My First Day Lyfting

I have been meaning to get into the rideshare game for a few years now, but had a few snags hold me up due to paperwork related to my girlfriend's car (my car is far too old to be considered road-worthy). I initially signed up for Lyft when Denver had a $750 bonus for completing 50 rides. Almost two years had past since I had started my application, and I assumed this bonus was long past expired.

As I recently began the process to become a driver again, intending to use Lyft's express drive program, I discovered that the bonus was still active. Sweet! However, I'd need to use my own vehicle to qualify, which motivated me to finally figure out what I needed to make my lady's vehicle eligible for me to use.

I went to the Lyft onboarding event on Wednesday, and the vehicle passed the inspection (it wasn't much of an inspection, in all fairness). I went online right after I left, but didn't get any requests within the hour I was on (it was lunch time, certainly not peak hours). Seeing as I had plans with friends, I decided to wait until the next morning to go back online.

I began my shift at around 6am. The morning commute to work can sometimes be just as busy as a weekend night, or so I've heard. Within about 10 minutes of being on the app, I got my first request. It was a half-awake lady going to work, and the ride was about 15 miles away. A nice $20 Lyft to start my day. I was almost 10 miles away from the center of the city, and wasn't sure how long it would take to get another ride.

Apparently, not long at all. I received a scheduled ride a mere 2 minutes later. It was to a woman and her 3 small children. Certainly not what I was expecting, but hey, I can roll with it. The woman placed her childseat in the back, got her kids all settled, and off we went.

I was wearing pink sunglasses, in the spirit of Lyft, and one of the children asked "Mommy, why is that man wearing pink sunglasses?". My face turned a bit pink afterwards, realizing that the morning Lyft crowd can be dramatically different than the younger night riders.

In the name of professionalism, I promptly switched sunglasses on my next ride. After dropping two of her children off to daycare, I headed over to her oldest daughter's school and completed the ride. Phew!

At this point, I was in a part of the metro Denver area that I was completely unfamiliar with. One of the interesting parts of driving for Lyft is that you never know where you'll end up, and you begin to become more acquainted with parts of the area that were previously foreign.

I gave a few more rides, all to younger males heading to work. Almost every Lyft I gave that morning provided me with an interesting conversation. I enjoy being able to briefly drop into a person's world, to get a sense of their life and where they're going. I worked just under 4 hours and made $70 on only 5 rides.

The gig economy is not a career, and not something I want to do for very long. But it offers the opportunity to get a sense of what self-employment is like, and the flexibility of making your own schedule. At this point in my life, as I ponder my 'career' path and my overall direction, this freedom and flexibility appeals to me instead of jumping to another job just to leave for leaving's sake.

I will be detailing more about my experience, as I am utilizing their rental program this week to push it fully without putting miles on our car.