Why the heated seats had to go

Yeah, Mood

 Friends, have you ever had one of those weeks where nothing works the way it should?

(Oh, here's a soundtrack for the day. Give the world to the monkeys, indeed.)

So I needed 35 rides before close of business on Sunday to activate the weekend bonus for Uber, and Lyft wants to get in the game as well with a bonus for 15 rides. It's Turn Back The Clock Day, which is a very heavy drinking holiday, and the week in Not Rideshare has been weak and worrisome. So I'm going to commit to the full shift for both days, with the hopes of catching up on the money that was missed, and maybe carving out enough time to watch a football game on Sunday. Pretty standard weekend plan.

I have one issue, and that's the phone charger. I had a fairly elaborate one that allows me to plug in up to four devices at once, two of which are after-market seat warmers. In the pandemic, your best move to keep yourself safe is ventilation, and when it's cold out, that's a way to get bad ratings, which I also can't afford. So when it gets cold, I activate the heaters and hey presto, tipping and compromise and the sign that passengers really want -- this driver cares and treats the hustle seriously.

The charger, alas, had seen better days. It slipped the cigarette lighter easily, which means my phone could start losing power, and if I'm not careful, drain off and cause real issues. A driver with a non-working phone is, well, not a driver. So I stopped by my local Autozone after doing the deep clean and got a new one. It's 3pm; time to strap in for 10-13 hours of get it done.

We're rolling for not great fares to start the shift, but it's kind of like fishing -- you can have a few weak hours and still have an OK day. Which leads me to the truck stop in Bordentown and a nice enough truck driver who is doing a there and back again ride to the liquor store for my fifth ride of the day. As he's in the store, the sun is going down and it's starting to get chilly, so I plug in the seats. The cords show their red indicator lights -- and then don't, and the phone is now losing power as well. I pull the plugs and try again; nothing. I plug the phone into the iPod player and the phone says it's taking in power... but the number of the percentage of my charge is dropping. And my phone tends to start fainting when it's not at high power, and Uber drains it quick.

I drop my passenger off, cancel the ensuing ride, and head straight for my car dealer, who I'm hoping can squeeze me in for a battery and fuse check. I get there just in time to get told nope, we're closed, so I head back to the Autozone. They check the battery for free and it's fine, so it must be the fuse or the cord. I go back to the house and check the cord, and that's working fine, so I look up the fuse. Having never changed one of them on my own before, I look up some web tutorials, as well as the likely replacement fuse, and realize it's beyond my skill set, available tools and comfort. So I get the fuse I need and get it fixed Sunday morning at the local Jiffy Lube, but hey presto -- up to ten hours out of luck, all because I tried to be nice. 

So, to recap:

> I missed a lucrative shift

> Because I tried to offer a higher standard of ride than I needed to

> During a week and time when I really needed the money

And wound up spending 13 hours in the harness on Sunday, and listening to the football game that I cared about on the radio, because hey, guess you aren't wealthy enough to spend three hours on a Sunday on a personal thing.

In future?

No heaters in the car. We're going to keep it simple, less good, less special.

Yay?