Indirectly Paid Vaccine Outreach

For the most part, conversations with my passengers have dropped like a stone during the pandemic for obvious reasons. The windows are down, the masks are on, fewer people are intoxicated and loose with their tongues, and the majority of riders are solo. 

I take warehouse workers to long shifts, grocery shoppers home with their goods, and folks who are having transportation issues who need to rely on rideshare. It's been a hard time, both personally and professionally, and the nearly 3K passengers that I've given service to since the start of the pandemic have mostly kept quiet. 

I'm fine with that. I'm here to make money because I have to.

But as the days get longer and the snow melts and the new case count goes down while vaccines go into arms, there are green shoots. And, also, community outreach.

Here's an odd thing about being a (white? obviously educated? older? try hard?) rideshare driver in lower income areas and to lower income passengers... they want your opinion on things, and seem to regard you as a credible source. More so than traditional or social media, at least. Maybe I'm just one of the few people outside of their community that they get to talk to during the pandemic, or maybe I just present well... but in any event, I get to do Vaccine Outreach on a routine basis.

"Are you going to get it?"

And my answer is always the same: yes. As soon as humanly possible. With bells on. To protect my family and my passengers and to hasten the day where we all don't have to wear masks, because I guarantee you that I wear a mask *many* more hours a week then you do, and that my three-layer mask can cause my glasses to fog, my face to hurt, and is downright annoying when there's variable temperatures or I have to yawn or sneeze. 

Also, that I'm well and truly tired of buying masks to give away to people who aren't wearing one. I'm also well and truly tired of stealing glances at people in the rear view mirror to see if they keep the damned thing on for the duration of the ride. 

And yes, some truly wonderful people do that. They get a rating that makes sure I don't ever give them service again, which is kind of a problem for them given that fewer drivers are working in the pandemic in the first place, but when people show you who they are, believe them. Also, if all rideshare drivers did this, then no rideshare drivers would have to check, because the riders would have corrected their behavior or walked.

Tonight, I had a woman in the car who actually works in vaccine distribution. She was exhausted but enthusiastic, and I had her in the car for 20+ minutes to brainstorm ideas on how to get lower accepting populations to join in later.

I told her that I didn't envy her task. That we needed to make sure things were multi-lingual, that there needed to be church outreach, that there would likely never be a stick that would match the carrot, and that with media fracturing and the previous Administration's spectacularly fail and salting of the political earth, that even hitting so many market segments would likely still leave us in the 30% asshat resistance group, and how those people are going to hurt the world even more than usual, because people who aren't learning are just the worst.

So what's the solution?

Well, one of my later rides was a home health aide, an older African-American woman who was going to get the shot, but was scared and just going along because it was a condition of employment. By the time she got out of the car, she was much more enthused about getting the shot. Or she was just telling me what I wanted to hear. But I don't think she was lying, because I kind of doubt she ever lies about anything.

One at a time, folks. Each one, help two. 

Or, well, more.