Why My Rating Is Going Down

As the pandemic fades for the fourth time -- dear God in heaven, let it be the last -- and anti-maskers become more and more militant, the plain and simple fact is that driver ratings are at risk. Probably not just mine. Here's why.

1) I can reject a non-compliant passenger. But I'm probably not going to.

It costs me money and folks, I rideshare for money.

So if I take a passenger who isn't wearing a mask, and then note it in the post-ride comment... well, the passenger is going to know. And likely take vengeance.

I've had passengers lie and tell the platform that I wasn't wearing a mask -- and yes, that's never happened, not once. I'm extremely obsessive about this sort of thing. But, well, tit for tat seems to be a thing for a lot of folks.

2) Prices are all over the place.

And, well, that doesn't lead to happy passengers. (How could it? And yes, some people seem to think the driver can summon surge pricing. As if.)

3) Pick up times are all over the place.

The pandemic, you might have heard, really took a big number of ride share drivers off the road. Which means that there are times when it seems like I'm the only provider for dozens of miles at certain hours of the night... and if the passenger has been waiting for a really long time, a disturbing amount of them will decide the driver must be to blame someone. (Yeah, this doesn't make sense.)

Fun fact: if the passenger gives me three stars, or vice versa, we won't be paired together again. So maybe don't be so quick with that decision, especially if you aren't finding a lot of coverage as is...

4) Drivers aren't happy. 

Maybe I'm just projecting, but my hourly take has been more inconsistent than at any time in the past five years of doing this hustle. Part of that is that the tipping classes -- riders where we used to touch luggage but don't any more, people wining and dining, airport rides -- were disproportionately cut by the pandemic. Add that to the longer drive times and angrier passengers, and you can see why it's just not a good time.

5) Passengers aren't happy.

Again, maybe I'm projecting -- but my current ratings have 2-3X more unhappy people (OK, 2-3X a very small number) who don't give me the five stars... but also won't give a reason why. Leading us back to point #4...

Why (Platform Name Here) Is Bad For Drivers

 I drive for Lyft as well as Uber, and they both have serious flaws for drivers. Let's get into it.

Lyft

> Dangerous and annoying switchoffs. Lyft likes to switch the passenger on the driver for long pick ups, which leads to an awful lot of last-second direction changes for the driver. (And yes, I'm experienced enough to not just do whatever fool thing the GPS tells me to do, but it's still a situation where you've got to suddenly change lanes and course, or risk more unbilled time.)

If you are inexperienced or prone to just following the dictates of the GPS, this can be a serious lack of chill... but there's something else involved that's a real drag here.

> Your time is not your own. Lyft actively tries to prevent the driver from knowing where they are going, or how long the ride is going to be, regardless of whether or not the driver has earned the right to know that information through high status and performance. Those switch-off rides give the driver a passenger that could be a completely different direction and time duration, so planning to do anything in a shift other than give your entire life over to Lyft... really isn't a thing. Which leads to...

> You are going to drive in many more unfamiliar neighborhoods. As a rideshare driver, I like to know my area as much as possible. The roads in central New Jersey are not great and there's a very large amount of deer in the less developed areas. Parts of the state have heavy industry and trucking, and knowing where those folks are going means I can get out of their way a lot faster. If I know a road and the patterns of where the deer come from, I'm just safer -- especially when I'm driving at night, which is my preferred work time. Drive for Lyft, and you're going to take more bridge tolls, dodge more deer and trucks, and feel much less in control.

> You're going to have to play (and eventually lose) Lyft Roulette. Lyft incents the driver with streak bonuses that require the worker to complete each ride that is given to them to qualify -- even if that ride takes them hours out of their way late in the shift. Which is exactly what happened to me the other night when my final passenger of a 3-ride shift took me two hours due west into Pennsylvania Amish country, where I got to manage a flash flood and horses and buggies plodding around in the middle of the night. Oh, and an uncompensated toll road back. I've had worse times doing ride share, but not recently.

> More outlier people. Lyft passengers are friendlier, until they are really not. Lyft passengers tip more, until they really don't, and use you for multiple stops and de facto personal servant work. Lyft passengers chat more, until they engage in wildly over the top personal drama where you'd just wish they'd go back to praying to their phone. Lyft passengers ask for chargers and masks more, and I don't carry every type of charger known to humanity, or always have masks in stock for short rides to folks who don't seem likely to tip...

You are getting some folks who really want to be conscious consumers. You also get some folks who have been tossed off the market leader. There's way less middle here.

Uber

> Super long connect times. The downside of the lack of Lyft switch offs is that Uber is much more likely to give you 15 to 25 minute drives to get passengers. There's some pittance money involved in those rides, but it's really not worth it.

> Bonus dependence. Whether or not you have a good week with Uber is mostly dependent on whether or not you activate the Quest bonus, and those Quests are call your shot levels that... can go right out the window with bad weather, other priorities, a long drive or two, or those super long connect times. I've had days where I knew I wasn't going to make a mark and just regretted doing any work at all for them.

> Highly deceptive and discouraging surge zones. If I activate in a surge zone, I rarely wind up with a ride surge that was what was advertised, or in the area. Usually, it's less than half. So you feel like a chump for being there, or that other drivers must be getting the better treatment. It's extremely distracting and frustrating.

> Single state coverage. As a New Jersey driver who lives ten miles from the state border with Pennsylvania, I get pulled over the line fairly often... and with Uber, that means I'm just being taken into a massive dead zone where the only thing I can do is put my tail between my legs and dead drive back. It doesn't exactly lead to a great service experience for the passengers, either. Lyft lets me work PA. (Now, whether I want to... see that road to the Amish above.)

> Wildly frustrating destination mode. I work nights, locally, and will chase bonuses all the time... which means that keeping my acceptance rates high enough to see time and distance is a very high challenge. It's really easy to have a lot of unlucrative hours with this platform.

Well, That Happened

A small collection of recent experiences that I've had as a rideshare driver.

> The pick up comes for a suburban house. I get a married couple in their '50s, going to a live music venue / nuisance bar on the waterfront. They are going there on the behest of their daughter, who is there and thinks they will like the band. The passenger is a firefighter of 30-odd years, and we don't have an awful lot in common, but the gig requires a certain amount of codeswitch. 

As they are leaving the car, the wife says to the husband, "Don't leave your gun in the car." My man makes a d'oh like noise and moves on, and later tips.

I live in America. I've done rideshare off and on for five years. Over 19,000 people have been in the car. It's likely not the first time that someone in the car has been packing heat.

Just the first time I've, well, known.

> Another passenger, this one masking and not liking it. "So, are you a big vaccine guy?" With attitude. I give it a moment, and with a little bit of tender in the voice, reply, "Of course. My wife is high risk, and I love her very much. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew that I gave her a virus."

It had a couple of advantages. It took down the snotty tone. It changed what could have been an awkward conversation. And it was also true, which made it easy to say. (And it distracted her, I think, from a quick re-lowering of the windows.)

> I've been doing more later at night, because several of my clients in the main hustle have gone dark. This mostly involves working in Trenton, the state capital of New Jersey and a place that has, well, a great deal of challenges.

As I'm heading south on Route 1, I steer the car through a debris field from a recent accident. Police and fire haven't arrived yet, and I'm not exactly an EMT, so I just move on through it to get my fare to their destination. The next ping involves me heading back up Route 1 on the north side, about 10 minutes after the drop off. One of the cars involved is flipped over and burning so hard that I can feel the heat on the other side of the road. Still no police or fire, and no word about it on the news the next day. Things happen in Trenton.

> As the weather has been nice and many people in the area have decided to make a Polaris or dirt bike purchase, you often find yourself in the midst of road rallies. It's surprising how quickly this just becomes part of the scenery, honestly -- but you can imagine how it might not do much for the property values. (Also, the older I get, the more I want to spread the false meme that people who play their music very loudly for the benefit of others are, in fact, advertising their availability and interest in remarkable and unconventional sexual acts. Kind of like the old-school color of a man's handkerchief.)

> Drunk passengers on what they claim to be their first Uber ride (it's 2021; how is this possible?) ask several times if I ever have to deal with (profanity redacted). 

Thought, but not said, "Well, there's this ride..."

> Pick up from the Trenton train station. Single woman, with luggage, weeping and inconsolable. An aunt has been taken off life support, and the last train has left. There's nothing to do for her but take her back to her apartment... but at the risk of having things go worse, and because I can't help but try to help, I say something to the effect of the following.

My people, the Irish, have a saying -- that everyone passes twice. The first is mechanical, the second, the last time someone says your name. And that while I don't know my passenger or her aunt, the depth of her feeling for her loss tells me that she will be with her loved ones for a long time. In the cold light of day, it's trite, but late at night in an intimate setting, it helped.

I got her home and did two things that I haven't done since the start of the pandemic: carry her luggage and give her a hug. And feel just a little bit better about working a side gig late at night.

90% Of Rideshare Is... Rideshare

Obvious point: it's not always a dream to do this gig. Yesterday especially. But first, context.

Five years ago, my family took a trip with our kids.

It was to a place we've been to a bunch of times, Knoebels. That's a family-run amusement park in central Pennsylvania, and a pretty magical place. Free to enter, free to park, good and relatively cheap food, great roller coasters, manageable wait times for rides, everything done right. We've made a ton of memories there, from the good (tricking people into taking a drenching water ride by slow-playing the impact, waterslides at sunset, the smile machine that is the Phoenix roller coaster) to the bad (fleeing during a flash flood, having a kid come down with a stomach illness during their birthday). It's our place, and never more so than five years ago today.

As night fell and we rode a slow chair lift down the valley, the park under us, the kids in their own cart in front of us, it felt very poignant. They were 16 and 11 years old, closer to the end than the beginning for us as parents of dependent people. It felt like the future was going to be OK, and that we had done a good job as parents and providers.

When I was in that ride, I had (what felt like) stable full-time employment. There was a college fund and no credit card debt. I hadn't ever worked as a rideshare driver. While I worked as a consultant and supplemented my income as a sports blogger (back when that sort of thing was possible), my nights and weekends were mostly free. I could take the family out for the occasional trip. I complained about things because that's what humans do, but looking back, I really shouldn't have.

Fast forward five years and... well, things have changed.

The kids are now 21 and 16, and still home, lives delayed due to pandemic and other circumstances. I've had a number of adventures in my professional life, some great, some terrible, none particularly steady. Rideshare became a consistent source of income, sometimes to help pay down debts, sometimes to be the only income coming on. Our medical benefits have been at risk and intermittent, and while the end of the mortgage is in sight, the end of credit card debt is not. I've kept up with the bills for the most part, accomplished some things, kept the more important parts of my health, but man alive, I should have been more grateful back then.

Four and a half years ago, when a gig ended without warning, I started ridesharing when I realized it would pay more than unemployment, and sitting around waiting for the phone to ring was pointless when the phone was, well, right there in the car with me. I've now done slightly over 19K rides since, and over 8K hours in the app, likely 10K hours in the harness, what with breaks and drives home and so on. It's been done so many days and nights, it sometimes feels weird not to do the second shift. If I sit down to watch a game, some part of me is figuring out how much that's costing, in terms of lost income.

There's an old saying, mostly attributed to a person that doesn't need further notoriety, that 90% of life is just showing up. As a rideshare driver, that's especially true. If I drive when I'm happy and engaged with life, versus times when I'm struggling with concerns that have nothing to do with the gig, there is an impact. My tips go down, and my ratings might suffer a little. My body might hurt more, and I might not really want to be doing this today, but the numbers are the numbers, and what needs to be done will be done. Sacrifices will be made. A sad hour doing rideshare brings in more income than an hour not doing rideshare.

Yesterday, the 21-year-old took the 16-year-old and two of their friends with them to Knoebels. They masked up during a pandemic while being fully vaccinated; God knows what the other park participants did. I drove over 10 hours in the app to pay for that and other thigs, and will likely do something similar today, given how it's a holiday and the rest of the week is going to be heavily compromised with other duties. 

We all have stuff to bear, choices to make, and much to do. 

And while I would have rather been with my kids yesterday, the better (note: not easier) choice was to be with my passengers instead.

Showing up, indeed.

When Uber Feels Like Punishment

Every trip to the warehouse

With 22% fewer active drivers in Q1 2021 and a growing number of passengers as fears of the pandemic subside (for good or ill), ride prices are up by 79% since 2019. (Numbers from a recent story in my feed that I'm not going to cite. Feeds gonna feed.)

So this is a wonderful time to be an Uber driver, right? Especially when every stray cough from the back seat doesn't make you question your life choices, and summer nights means windows down for safe full ventilation...

Well, no. 

What's going on now is that the income inequalities between good and bad shifts are higher. Which means that when a shift goes south, it stings more at a human level. As a driver, it's much harder to be patient about that sort of thing. (And let's face it: if I'm in the car, it's because my other clients aren't keeping me busy enough. I had three, these days, it's closer to one. It's what happens in marketing in summer, and it's not good times.)

Which leads me to the experience of spending the better part of an hour driving a warehouse worker to their location last week. It was late at night, because of course it was. It took a long time to get to them, because of course there aren't drivers clamoring for this kind of fare. I didn't want long rides to warehouse areas late at night because I was chasing a ride completion bonus, which is why I was out late in the first place.

But I also had received nothing but long rides for the better part of the week from that platform, and the math only lets you choose so much.

So I had to do it. So did my fare. They weren't (ever) going to tip, because the only reason why you'd want a warehouse job late at night is because your other life choices have led you to, well, this. You also probably aren't going to be thrilled or great company, because you had to wait a really long time for your ride.

When a fare like this happens, what you are tempted to do is turn off the app, drive empty back to the area where prices are surging, and try to restart your shift at a better hourly rate.

Which is when, if you are me, you get a far request from outside of the surge area, for half or less of the bonus you saw on screen a few seconds ago. To a warehouse.

The side hustle doesn't *always* feel like punishment. Maybe the night shift warehouse job doesn't, either.

But when it does?

Yeah. 

A lot.