Falling Out Of Lyft

Um, Not Quite

So for the first nearly 10K rides of my career as a driver, I was Lyft only. I bought into the brand identity of Not Uber, and made enough in NJ to ease the transition to a job in CA. Once I was in CA, I started again, enjoyed the bonus structure, cashed in at roughly twice my current rate while in the Bay Area, and met a lot of Lyft personnel while driving out there, and they were all nice and fun to talk to while in the car. My metrics were very strong, and I thought there was even a chance of getting some stock options, as media reports talked about options to riders with 10K rides.

Then, I moved back to NJ after the CA job ran into funding issues. Lyft never mentioned options to me, and also when I passed 10K rides, didn't notice that at all. (Big drop of the ball, and not the first.) And... what a difference a change of address makes to your earning rate. Along with a few months or less than strong service. It's now at the point where I turn on Lyft about a quarter of the time that I do Uber, and only begrudgingly. Here's why.

When I moved back to the East Coast, I let Lyft know about my change of address. Despite the past history and status, Lyft decided that I needed to pass a fresh background check. Yes, despite passing one back in CA. With a need for ASAP revenue and no guarantee from Lyft that the check was going to happen very quickly, I signed up for Uber as a back up. Within a couple of days, Lyft had realized their mistake and reinstated me. But a few days after that, Uber added me to their rolls as well. So I turned on their app and gave it a try.

Immediately, business picked up. I no longer had to aim for Philadelphia to get busy between rides. So I started turning on both apps when I was unoccupied, and stopped driving as far to start a shift. But doubling up does have its challenges, mostly because it puts you in greater position of declining rides while you are turning off one app, and canceling rides due to network issues.

The other issue that occurs is that, well, you start to understand just how much less competitive Lyft is than Uber, at least in NJ. Lyft doesn't tell you where you are going before your passenger gets in the car; Uber does, at least at my driver level. Lyft doesn't give you how far away your next passenger would be in a queued ride; Uber does. Lyft doesn't tell you if a queued rider is going a very long distance, or their rating, which they do outside of queue. Uber tells you all of that and more for every ride.

There's more. Uber pays a day earlier. Because there's more riders requesting rides, you don't get nearly as many requests from a long way away... and if you do, Uber has the possibility of adding a little to the fare for the driving you did to get there. Lyft will frequently send you a request from someone who is a long way away, and if you decline that ride, you might get it again a minute later as the passenger continues to ask. One more reason to turn off the app, that.

This isn't to say that Uber is perfect. There's no great pattern to good or bad riders per platform, and both platforms give the driver little control over destination mode work. They will also send you right back to a passenger who you just registered as a no-show, and if I no-show a passenger, I'd very much like to avoid seeing them again and enduring the likely negativity. (No show passengers are a whole 'nother blog post that I'm going to get to at some point.) Both also give you ride bonus options rather than, well, just paying a trusted driver a better damn ground rate, because drivers have no control over the number of rides we give. Also, I have a Lyft light that comes in handy, but nothing so far from Uber.

But the greater point is this: I make more per hour and have a lot fewer unpleasant surprises working for Uber than I do working for Lyft. I'm not at the point where I only run one app, but if you were showing my work on a trend line, it's going that way. And yes, I'm sure Lyft will get its act together soon and improve the driver experience, because half of all drivers work for both platforms. Which means my experience can't be too much of an outlier.

Final tally? People vote with their wallet. And I'm making about 10% more per hour, with far less annoyance, working for Uber. (And will, of course, keep tracking the numbers as I go...)

Dudes Gonna Dude

Truth To Dude Power

Episode 1: dude. Dude. DUDE. DUDE... (f-bomb)

Evening work in the hilly parts of San Francisco. It's a weekend, so it's mostly a ton of short fares for drunken people, many of whom aren't too concerned about surge pricing. Not the worst environment for the hustle.

Two guys slouch their way into the back seat for an estimated three minutes and 0.3 miles. It's uphill and it's their money and I'm totally fine with it, because hey, having $4 is better than not having $4.

They start to talking about blockchain, which is perhaps the subset of conversation in the Bay Area that will get you the most Bro Tastic conversations. I'm sure there are women who work in blockchain, because there have to be, but... man alive, I kind of hope not. Just because the guys I've met are just... well, you know.

Anyway, they are both drunk and both very emotional about the subject and their coworkers, to the point where the conversation starts having an inordinate number of Dudes, and an equal or better number of F***s.

So much so that I start counting them on my fingers as we climb the hill.

And stop.

After 40.

Three minutes, folks. Ones that I'll never forget.

Episode 2: Tinder Roulette

Several years ago, riding around Old City, one of the hipper parts of Philadelphia. Weekend night, three bros enter the car.

Normally when a passenger has a bit of the odor to them, I am discreet. I do my spiel, wait a 10 count or so, get the car moving to distract, and then bump the windows down a bit to make sure I'm not overwhelmed. I might also turn off subsequent rides to give myself a minute or five to drive around at speed and air the vehicle out.

These guys? Um... so much Axe Body Spray that I just hit all four windows on entry, immediately. They didn't notice, because They Are They.

After expressing enthusiasm for my amenities, they start to engage with each other as if I were not there. (Fine by me, really.) And the activity for this ride is the little-known game show Tinder Roulette.

For those of you who are, like me, past the event horizon for dating apps, Tinder is one of the more meat market providers out there. Participants swipe left or right for matches, usually based on glimpse level visual data.

But what, may you ask, is Tinder Roulette?

It's when one person swipes for the other... with no information other than a name.

I will now replay the conversation for you in its entirety, because it immediately seared into my memory. For Reasons.

Player 1: "Tiffany."

Player 2: "Aw, man, I dated a Tiffany once! TIFFANY WAS NO GOOD FOR ME. ***Pa-ha-ass.***"

Player 1: "Jessica."

Player 2: "Mmm. Mmm, mmm, mm. Like... Jessica RABBIT? I wants me some Jessica Rabbit! Gives me some Jessica Rabbit!"

Player 3: "DUDE! She's Huge!"

Player 1: (channeling Anakin Skywalker) Noooooooooooo!!!!!!

They left the car soon after. But never my mind. I like to imagine incredibly short toasts to the happy couple at their wedding, with the best man (Player 2) taking credit for the way he said Jessica, and guests giving the happy couple gifts that were as random as the pairing.

The performance of this has been an occasional comedy bit for when passengers ask for whack-a-doodle ride share stories, and it usually lands. Once, with a woman telling me that she was a bridesmaid for a Tinder Wedding, with the bride admitting as such when pressed for an origin story.

Because Meet Cute stories are just too hard, I guess. And also, because Dudes aren't always male.

* * * * *

The common point? Dudes Gonna Dude. Nothing can stop them from Dudeing.

Also, that if you are going to do character comedy improv work on your ride share driver, best to go big, really.

Warning Signs

Track Four With A Bullet

I get a ping while in my own home for a restroom break, which is always a cause for some suspense, as many passengers will cancel a ride if they don't see the driver's car moving pretty quickly. I spill a drink on my way out, delaying my leave for extra time, but my rider doesn't cancel. Five minutes later, I'm rolling up to the client, who has chosen to use a single letter for his user name (Warning Sign #1).

My guy is a white guy in his late 40s / early 50s, wearing shorts and a collared shirt, just sitting in front of his garage as a I roll up. He gets into the front seat (that's pretty rare for the East Coast, and Warning Sign #2) and brings his filled plastic cup with him. It's got alcohol in it (Warning Sign #3), and it's... 4 pm on a weekday (Warning Sign #4). He then tells me it's got alcohol in it, and if I want to cancel, it's OK. I check the duration of the ride (5 minutes), do a silent calculation of how much I need the fare to get to my bonus targets (um, always) and tell him it's fine. And we're off.

My car is a 2010 Honda Insight, which is to say, the perfect car for ride share from a math and driver standpoint, but not exactly transportation that should impress the hell out of you. That's not the case for Day Drunkie here, who marvels at the quiet and ride (um, sure, fine, I like my car well enough) and asks if I have any music. Normally for guys like this one, I've got NPR firing away to try to drain away the knucklehead with news, but as we're four minutes away from him being out of my life, sure, fine, tunes it is. My magical Random iPod connects for him (Talking Heads, which fans of the blog will remember from the Santacon post), and he's decided that I'm now his best friend.

Oh, and I'm burying the lead here, which is that he's asked me perhaps the worst question any ride share passenger has ever asked:

"Do you find me creepy?"

I demur with something along the lines of how many rides I've given (+10K at this point), which leads him to add "My relatives find me creepy."

Well, they should know, yes?

I resist the urge to say or ask more about this, because Drunkie is (like most adults, really) bigger than me, and... yeah. Three minutes to go.

Drunkie then notes that his drop off (a store) isn't really his drop off, but across the street (Warning Sign # I'm Losing Count). Well, sure, in for a penny... The next ask is if I'm busy after I drop him off (Warning Sign # Pulp Fiction Gimp Callback), to which I assure him that I am. He doesn't like this much, and wants to know how much I make per hour (Warning Sign # Oh Dear God How Soon Until I Can Get You Out Of My Car). I sidestep the question, as we're now just a couple of blocks away from the drop...

But since the Rideshare Gods are Trickster Gods, it's a beautiful day outside and they've summoned a half dozen teenagers piled two per bike, just ambling all over the road in front of me. "Don't run over the kids!" yells Drunkie, in between telling me who lives in what house on this block, and who he had to beat the fecal matter out of Back In The Day.

Because telling your ride share driver who you want to hire on the side for cash about your tendencies toward violence is just what New Best Friends Who Aren't Creepy At All do, right?

Because all good things must end, we get to the drop point. Drunkie pulls a loose $20 out of his shorts, thinks about it for a second, then tells me that's too much and he'll tip in the app. (Note: if you tell me you are tipping in the app, please note that only about 10% of people who say this wind up doing it, and I do check and cut your star rating if you lie. Because lying should have consequences, especially when you are doing it in ways that are comically easy to check.) I say that's fine, wish him a lovely day, and move off before I close the ride, so I can 3-star him without a chance of him seeing it and having a reaction.

When a driver gives a passenger 3 stars or less, we are not paired with that person again... but that doesn't prevent them from getting back in touch with us through the app. Which is what happens two days later (Warning Sign Off The Charts Has Never Happened Before), when Drunkie decides to tell the platform that he left cash and credit cards in my car.

Um, no, he didn't.

And that's how this story ended before it got far more interesting...

Littering With Violence

Easy image search, this

Shared ride fare in Trenton, NJ with the pick up occurring on a non-prosperous street. My new front seat passenger is a young woman who, upon discovering that there is an empty small water bottle in her presence, just opens up her window and throws it out into the street.

With violence, and without a first or second thought.

Now, in this moment (and it happened four weeks ago, so it's clearly stuck with me), the following thoughts:

> Wow, that's a terrible person

> Hmm, she just did that in front of me and two other passengers, and clearly doesn't care what we think of her

> Only I seem to have noticed, because everyone else in the car is praying to their phone

Which led me to a longer and deeper rabbit hole of...

> Maybe when you live in a place like this, you just give up, and I should just be grateful that I'm not here

> I will never have the self-confidence of this person, who isn't bound by a constant self-censoring need to seek the approval of others

> Perhaps she's acting out from some other trauma or issue in her life, like maybe she's the only person in her house who cleans, or she's going to a job where she has to clean all day and hates it

> Maybe I should stop the car and get out and pick that up to eventually put it in recycling

> But to do that would delay my passengers, imperil my rating, and maybe not even be the right thing to do for the environment, since my car is burning gasoline and I've heard recently that since China isn't taking US recycling, it all might be single stream anyway

> And maybe it's my fault for offering the water bottles in the first place, since I'm clearly contributing to the problem by voting with my dollars to have more plastic...

And, finally, this.

> I overthink things. She's a terrible person. Drive.

And, thanks to the three stars and you're out rule of passenger rankings, one I will not see again.

Except, of course, while I'm overthinking my life experiences...

Double Play

Boy versus girl in the rideshare series of love

After 2.5 years and nearly 10,000 rides in just the Lyft platform, I've recently added Uber to the mix. Here's what I've learned after several weeks in the new situation. (By the way, doubling up is what the majority of ride share drives do, at least if what I've read is to be believed.)

> The apps have clearly different strengths. Uber's mapping is annoying, in that it seems to give the driver less notice for turns, the geo-mapping of the passenger's phone is less likely, and it doesn't default well to other routes. However, Uber is *much* better at giving you more information about riders in queue, to the point where I've started removing those rides when I get them from Lyft. If you are using queue to sneak unwanted rides (i.e., ones where I'm driving 10+ unpaid minutes to get to the next passenger) into my work day, it just doesn't make sense to take queue riders.

> They clearly change offers if they know you are on both platforms. I haven't been getting streak bonuses (i.e., small incentives to do 3-5 rides in the same platform) before I started logging in and out of platforms. Given the data crunching that's going on, I'm clearly now in a different bucket.

> Both platforms are (much) more prevalent than they used to be, and at different hours. Two years ago when I was biding time between full-time gigs, I'd be lucky to get a dozen fares a day, with the majority of them coming outside of work hours. Now, I'm busy most of the time, at relatively similar levels, and without having to drive as far from my home to get work.

> There may be a difference in the customers, but I also may not have enough time in the system yet. In the Bay Area, Lyft riders tended to be politically active, ready to throw shade at Uber, and apt to think there was a difference in the driver work force. In New Jersey, it's much more about finding the lowest price and the closest driver, with passengers more or less expecting to use both platforms, the same as the drivers. It's pretty pragmatic.

> Lyft gives me more geographic flexibility. If I get pulled into Pennsylvania or certain areas of New Jersey, Uber stops working for me, while Lyft will continue to pull in business. I tend to get back to areas where both platforms are firing, but if I'm trying to rack up enough rides to get to a bonus level, Lyft is more likely to get the extra time.

Oh, and Uber pays a day earlier than Lyft. Not such a big deal for me, but I could see how it would matter more for others.