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?

10 Reasons Why You Can't Find A Driver

 Query from a passenger this evening: "So, why do you think people don't want to work?"

A little triggering on the wording, but the passenger seems like a decent enough fellow, and it stuck with me for the rest of the shift. So, here's a whole mess of theories.

1) Drivers found other things to do when the pandemic hit.

It's not great money, especially if you aren't in the right wheels. 

2) Drivers lost or sold their cars.

If you needed rideshare to make the payment, well, you didn't have it. Or you sold your car when the price for used wheels went through the roof.

3) They got stimulus checks and sodded off.

Well, maybe, but it's not as if those were lifetime changing money.

4) They've learned to live with less.

Honestly, everyone's expenses dropped during the pandemic. Movies, restaurants, travel -- all went down and didn't come back, especially for the lower classes.

5) They got scared by the virus. Or maybe more than scared.

If you were driving rideshare, you were at risk for getting the virus, probably more than anyone. It's not as if all of us are hardcore gamblers, or that if you got sick, you were ready to forgive the platform.

6) It got a lot worse.

Driving with a mask means that talking to passengers is hard at best, as well as being the Mask Police. (Or, if you aren't into wearing a mask yourself, getting told on by masking passengers.) There's a reason why driver ratings are going down.

7) Gas prices are up.

It changes the math. Especially if you are in the wrong kind of car in the first place.

8) Tipping is down.

You're not supposed to touch groceries or luggage, and the folks on expense accounts aren't around at the same level as before. You can still make reasonable money at this hustle, but it'll be more for bonuses and surge prices than tips, which means...

9) Riders are mad.

I get it, honestly. Especially if you are taking routine rides and seeing huge price fluctuations. Which leads me to...

10) Maybe people just don't want to work. Especially if you've been watching politics.

Imagine you were a fan of the last president, so much so that you believe what the rest of us refer to as the Big Lie. Maybe you're just home and bent and don't want to work. 

Now, imagine you aren't that person, but you are convinced the planet is trashed due to climate change and the pandemic. Maybe you're just home and don't want to work.

So... why am I out there?

Um, because I need the money. 

No matter how many of these reasons may apply...

A Grim Grape Soda Epiphany

I drop off my fare on the Princeton campus, and the app has me set up for the next one. I have nine rides to go on the shift to clear the bonus and claw back a couple of hours away from the hustle. As I head towards the road to get to the next step in my shift, I pull out a large bottle of grape soda to whet my whistle. 

Which, well, turns into a geyser in my lap. 

I open the door and try prevent some of the drink from hitting me and my poor car, and reach for the car towel, paper towels and antiseptic wipes that are always within reach. (It's a small car, and I'm an organized soul.) Within I few seconds, I've limited the damage and blotted, and I'm soaked and sticky and not happy in the least. 

At this point, I had the following options. 

1) Cancel the upcoming ride and spend a chunk of time cleaning up. I won't be dry by the end of it, but I won't be sticky. 

2) Delay the upcoming ride and do the same. 

3) Cancel the ride and go home (it's 10-15 minutes away) and change my clothes. 

4) Just, well, drive. 

I chose option 4, because 

 a) It's dark out and no one's going to notice my stained pants. 

b) I have 3/4s of a tank of gas, and I'm not going to have to get out of the car until the end of the shift, at my home. 

c) I just want to, well, get the damn shift done and the bonus activated. 

Three hours later, I'm done, and the next day, there's no evidence of the explosion. Worked out. 

But not without a cost, really. 

I tend to dress the part of a business professional. Collared shirt, shave, not pushing any boundaries. It helps to drain the energy out of people who have been overserved, and I think it leads to a little bit of a more controlled environment. I've always thought that this was part of the reason why other rideshare drivers, when I've talked to them, always have more colorful or out of control stories than mine. 

But, well, maybe it's just luck, and no one really notices or cares if the driver's a mess, honestly. 

Drive on.

Thoughts On Dirt Bike Rallies

Two Wheels Good, Four Wheels Bad

More and more this year, especially as colder weather didn't arrive and people started putting their money in outdoor fun, I'd find myself surrounded by dirt bikes, ATVs and 3-wheelers in urban environments. To the point of several times per week, which is to say, enough to not get too freaked out about, but more than enough to notice.

I get why people do it. It looks like fun, there's safety in numbers, it must seem empowering as hell, and running a dirt bike is truly cheap on gas. I also can't imagine that there's a lot of expense in upkeep or, well, insurance. Assuming you have the ability to hide that thing when it's not in use, you're probably loving it. Especially if you are the kind of person who just needs to share your music with several zip codes at once. Such a positive force in the community, you are!

It's just, well, not particularly pleasant to be around for people who aren't on the bikes. Loud noises are increasingly likely to provoke a startle reflex, your passenger is likely to get nervous and/or make a not particularly helpful comment about the people doing the activity, and you get very paranoid about any possibility of a lane change. And, well, ride share driving is driving that requires more lane changes than any other kind of driving, honestly.

Couple this with the rally's inherent likelihood of disregarding traffic lights and rules under the enlightened guise of Who Is Going To Stop Us, and the seemingly inevitable rise in fatalities and injuries, and well...

It can't be great for the property values, is all I'm saying. 

It's also not real great for the community or rideshare passengers, because Dear Passenger and Reader...

When I see that stuff, I go to Last Ride Mode and get the hell out of there. No matter what kind of demand is going on. The hustle isn't bringing in enough for that level of stress, and I'm not doing this because I love high risk behavior as part of my grind.

Left for the reader as an intellectual exercise... is there any real difference between dirt bikes and guns? Because I'm not seeing it. Both endanger the public for the life choices of the individual, both serve a limited but highly dubious purpose, both are Fun Toys for people who should probably not be investing so much in Fun Toys, and both show that the user cares more (only?) about their lives, not the lives of people around them.

You'll also never be able to convince those that have them that they are a bad idea, so maybe go after the people that make them, whoopsie doodle, individual Constitutional rights, and race to the bottom as people make choices for them and them alone. (They also both come with a Not All tiresome subset of people who seem to think that the actions of a few Bad Actors are no reason to Slippery Slope and yeah, I'm too tired to finish the bad faith argument that basically resolves to I Wanna And You Can't Stop Me.)

Oh, and when Dirt Bike Rider is also packing heat, or Regular Driver shows theirs to Dirt Bike Rider as part of demographic tensions? That's when the end of civilized society is even more apparent, yes?

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...