My Old Guy Question And Moment

The Only Wheel They Use

 A question to the cyclists of my local urban area... 

Are you shamed by people who see you riding on both wheels, rather than the one?

Or is there some other reason why you are seemingly always driving on just the back wheel?

I used to ride a bike a lot. Once I got past the emotional, physical and mental age of 12, my need to Pop A Wheelie kind of went away, especially when you realize that (a) falling is a lot more likely on one wheel than two, and falling sucks, and (b) you are paying for both wheels, so you might as well use them.

Oh, and one more thing... the roads you are doing this on are some of the worst in the state and the area. Lots and lots of potholes.

So is there something I'm missing here? A secret desire to have a unicycle, because everyone is down to clown?

Where We Are In Re The Pandemic And Masking

According to the NY Times, 61% of my local friends and neighbors of the 18+ population, which is to say the people who are most likely to be in my car, are fully vaccinated. So am I, of course, and have been for months now. New cases are coming in around the 3 a day rate, and hospitalizations are limited almost exclusively to the people who refuse to be vaccinated. 

Rideshare platforms still require full masking, and as a driver, I'm required to have one on for the duration of the ride. I also get to report anyone who isn't masked to make sure they do it the next time, and I can refuse service to anyone who isn't masked.

Which is to say, I can choose to take money out of my pocket to enforce the policy, because it's not as if I'll make the full fare, or get credit for it as I try to achieve various bonuses, for refusing service. I'll get a minimal cancel fee and many provoke someone freaking out on my car.

Guess who almost never refuses service?

It helps that it's summer. I can lower all of the windows (sometimes a bit pointedly, especially when highways are involved), and I try to do most of my driving at night, when traffic and temperatures are both light and it's not as uncomfortable to wear a mask. My trust three-level mask plus my Pfizer vaccine means that if a passenger is pretty believable about their vax story, we might both take off our masks and enjoy the air conditioning and a conversation.

More and more passengers are also expecting to sit in the front seat and occupy all four seats of my car (never ideal; it's a small hybrid and thank heavens for that, given the rising cost of gas). More and more passengers, especially later at night with alcohol involved, are getting in without a mask. I'd rather they didn't, and if they do, I'd really like to either have no conversation at all (fewer aerosols) or a lot of details about their vaccination...

But if you are choosing to do rideshare, you need the money, right? And you always knew the job was dangerous (I've had my car hit hard enough to prompt an insurance claim twice, both times in the city where I get the most work), and you are doing it anyway, right?

Well, less of us than before, hopefully for more money per hour, and hopefully never full-time...

Why You Can't Get Rides: The Thread and the Triangle

This last week, one of my free-lance clients more or less took a summer break. Not incredibly unexpected, and certainly not fatal to our long-term relationship, but it is what it is: suddenly, there is less money in my life. Combine this with two major bills, and I had to get back in the car for significant hours to make my nut. So be it; that's what rideshare is for, after all. Employment court of the last resort.

Just in time for the Uber app to more or less stop working for me. For the better part of a week, no matter what kind of surge price zone I was in. Here's a screen shot from the first ten, very frustrating, hours of the week.

Note that my surge price was a lot more than the regions were showing? That's because I had been in the app for hours without a request, turning it on and off, reinstalling the software, checking my Internet connection, and so on. Eventually, I just left Uber on while doing Lyft work for less, on the off chance that it would finally start working again, and I'd finally catch that nice surge price.

Here's the impact this had on my net hourly rate. (Well, that and Lyft sending me to on a two-hour plus trip to JFK without warning, because that's the kind of thing Lyft likes to do, and a big reason why I try not to drive for Lyft anymore.)

7/5-7/11: $19.26 per hour

6/28-7/4: $34.90 per hour

6/21-6/27: $36.44 per hour

6/14-6/20: $38.65 per hour

I had no way to fix this, no way to re-start my revenue, no way to actually connect with the customers that the platform is supposed to provide to me. Through no fault of my own (current driver rating: 4.96; I'm good at this), my revenue from Uber went to zero on four different shifts. Thank heavens I had Lyft as a (not as good) back up, or the bad financial week would have been even worse.

FYI, I finally started getting requests again-- after alerting me to an Uber Driver app update, and only after a half dozen form letters to various complaints that showed absolutely no evidence of the rep actually reading the complaint. Always with a very Indian sub-continent name, and always overnight, so, yeah, you can tell charming stories of how much Uber is paying customer service reps.

Anyway, getting back to the triangle. Until cars drive themselves, rideshare is best imagined as a triangle. Mark one corner as D for Driver, another as R for rider, and the last as P for platform...

Now, find a place where D, R and P are all happy.

Make it too good for the driver and platform and it costs too much; passengers find another option, especially in the long-term. Make it too good for the rider while still paying the driver, and the platform takes it in the neck from the stock market for taking too long to turn a profit (if ever). Make it too good for the rider while still paying the platform means the driver will find something else to do with their time.

That's what the vast majority of drivers did during the more brutal parts of the pandemic, and in all likelihood, will continue to do -- unless there's a massive and long-term change in the math that just forces a more expensive ride on riders, or a lower take for the platforms.

And even then, the platform can end a driver at any moment, because no matter how many rides we've given (me: over 18K), we're all hanging by the thread of the next request.

Which, as the first ten hours of Uber showed me last week, may never come.

And that, my dear passengers, is why you are having such a hard time finding someone to pick you up...

Night Bite

Part of what happens in rideshare is that you just occasionally see random nonsense on the streets. I seem to have a bit of  a gift for that.

In the past month, I've picked up a lot of consulting work, which means (a lot) less rideshare. So instead of having hundreds of rides to safeguard my rating, I've only got a few dozen... which means that if I decline or cancel, I lose visibility in the next ride.

Fast forward to a ride I wouldn't normally take on a weeknight, a full hour out of state without a surge price to Philadelphia. Not loving life, I turn on my map and head for home, going past the local prison on my route.

Which is when I see... some guy with a relatively decent pick up truck, parked on an overpass over the river, with three fishing poles and lines going down to whatever is trickling through a fairly industrial part of town.

At midnight, on a Wednesday. Near a prison.

Because your rideshare shift can, and will, become a South Korean horror short at a moment's notice, really...

My Codeswitch Reality

Or get 5 stars or tip

Rideshare passengers index to a much greater percentage of people for whom English fluency is not assumed or present. For the most part, this isn't a big problem. So long as the passenger got the address right and GPS doesn't lead me astray -- so +95% of rides -- we can do the transaction without any conversation at all. There will be some, of course, because I want people to feel welcome and I always try to confirm the address and let people know about a couple of free affinities, but if you want to talk the entire time in a language I don't understand, have at it. 

But the interesting thing about that conversation is... a significant portion of it is still going to be in English, because (a) the Internet, and (b) code switching. 

Now, the classic definition of the phrase talks about how words in a second language will slide in -- in my experience in rideshare, these usual gravitate to "OK" and various corporate, Web site or app names -- but the more colloquial use of code switch is when you change your speech patterns to match your audience.

We all do this on some level, whether we are aware and OK with it (talking to children), or unaware and trying to pass as One Of The Good Ones (i.e, talking to people of a very different demographic). When done badly, it's awkward and awful for all concerned, and makes my spine contract with embarrassment when it's part of cringe comedy. It's also adding to the mental energy that you exert in a conversation, so there are times when you just don't want to do it.

But when it's done well?

My tips go up. So do my ratings. My passengers have a better time. I'm more effective at communicating helpful information about why rideshare works the way it does for passengers, why taking a Covid-19 vaccine is something everyone should want to do, and so on. I don't feel as worn out by the end of my shift.

You could see it as manipulative, calculating, artificial. 

Or polite, engaging, and accommodating.

And if you never codeswitch, or would never?

You probably aren't a rideshare driver. (Or a waiter, bartender, live performer...)

Or a very highly rated rideshare passenger or beloved customer...