Chair Shots

Play Along At Home

 I'm downtown near the arena when a pro wrestling show ends, so a surge price happens and I get a ping to wade into a sea of departing cars. It's not fun and not really what I try to do in this work; you are way more likely to get caught in the traffic and not make a good hour of wages than to eat some sweet, sweet surge price... but the gig does not care, and in you go. 

I eventually find my fares, who ask to use the trunk so they can store their giveaway items (of course). These turn out to be two steel folding chairs with promotional stickers on them, because beating on your opponent with a steel folding chair is just a long standing trope by now, and hey, free chairs. After ten minutes of wrestling the traffic, the rain, and Trenton's finest annoyed cops in rain pointing at people, we're off and having a fine time, because I contain multitudes (and can talk about wrestling).

They are curious about rideshare and had a story to tell about the number of drivers who they had to cancel on or who canceled on them, so I tell them the tricks of the trade from my side of things. At a red light, I pulled up the ap I wasn't using and showed them what the map around the arena looked like now -- and it's bright glowing surge, big numbers. They express amazement, so I hint at a heel turn.

"Yeah, I'm getting kind of pissed off, just looking at it."

Nervous laughter. We are also, it should be noted, not in a great neighborhood.

"Get out of my ca... oh, wait. There's two of you."

More laughter.

"And you've got... STEEL CHAIRS."

Big pop. And later on, a tip.

Lean Into It

It's Reunion Week for the local college (Princeton, you may have heard of it, feel free to say that last part with dismissive sniff)...

Which means a rather more erudite and chatty class of passenger, many of whom feel compelled to connect with their friendly neighborhood rideshare driver.

One of these souls, a bearded fellow from Michigan, someone got to the point of doing odd things for money, and disclosed that he had been paid $700 for 9 rounds of donating plasma. Which was in short supply due to the pandemic, so he felt OK about his sacrifice but it's still time to go back to the office after years of working from home, and he's got these track scars.

Me, I think I'd lean into it.

"Well, I did a lot of reading during the pandemic and got into Charles Bukowksi. You know what they say, man, the palace of wisdom can only be accessed through the road of excess. So I develop a real rager of a heroin addiction, really put in a lot of time chasing the dragon, then just (snaps fingers) quit cold turkey when I realized I wasn't going to ever feel like I did the first time I used. Haven't touched it since."

(awkward silence)

"So how did you spend your pandemic? I bet you baked some sourdough. YOU ANIMAL."

Gratitude (And That's Right)

The other night, I'm working in Princeton during a surge time. I get a run of nice short rides with nice short people; good conversations and tips and nothing too far away from each other. It's going well. Which is when I get a ping from 17 minutes away, in Trenton.

Well, in every life a little Trenton must fall, and I've had many good shifts in that town. I know the potholes, I know the area, short rides happen and it's also in a surge zone. The 17 minutes of dead time from now until then isn't great, but it's also not avoidable. Away we go.

On pick up, after several minutes of waiting and it's about an hour before when I want to shut down for the night... I discover that either the platform failed to tell me it was a long ride, or the passenger changed it later. So eat 70 minutes to Wilmington, Delaware, with the added bonus of (a) the ap does not work for me in Delaware, (b) the passenger is neither nice nor tipping, and (c) yeah, this blows. By the time I finish the drop and do the backtrack, it'll be for substantially less than average per hour, and below average hours? I'm not a fan of them.

The next day, I start things in a streak time, which is when you have to do three in a row in the same ap, no matter what, to activate the bonus. Once again, the ap does not warn me for overly long ride (different ap!), and now I find myself in who the hell knows where I am upper central New Jersey, where no one needs rideshare, the roads are all one lane, it's raining and the drivers all are in aggro SUVs and driving me off the road. I wound up eating the hour and forgetting the streak, and doing a lot less with that ap than usual for the rest of the day. It's important to show the algorithm that's in no way working for the best interest of the driver that there are consequences for poor performance. (OK, it's not.)

The trick when things are going downhill is to try to practice gratitude. The car's running. Good hours exist. Later on in the shift, I'll get taken to the Philadelphia airport, get tipped handsomely by the kind passengers, then wind up getting a $27 surge price on a $4 ride. For a few hours there, I was making a lot more than I make for doing my other hustles, for work that I often prefer doing, truth be told. (Dealing with some of my clients is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.)

But these surprise super long rides that the aps are supposed to warn you about, and aren't?

Don't make the act of gratitude very easy.

Play me out, Manhattan Men...

The Price Of Perfection

Years ago, when I started doing work for this side hustle, I did the following.

> Took every ride that was given to me

> Gave passengers extra time before canceling

> Stayed in the app during the ride

> Didn't "chase" surge areas

> Took every long ride

> Gave freebies to passengers (drinks, breath mints, cough drops, and sometimes even candy)

> Had a near-perfect record

and...

> Made about 30-40% less per hour than I do know.

Perfection, you see, comes at a price. If you take every ride, you are taking less lucrative rides than others. If you give extra time, you create a culture where passengers take extra time left and right -- and in my experience, the tardy passenger isn't usually a tipper, either.

Staying in the app during a ride means that you are available for any ride in queue -- which means you can't see if it's coming from a surge area. It also drops the price for the area, since the apps have more drivers to draw from.

Not chasing surge areas seems like the right thing to do for the environment, but the reality is that doing the work without a surge price is a sure way to drive your car to death. Exceptions happen, but if you just set and forget, and don't check between apps, you're leaving money on the table.

Taking every long ride means you are going to go to areas where you are at a much higher risk for flat tire, speed trap or traffic violation. It should never be done for the first time after dark especially... and Lyft, especially, is good for passengers who are going remote. If all you do is drive back to start on a long ride, that's equal times bad times and good -- and also puts you at all-or-nothing on the tip from that passenger.

Freebies don't generally increase tips. They do increase mess. You have to pick your spots on those.

Today, my ride acceptance rate is near the absolute minimum it can be to stay on the systems. So are my cancellation rates. I may eventually build it up to a little bit of a cushion, but probably not much of one.

So if you are a driver, and you are wondering why other drivers seem to be doing better than you?

Check to see you aren't chumping yourself.

You don't work for a platform. You work to stay on it.

And so long as they are more or less paying you less to be a perfect driver...

Well, why would you want to be a perfect driver?

Supporting Your Parenting Choices

To be fair, having ice cream shows hustle

 I pick up two passengers at the local mall. It's a two stop trip, the first at a boarding school to drop off the younger one, and the second at the train station. They present as Asian, female, and split in ages, so it's not hard to presume mother and daughter. They chat amongst themselves and as it's none of my business, I focus on the road and get them where they are going to. Nothing out of the ordinary.

We get to the first destination, and they are saying their goodbyes. The elder rattles off a line of well-meaning advice cliches that the teenager is clearly not listening to, ending with:

"Don't get into cars with strangers"

Which I do not react to, because this is one of those rides where I'm quasi invisible support staff today, and will be a self-driving car tomorrow... but, um, ma'am?

You just did that. 

In front of, and with, the kid you are telling not to.

Which made me consider, but not act on, the impulse to drop my voice a few octaves, lean over salaciously, and agree with the mom while cosplaying a Bad Stranger...