Part-Time Driver, Full-Time Guilt

Yup, So Me

For the last three weeks, folks, I've been almost entirely *not* a ride share driver. There's a new contract job for my actual career that's occupying my whole head and nearly bringing in enough to keep me from thinking about money and debt and obligations every minute of the day. Since it's a contract gig, it's also not one that I can say a lot about, or anything that I feel overwhelmingly secure in... but so far, it's going pretty well, and I'm doing all I can to make sure they can't live without me, for, well, ever.

All of which means that the job that I was doing pretty much full time (and truth be told, 1.5 - 2X full time, because money) has more or less gone poof. Here are the hours to prove it.

Jan	60.6
Dec	213.7
Nov	261.55
Oct	233.8
Sept	162.9
August	258.45

Keep in mind that almost all of the January hours are in the week before the new gig started. There was also a very high spike around New Year's. I track this stuff by the week more than the month, because that's how you are paid, so this isn't perfect, but it's close enough for trend analysis.

Now, it's not as if I've suddenly gotten a *ton* of my time back. With commute, the day gig is pretty much a 60 hour a week job,  a rough swap out for the time that I used to spend behind the wheel. I could and likely will do more ride share hours on nights and weekends, especially if something unfortunate happens with the accountant or the kids or the house or my teeth or what else.

But what is clear to me is that the nearly 2K hours that I logged in 2018, and the nearly 3K hours in 2019, is much more likely going to be in the 1K range this year. Maybe even less, if other opportunities crop up. (Which is the reason why September and October dropped, by the way.)

What happens if you are a full-time driver that stops doing the work? Well, Lyft has been seeing less and less of me for the better part of a year now, just because they aren't as good at keeping drivers busy in central New Jersey, where I live now. That's been an interesting back and forth of carrot and stick, in terms of trying to bribe me into driving enough to reach a higher status. Uber actually texted me the other day to see if anything was wrong, and they've been offering re-start bonus structures with dramatically lower ride counts. In other words, pretty standard reactivation marketing tricks.

The bigger mental hurdle involved after you've been Gig Economy for a while is that... well, you start to put a price on your leisure. And maybe even your sleep, or your health. Tonight, I had to catch up on some work for the contract job, and I also wanted to watch a basketball game... which I'm pretty sure "cost" me a couple of hundred bucks, given that I missed a Saturday night with college kids in the area, not to mention those bonus bucks. 

When you can sell any free hour of your week, and you've spent years doing more or less that... well, it feels *wrong* not to. Selfish, even.

That's the really dark side of gig work, folks. How easily it puts money to choices that you never had before. Go to the gym? We've got bills to pay. Help with the education of our youngest? Take care of some housework, play with your dogs, read a book or play music or enjoy a video game or... 

Anything, really. 

Clock's running. 

Don't you need the money more?

All About Tipping

No, I Have No Change

Recently, I heard an episode of "Freakonomics" while in the car doing the rideshare hustle. The episode talked with an economist who looked at tipping in the Uber app, and shared the following "surprising" findings.

1) Introducing tipping didn't improve the per hour revenue for drivers. Mostly because it got more drivers into the pool, and more drivers in the pool means less surge pricing and fewer rides per hour.

2) A very small percentage of passengers tip. Something like 7% always do, and over 60% never do. This seems odd, considering that nearly 100% of cab riders tip, but I get it - the dynamic is different and the transaction is all digital. It's just not as expected. But should be. (The percentage of my take-home amount from tipping is, to be fair, less than 7%, and has dropped from around 9% when I worked out on the West Coast.)

3) Men tip more often than women, and women drivers get more tips than men. Again, not very surprising. That's just how sexism works!

All of this seems fine and correct. But here's a few more from my own experience (15K rides and counting) that you can also take to the bank.

1) Shared or pool riders rarely, if ever, tip. Not too surprising, right? These folks are trying to spend as little as possible pretty often, rather than doing an environmentally conscious act.

2) Riders in economically disadvantaged areas also rarely tip. Again, not surprising. I tend to work these areas often, because the ride density is strong and I'm frequently chasing a ride bonus. If you don't have it, you're not sharing it. Or if you get the gist that I might (shh!) make more than you do, and am just doing this as a side hustle.

3) Airport riders, especially with luggage, tip. I tend to hop out of the car and grab the bags, mostly to speed the ride along. Airport rides also tend to be longer, and...

4) Long rides tip more than short ones. You have more time to get to know the passenger, and most folks know that airport rides are unpleasant for the driver. If someone is taking you out to the middle of nowhere, they also tend to feel bad and try to compensate for that.

5) Routine commuters are unlikely to tip. A fair amount of my rides come from supermarkets and train stations, and for these folks, the cost of the rideshare is something they are thinking hard about.

6) Folks who are (knowingly) paying a surge price. Which is, to be fair, a pretty small percentage, and leads to the next one...

7) Drunk people tip. Especially if they are feeling self-conscious about how much time they've spent talking through the ride.

8) If they match your demographic, or have something in common with you... they're gonna tip. People who wind up linking to me on LinkedIn don't want to start the relationship without throwing a few extra bucks on the ride.

9) Older riders tip. Most often in cash, and highly considered amounts, after a startling amount of conversation. Sometimes, I want to give it back, especially if they appear to be in poor health... but I never do. It'd be insulting, honestly.

10) Other people who work for tips. Waitresses, bartenders -- these folks respect hustle, and game respects game.

The best tipping person in my career as a rideshare driver is a waitress who has gotten me a half dozen times, and always tipped hard -- and I repaid the favor just this last week with a visit to her restaurant. We asked for her special, waited longer to get one of her tables, and hit the check with a 25% gratuity, in cash. It's how I roll, folks. (At least, when I can afford it.)

Bonus: The people who tip... always tip. And yes, this includes me. If your service stinks, it might just be a buck, but I want to live in a world where rideshare drivers can make a living. Which is possible if we just treat them, well, like the cab drivers they are replacing...