When $3 Means More Than $3

The pick up is from a Wawa, which is a convenience store chain that's near and dear to my heart, since they have relatively healthy food options, all hour access, and bathrooms that are often Not Terrible. 

My fare enters wearing the merch, as she's an assistant manager. She's leaving without clocking in, as they are overstaffed and rather than work the graveyard shift, she gets to go home and sleep on a Sunday night. She's a little guilty about leaving, but orders are orders. She's also chatty about all of this.

I learn that her junior associates aren't thrilled with her for leaving, as Sunday at this location is a "Truck Night", i.e., when an 18-wheeler comes by and the staff has to restock in addition to handling any customers. But it's not as if there should be a rush of people there, and starting her week with sleep on a day when she's got to get her kids to school in the morning... and the youngest is on the autism spectrum.

My children are grown and didn't present that level of challenge, but I'm able to provide a useful strategy or two, and call out a specific point that I wish I knew back in the day... that beating yourself up to be a better parent teaches your kid that, well, that kind of thing is behavior to model. She's thoughtful in her response, and confesses to worrying about her eldest, who isn't on the spectrum, but seems to be picking up her residual anxiety about care for the youngest. 

She's grateful for the perspective and the kindness, and confesses that she doesn't usually talk to her drivers. Ten minutes later, the app tells me about her $3 tip on a $7 fare. 

I'm touched. This happened the better part of a week ago. I'm still touched.

I Got You, Coach

My fare enters the call and chats, and I've got him for a 25-minute ride from Trenton to Princeton. It turns out that he's an experienced basketball referee, with lots of work at the college and women's professional level. I have past sportswriting experience and I've never interviewed a ref before, and the conversation comes easily because it's not as if it's on the record. I ask my guy if he hears the crowd (more when there are fewer people, which makes sense), and if he's able to tune out problematic coaches. He sizes me up and then says something amazing.

Calling the game is an exercise in neutrality, but if my man has a past history or knowledge that the coaches in question are prone to a lot of berating... he'd make a point of eating the most smelly thing he could before the game. Everything bagel, anchovies, beef jerky, etc. Then, if the coach wanted to get in his face... he'd be sure to breathe on them. As heavily as possible, with as long of an explanation as possible.

This information was passed down to him by an older ref, so it's not as if it's a unique move. I suspect that wise refs have been doing this for decades. But if you are watching a game and see a coach get disgusted after a conversation with a ref, it might not be entirely the explanation.

Hacking New Year's

hack: [ hak ] noun

a person, such as an artist or writer, who exploits their creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work for money in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts: As a painter, he was little more than a hack.

- Dictionary.com

Why is a taxi driver called a hack?

Hacks or hackers is a common term that originated with the hackney horse, a breed of horse typically offered for hire in the 19th century. Other terms used are livery cab, car service, or jitney cab. The phrases vary by locality and often refer to different classes of licensed transportation providers.

- Wikipedia

I get in the car around five in the afternoon. My first stop is a Wawa to return a catering bag, but it turns out they don't take them back -- sad waste of polyester, that. As I'm leaving, and keep in mind that it's a 39-degree day, I see a middle-aged white guy in shorts and a T-shirt only, and the T-shirt says "I'm Fine". No, sir, you are not.

The first few rides go well enough, with just enough surge price going on to make things better than ordinary. I get pulled up to Princeton where I pick up a family of four, tipsy but responsible and loving parents, from one of my favorite restaurants. Ten minutes of banter later, they have a half dozen more recommendations and I have a $20 cash tip. The next fare is a string of Japanese characters that turn out to be foreign exchange students for TCNJ, because this is going to be one of those shifts where the script writer of my life has overdosed on Random. It goes well enough.

Two hours later, I get my first wild video game ride of the night, three teenage boys from Trenton going 25 minutes south to Willingboro. The one in the front insists on having his window down the whole way, much to the "Bro we hella cold" chagrin of those in the back. Fifteen minutes in while on the highway, he asks if I can pull over, as if I'm willing to spend extra time with these chuckleheads on one of the most lucrative nights of the year for hacks. Two minutes from the drop, one of the people in the back tells me he's going to be sick, but when I point out that he's two minutes from the drop, he quiets down. I drop them with their bad idea liquor, three star them so that I don't get them again, and count my blessings for passing the timed mission without having to clean the car, photograph the mess, and lose the rest of my shift. At least it drops me near a Wawa, where I can refuel and make the gashop's night with a $5 cash tip. (Side note: tip the people who pump your gas, fellow citizens of New Jersey. Especially when it's an hour before New Year's.)

Ninety minutes later, I'm back in Trenton as the locals set off fireworks on a number of streets as per usual, moving people around who shake their heads at the drunkenness and lack of fire safety while, of course, being intoxicated themselves. 

Just to make sure I've gotten the Random note from the scriptwriter, I pick up a very devout woman from her urban church -- yes, some services happen late on a Sunday night, it seems -- and after ten minutes of gentle banter and conversation, she asks if it would be OK if she prays for me. Hey, free speech and you are two minutes from your drop, and I've never had a passenger actively pray for me before, so why say no... and her well-rehearsed prayer tells me that she's done this a lot, but the stitched in ad libs also tells me she's been listening very closely to every word I've said. She tells me I am loved. I've had worse fares.

Like, say, the next one... where two drunken guys in their 20s are heading off to a nuisance bar over the bridge into Pennsylvania, which is 25 minutes of driving for people who need to (a) note all of their high school haunts and locations of friend's homes as loudly as possible, and (b) Facetime different people in their orbit to arrange a meet up at the nuisance bar, or there will be violence. Charming! Plus I get ten minutes of dead time where I can't pick anyone up, because at this point, I'm an Uber-only driver to redeeem a higher bonus bounty, and that app only works for me for rides that start in New Jersay. (Yes, folks, drivers are on both apps, and we are that way For Money. You'd be silly not to do the same.)

The next pick up are a drunken carload from a riverfront bar that always has overserved patrons and high surge price, and it's 20 minutes of one of the four passengers saying the same thing to the sober passenger up front. Alcohol really does a number on your short term memory, folks. This leads to a marketing pro who engages in networking that he won't likely remember for ten minutes, then a mom with a squalling infant, because why wouldn't you bring your squalling infant out on New Year's Eve? That ride finishes my last bonus ride, which means the only other rides I'm going to take have to be very high surge price... and that gets me the final ride of the evening, a couple who perform a 20-minute version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff" because she had a good time at the party and he was aloof. I will never be, nor understand, people willing to be That Way in public, but then again, I'm sober and they aren't. I head home.

Final totals for Uber: 18 rides in 6:42 for $249, $55 of it in promos, $12 in tips. Plus a $20 cash tip.

Final totals for Lyft: 6 rides 1:15 for $86, $35 of it in promos, $5 in tips. 

Net of something like $320 after gas and tolls, or about twice what you normally make. Which is why I drive on New Year's Eve, after all...

The state of the driver nation is not good

 I'm a numbers guy. A spreadsheet guy. While I'm primarily a writer, looking at statistics can get you insights that aren't obvious and answer questions that you didn't know you had. 

So here's my data set as a rideshare driver, as I type this: just over 12,000 hours in Lyft and Uber. Just over 29,000 rides in all. Been doing it since 2017. 

So when I tell you that 2023 has been the very worst year, on the money, to be a rideshare driver? It's not an opinion, it's just fact.

The reasons why:

1) Uber. A few months ago, Uber reintroduced shared rides, then teen rides. Neither of these groups, as a rule, tip. The shared rides also cut the driver's take, because a shared ride never works out for the driver unless someone else gets in the car, and no one else ever gets in the car. They also have cut back on bonuses.

There's also the fact that the majority of the time someone takes a shared ride, they get into the car with more than one person, so even if you wanted to take someone else on, you can't. Uber tells the driver to reject these rides, but you don't make as much when you do that, and you also genuinely piss people off who could really ruin your day. I'm not going to put myself or my vehicle at risk to enforce a policy. I'm also not going to take any more of these rides than I have to, so I'm almost always going into last ride mode when the passenger gets in. I'm just going to, as a rule, give out 3-star ratings to shared ride passengers about 10X as often as I do everyone else. Which also means that people requesting shared rides are going to work with fewer and fewer drivers over time, wait longer and longer, tip less and less, and be increasingly less profitable to the driver. It's a perfect system, if by perfect, you mean ensuring enshittification.

2) Lyft. In the last week or so, Lyft has rolled out what they call Priority Rides, which is where they give some drivers the option to activate a mode in which they will, as well, take lower priced rides. The theory is that since you will be busier and have less down time, you'll be utilized and make more. Work more, make less. It's the same enshittification cycle that Uber has introduced with shared rides, honestly. Oh, and cutting back on bonuses. 

3) Inflation. It's not just gas prices, though that's always a factor when you do this work. It's also the price you'll pay at the convenience store for your in-shift food and drink, the ever-creeping toll increases that you'll hardly even notice because all of the fares are on transducers, and the rising rates on car washes, cleaning supplies, oil changes, auto repairs and so on.

4) Infrastructure. I've gotten more and more flat tires over the years in doing this work, despite limiting my work more and more to local driving -- mostly because flat tires always suck, but they suck a lot more when you've got a long drive home on a donut. Maybe I'm just gunshy, but those stranded in Philadelphia, Camden and Newark experiences have stuck with me, even more so than the two that have happened within ten minutes from my home. 

5) Passengers. Just because Shared Rides and Priority Rides exist does not mean you have to choose them. Just because there isn't the same societal pressure to tip a rideshare driver as a waiter, bartender or cab driver, doesn't mean you don't have to. My passengers enjoy a clean car, clear communication, amenities and any level of conversation they like. They also, for the most part, are either likely to tip or not tip independent of any action I might take. If I catch rides in Princeton, for drinkers, for white collar folks, tipping. In Trenton, for warehouse workers, for commuters, nope. It all balances out to, as I write this, 5.78% of my income. That may not seem like much, but everything involved in this isn't much, honestly.

On a side note, more and more passengers think that playing their phones without headphones is acceptable behavior in public. It's not. You're rude. I'm not going to tell you, but I am going to rate you, so I don't have to endure this ever again.

6) Me. I'd probably make more in North Jersey, at football games, doing airport runs, pre-dawn, outside of my local area, trying to smooth talk others into doing the work with advice and a referral bonus, and so on. I'm just not going to. The job is dicey enough without taking on additional risk, stress and discomfort, and 12K+ hours in the apps has given me a long list of places not to do the work (take a bow, police of Bordentown, North Brunswick and Pennington! Feel free to tell your citizens why they can't get service), hours not to do it, and so on. I suspect that I give out more 3-star ratings than most drivers, which also probably isn't helping.

Where does all of this end? Well, honestly, I'm just doing it less. The average hours per week that I spend on this is down about 20% from 2022, and that's after a week where I logged a lot of hours -- and by the way, that week was also "Drinksgiving", which was worth, on a per hour basis, about 30% more than it was last year, and that's not even counting for inflation. I toggle the apps on and off a lot more, hunt for surge prices, cancel passengers that don't get in the car before the deadline clock rings (especially for shared rides), and keep wondering if I should just give it up or take a real second job, rather than gig work. I can't imagine that I'm the only driver who feels this way.

So if you can't find a driver, find yourself paying more surge price, and wonder if you can rely on these services? 

Well, if the driver can't, why should you?

The longest drive

Scene of the drop

I get a ping for a shared ride in Trenton. It's five minutes away, 20 minute ride out of the city, at a time when the city has surge pricing. It's not my preferred ride, but my numbers aren't high enough to avoid it, and there is a bit of surge on it, so dammit, guess I have to eat this one. I roll up to a downtown area, put the flashers on and wait. The profile isn't highly rated, but I'm here. Let's see if they show up before I can cancel the ride.

Across the street, a homeless guy is lying down in front of a closed store. He stirs. A few minutes pass, and before the clock runs out on the wait time, he enters the car with an Ikea-style open bag that has whatever he has in this world. It's his ride.

Well. I go into auto pilot, because I only know one level of service; confirm address, tell him about hand sanitizer and water. He doesn't engage, and I've got him for the next twenty minutes.

His phone has power, and I hear his side of three different phone calls over the course of the ride, each one more pleading than the last, as he tries to find a place to sleep for the night. His end of the conversation alternates between violent outbursts and subservient apologies, and each conversation ends with no place to go. 

He scares me. Not just because of the outbursts.

I pull up to the drop point, an apartment complex in Mercerville. The drop is at the door, but he asks to be taken halfway between that point and the next entrance. The first rule of rideshare is get home safe. I do what he asks. 

After another awkward pause of several minutes, I ask him if he wants one of the water bottles, because, well, I have nothing else for him and I have to say something. He's got to get out of the car, and I've got to go pick up someone else. 

Anyone else.

He takes a water bottle, gets out and probably beds down in a grass patch. I pull away slowly, do the responsible / cowardly thing of giving him three stars so that I don't get him again, and try not to think about it. 

An hour later, a violent thunderstorm rips through the area, and I think about him again.

Several times over the next few weeks, I'm called into that apartment complex to pick up other people, and I think of him again.

A month later, on a rare off night, I write this.

Occupational hazard.