It's quarter to three in the morning, and I'm about $20 away from hitting the daily goal. It's been a busy shift, but not a very lucrative one, so it's been a long day. I get a ping in Princeton for a 20 minute ride south, no surge, that will get me fairly close to goal and home. Maybe even goal with a tip. Hope springs eternal.
The location is near a hotel, but the avatar that denotes the location of the passenger's phone isn't there. It's at a spur road off Route 1, about a tenth of a mile away. I drive to the avatar, pull over to the side, hit the hazards and roll down the window. It's not a particularly safe spot to stop, but the world works differently in the middle of the night for drunk people, and you accommodate from past experience.
My presumed fare is sitting off the side of the road against a property fence, some 100 feet away, and inconsolable. Appears to be a white woman, likely college age. Her companion, similar age male, who I presume called for the Uber on her phone, tells her the Uber is here. She won't move, won't stand, demands her phone, and screams about a person who has, in her opinion, shown herself not to be her friend due to her actions. It's very much a raging fit, at a volume that doesn't bode well.
He pulls out his own phone, calls someone else, tells them she won't get in the car.
This lathers, rinses and repeats for several minutes.
What I want to tell her, but will not because esoteric and off-putting, is that every person on the earth is descended from a very small group of humans who refused to die after a massive volcanic eruption killed all but a few hundred of us, huddling in caves for years, starving and scared, until it was safe to go one.
What I want to say, but will not because rude, is that I am doing a job, and until you get in the car, I am doing it for free. At a time when I can not do jobs for free, obviously, because I'm out in the middle of the night, by the side of the road, waiting for someone to stand up and get into a car.
What I want to do, but will not because not my place, is tell her that when you make your problems the problems of other people (let alone complete strangers and professional service workers)... that's a tell. About your boundaries, your empathy, your competence, your privilege. It's not a good tell.
I've waited three minutes. If I wait another two with her not getting in the car before I cancel the ride, I get a little less than four dollars. And if she actually gets up and gets in the car during this time, I get 20 more minutes of this, for no surge price, and likely no tip.
I check the app. There's surge price nearby.
The first rule of rideshare is a simple one: get home safe. I
The second rule of rideshare is also simple: we are doing this for money. A ticket from a cop for stopping here would ruin the entire day of work, or more. Not driving a fare at this hour, when fares are scarce, is also not advisable. Let alone fares that might pay surge price, or, well, get in the car.
I check the app for cancellation reasons. Here's the one: rider behavior. I cancel the ride, drive away, as the male yells for me not to. Surge price is activated, but no other requests come for the next 20 minutes, and I call it a night, resolving to...
Work a little more the next day to cover the shortfall.
Which I should be doing now, instead of writing this.
Forward. Honoring the stubborn ancestors.
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