am (gahhh), I'm going to have to be quick about it. So I roll on out to a remote home in a quasi-rural area, and get five (yes, one more than the the legal limit, and the women are going to sit on some guy, and they're all drunk) people piling into the hatchback. Joy. We roll on out as drunk people engage in comedy, because some people are like that when they drink, and they think I'm hilarious because I'm dryly adding in asides about their remarks. (OnlyFans, feet pics, artistic integrity and the like. Nothing all that novel.)

We get two minutes from the drop when the guy in the front seat announces he can stands no more, so I pull over as he expertly pukes on the side of the road. He's quick about it and seemingly not too burdened by food, so five minutes later I'm alone again, with the final ride of the Quest relatively close by, but 30+ minutes west. Two guys speaking what is I'm going to imagine is a Slavic language enter, with enough understanding of English to confirm the mission. By the time I've dropped them off, I've learned that English is the language for profanity, but not much else, and made an off-the-app second stop because they can't figure out the app to do such things. I drive back home alone for the better part of an hour on empty roads.

If you drive on New Years' Eve, this is what you can expect. Higher risks, higher rewards, and if nothing else, a lot of people getting home safe.

Final tally: 28 rides for $399, plus some progress towards a Lyft quest for the week, plus whatever tips trickle in the next day. 

And, of course, the memories...

For Scarlett, and her mother

 I'm an email and digital marketing consultant, and rideshare is the client of last resort. I tend to do a lot of it around the holidays, because most clients don't have a lot of needs then, and if billing isn't optimal, the bills still need to be paid. Besides, you often run into people who remind you to be grateful for what you have, even if it's less than what you thought it was going to be.

Yesterday started with a disappointing but not totally surprising pause order from a top client. I'm hopeful they'll come back in a quarter or less, but there's no guarantee of it, and while I wasn't counting on their billing to cover expenses this month, next month is another matter. So what was looking to be a lot of hours in the car is going to be, well, definitely a lot of hours in the car. And the reality is that there are only so many hours in the day, and so long before you aren't safe to drive. So, not a great start to the day.

The shift starts well enough, and then a request comes in for a 55-minute ride north and east. That could mean a trip out of state, fighting traffic in greater NYC, and spending the rest of my shift outside of my comfort zone, where I know the local traffic patterns, locations of clean bathrooms, potholes, speed traps, and so on. There are good reasons to do rideshare locally, so that's where I do it. But with the morning's bad news fresh in my mind and my metrics a little on the low side for acceptance, I take the ride. 

The pick up is a detached house, a little rundown but not bad, in a mediocre neighborhood. The passenger comes out with a 2 year-old in a carseat, a guy wearing Wawa gear loading supplies into the trunk, and my feelings about taking the ride do not improve. 2-year-olds aren't always the nicest cargo, and what might be a single mom taking a long ride in traffic aren't very lucrative. But away we go. I confirm identity, destination and amenities, get a polite thank you that doesn't speak to the need for more conversation, and assume the next hour is going to be as quiet as the 2-year-old allows.

But after taking a quick call in Spanish, the mom starts a bit of conversation. I learn that the little girl is named Scarlett and usually falls asleep on car rides (yup, that happened), and the pick was at the mother of her boyfriend's house. I share some parenting and general life advice from my long-ago days of caring for infants, we start trading stories about our kids, and the traffic gets worse. I don't mind as much as I was planning to.

As the time slides by, I ask the mom what she does when she isn't a mom. With a little hesitation that eventually turns into eagerness, she gives me her back story. Moved from a small town in Mexico to the United States at age 9. Bullied in school for not knowing English, then a victim of sexual assault from a relative, so, grew up fast. Never wanted to be a mom, but took care of younger siblings. Dropped out of high school, worked in warehouses, didn't think she liked people, and then Scarlett. 

But then she got a job at a hotel working the front desk, and started having to interact with people, and it's something that she's getting better at. The father is slowly warming to the task, having been worried about the finances at the start.

On some level, it's a leap of faith for her to share all of this with me. I'm a middle-aged white guy, and it would be easy for her to imagine that engaging in a pretty deep conversation with an adult she's likely never to see again wasn't on her bingo card for the day. 

But I find myself touched by her willingness, and also find myself thinking back to how the day began, and how much I was dreading full-time rideshare.

The drop occurs an hour and a half later, after a change in plans that necessitated a different drop off and passenger exchange, so it became kind of a whole thing. I wind up dropping off her brother with her child, helping him unload the car, and getting tipped twice -- once in the app for a little and another in person from the relative. 

The amount from the app was below average, but with the tips, back to OK. I spend the next hour battling my way back, so it's not exactly a great shift for the money.

But as a reminder that the people that some of us choose to demonize aren't, well, demons?

And a reminder to be grateful for what I do have in this world, and how much more unfair life could be?

Great ride. Better passengers.

Pronouns for profit

As a rideshare driver, I'm constantly questioning my choices. What areas I chose to work in, which rides I tale, when conditions are best, the time I should stop. It's endless. 

So is, well, the code-switching. When a passenger enters the car, I confirm identity and destination, let them know about amenities, and wait for a response. If none or perfunctory is forthcoming, I respect that choice and complete the task. But if a conversation occurs, or the passenger seems like they are waiting to hear more, I wade in.

Last weekend, I'm working a not particularly well to do area. These can be more advantageous, since you are driving less distance to get your next passenger, and people with means are just less likely to be dependent on rideshare. But you do wonder if you are trading quality for quantity, especially when... the pick up is at a Wal-Mart, and the drop off is at a 1-star roadside motel. 

But into every rideshare life, some 1-star motels must fall, so let's get it done.

The passenger texts that there will be two riders, and they are waiting for me at the door; good start. On entering, they compliment the amenities, and I go with the usual next gambit of offering tips for using the services. One of the passengers volunteers that they used to drive for a rideshare platform, so they were curious if any of the tactics I am going to share are new. We then talk about tactics, and I venture that if you are OK working with drunk people, it can be lucrative due to surge pricing. 

I've learned, over the years, not to make a lot of (in some cases, any) eye contact with passengers. It can come off as confrontational, and my focus is on the road; that's where the deer, police, potholes, pedestrians, other drivers, are. So I haven't really looked at these folks, and, well, won't.

The passenger then contributes that when they drove, they weren't comfortable with drinkers. I shrug and note that it's easier for me, since my mother has been a bartender for so long, and I present male. That's the exact words I used, because I have known folks in transition, and well, why not. It's just accurate.

There's a pause, as if the passenger is wondering if they should say the next thing, and then they do. "Well, that's interesting. I'm trans, and I never thought of it that way."

Telling a complete stranger your orientation is, I suspect, a moment of trust. It can go badly, of course, or take the conversation into places they might not want to go. But my read of the situation is that this person is new to the area, encouraged by a moment of conversational inclusion, and not really looking to share their full journey with me. So I nod, don't change my demeanor or cadence or eye contact, and continue the journey, with points about the region that may be of interest, after confirming that they are, in fact, new to the area.

The conversation continues, the ride ends. The next day, I see a tip that doubles my take for that ride... 

And, well, that's one ride where I do not question my choices.

Getting too old for this

The pick up comes from a nightclub just over the border in a not great part of the world, a couple of hours before it usually closes. Having been to it before for pick ups, I know the parking lot well, and as I roll up, a heavyset man in his '40s slouches his way into the back seat. "I'm getting too old for this," he says, and I've got him for a 15-minute ride back to his home in a better part of the world.

We chat, and I give him the usual tips for rideshare passengers. It's friendly and we talk for a good part of the ride. It turns out he was in the room for his nephew's coming of age party, and while he was glad to be there for his people, there was no way he was going to be able to stay up late and partake in full foolishness. So he was very glad for my service, and to help him get out of there without complication.

At the drop, he exits, daps... and hands me the one dollar bills that he was, well, clearly going to use for another purpose that evening. Suspiciously crisp.

Not gonna lie; wasn't expecting that, I was kind of touched, and I felt a lot of kinship...

Z is for Zachary, a place to avoid

The Unhappy Hunting Grounds

There are many rideshare shifts that do more than put a few bucks in my pocket. I often genuinely enjoy the work, like talking to people, and providing them a service. I've been doing this now for way too long to be bad at it, and there is just a simple joy in being good at something.

And then there are shifts like today. 

Which included...

> An 18 minute pick up and ride, covering over 5 miles, that netted me... $5.16. With a 15-minute conversation that somehow did not result in a tip. Yeesh.

>  A woman on a shared ride, with another passenger in the car, studiously ignorning her ringing phone. For about, oh, nine minutes. Not that I was keeping track. Or noting that the drop off was to the Zachary Arms apartment complex in Robbinsville, which is a place with (a) many unmarked speed bumps, and (b) many passengers who have inspired low star ratings.

> A man putting a woman in the car for a shared ride, and she doesn't speak English. The platform gave me another rider on the way, which caused her (I think? I don't speak Spanish) to freak out on the phone to her guy, who then proceeds to threaten my ranking in texts for, well, doing my job. As if I can pick up other passengers on the ride when it's *not* a shared ride. 

Resulting in over 6 hours in the app for a gross (very) of... $101. 

So the next time you pay too much for a rush hour ride? 

Know that shifts like this one are *much* more common...