a rideshare moment from a (bad) french art film

the hail comes from a woman at a supermarket on mission street, in a city i can't afford, having shopped for food i can't afford

the wind and the gray whip the street and my car, as i park not well, because my passenger is right there and wants Speed, because Wind and Cold and Life

the hatchback trunk lifts and the wind whips in to catch a plastic bag and toss it to the sky

relieving it from my service, where it has lived for months, because california is a place where such things are paid for, and paying for things is something i try very hard not to do

the wind takes the bag high above the street, over the elevated train tracks, over the two lanes of busy road, and into the shopping center across the street


where it will start a new and terrible life as litter and sewer trap

and i want to chase after it, like a child after a balloon, like a man who is holding on to everything he can, even something as mean and small as a single plastic bag

while still seeing the moment where it flies against the sky as the new passenger blithely moves into the car as a moment of small art (very lower case)

in frozen time as i think of what to do next, as if there is any real choice othen than to

drive on, drive on, drives on, before someone calls me on my litter

and before the money that is in front of me floats away as well

(fin)

Nudge Or Shove?

In the past few weeks, Lyft has decided to add a bonus structure. A reasonably good one, too; one that pushes my hourly net as a driver to heights that it hasn't usually seen in the 16+ months that I've done the work.

Image result for nudge

The trouble is that the bonus is, well, perfectly calculated to be just on the edge of a stretch. Instead of being able to get to my own, self-assigned, target in 30 to 40 hours of driving, now I'm going for 45 to 55... and that extra time is coming at the cost of the gym work that I used to be able to do, sometimes even every day of the week.

It is, of course, Not Sustainable, and in all likelihood, Lyft will curtail these bonuses once they get out of seasonal calendar demands. The Bay Area is collegiate enough to have a high amount of turnover at this time of the year, and we also see a spike in traffic after Labor Day, so I'm pretty much thinking this is a short-term deal to try to gain market share.

Also, well, I took a week and a half off for personal travel not too long ago, which means the bonuses are coming at a particularly opportune time...

But, um, still? I almost wish they hadn't done it. If for no other reason than I really do miss being able to eat without worrying about fitting into my clothes, or wondering if my 9 to 5 at a standing desk covers the damage done by my 6 to 12 at a sitting one.

And if this is the New Normal, and I'm going to just be pushed into making this progressively harder number every week?

Well, I wouldn't be driving if I didn't need the money, right?

The Driver Is In

Image result for lucy psychiatric help booth

Three times in the last week, the passenger has been a psychotherapist. The most fun of these being an older married couple who both do couples counseling, and who claim to have never used their powers in their own relationship. (Yeah, I'm not sure I believe them either, but they did seem happy with each other, so... maybe.)

For each ride, there was conversation, because I'm not sure that a therapist *can't* engage with their driver, and as a driver who is now logging upwards of 50 hours a week in the app (more on that later), I'm thrilled for conversation, too.

There are, of course, some light similarities in the gigs, in that both of us are, to an extent, matching and mirroring the other person to make them comfortable and more open to conversation. We ask open-ended questions, we listen and bring back conversational callbacks, and we engage, at least for a little while, in the simultaneously selfless and selfish act of listening.

The key differences being that you are paying your therapist a lot more than you are your driver. Also, that the therapist is actually licensed and trained and so forth, while I'm just a guy...

With 6,500+ passengers and counting, which is making me start to wonder who has more experience in talking to people...

Single moms have things to get done

 The ping comes from the Wal-Mart, a five minute ride on a weekend when I'm trying to rack up a bunch of short rides for a bonus, so not...