Uber New Year Update
“And.. you just got hit.”
The voice came from my fresh rider. I had just collected him from SFO, which was busy with folk flying back from their holidays. My back end was slightly proud of the pick-up lane—but not obnoxiously so. Cars were passing easily. I loaded the bags, shimmied past a slow-moving Porsche, got back into Old Bluey, and confirmed the destination. Then those five words hit me like a paintball in the guts.
It had been a slow morning because today was an extra holiday for New Year. Considering the hardcore American work culture I'm surprised. I’m not sure if it’s a bank holiday in the UK. I would have stayed home if I’d known.
My first fare was an airport run at 7am. SFO was dead at that time. I rode back to the boost zone around Stanford and scored a couple of POOL riders. One of them wore speaker-volume earbuds playing a kind of intense, French mariachi. Or something. The other guy, a fronty, said he preferred my music.
Then I sat in a Safeway carpark for the longest time. The engine off. Finally a request came through. I fired up the cylinders. The rider cancelled. I powered down. Then the same request again. Fire. Cancel. Down. Something about Old Bluey? Why didn’t he want Old Bluey?
That request again. I accepted but hesitated to ignite. The phone rang.
“Hi, I see you have a Scion.”
“Yes.”
“I have two suitcases, a pair of skis and three people.”
“I think I can do that,” I asserted, “let’s try, and if not I will cancel and you won’t be charged.”
“Ok!” he replied.
Sure enough Bluey managed the full load with aplomb. The man, his wife, a child. He gave me a $5 tip. This is a great car.
Now, as you may know, Uber recently introduced a feature called ‘rematch’ for drivers. This means uninterrupted trips to and from an airport. Usually one has to wait in the TNC (transportation network company) staging area1—a holding pen just up the road from the SFO terminals—and work through a digital Uber queue before driving back to the airport. It’s very time-consuming. Rematch matches you immediately, if possible, with a potential rider. My best experience was dropping off and picking up without moving an inch. Very pleased.
Today I had a very late rematch. I was past the point of no return, so had to drive a mile up the 101 to turn around. I approached international departures2, a man waved at me, and I squeezed into the bungle of cars.
We’re back to the start of the story. Did you enjoy that narrative arc? I certainly did.
I swiped START TRIP, confirmed the destination…
“And.. you just got hit.”
“Excuse me? What? When?”
I hadn’t felt a thing. Behind me, a white SUV had mashed itself into my bumper. Great Scott!
Oh this was bad. Was this bad? This was bad.
I alighted and helped the man reverse. Why do people not understand the turn-the-wheel-this-way finger circle? He managed in the end, with only mild scrape and wobble. I surveyed the area. His plastic seemed to have rubbed onto my wheel arch. Lots of white. I rubbed it with my fingers; just as my father rubbed suspect patches before me. It was wiping off!
I rubbed and rubbed and soon it was nearly gone. The other driver stood beside me, bent slightly, hands wringing.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you,” he… lied..? “You want to exchange insurance?”
A number of things happened in my brain:
- Shock: I was not in full control of my actions3.
- Relief: There was no damage to speak of.
- Incompetence: I had never done this before and didn’t know which details to exchange. Policy number? Phone number? Blood type?
- Fear: I felt panic that we were holding up other drivers and my own rider.
- Love: I felt sorry for this wretched man who didn’t know where his bumper was. Or maybe he was blind.
These five powers combined to form Captain Planet my response. What would your response be? Here was mine:
“Don’t worry. It’s fine. There’s no damage. Happy new year.”
I shook his hand. He said thank you and wished me a happy new year in return.
I got back in Bluey.
“Wow,” said my rider, “I cannot believe that was over in thirty seconds.”
It was the perfect ice breaker. He helped me calm down. He told me he would have waited if we had done the insurance thing. He told me that others would not have let the man off so easily. I said, “I’m not American.”
This was great chat. I even swore twice. I never swear in front of riders.
Towards the end of our drive to his beautiful bay-windowed apartment in the big city, we stopped behind a pick-up truck that had two bumper stickers. One said:
TRUMP
The other said:
NRA: FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS
Now, I never get political. I am the best Uber diplomat. But I had to tell him it was a scary truck. He agreed and then said:
“That’s an amazing carousel of stickers.”
A carousel of stickers! I complimented his impressive use of the English language. As he left, I showed him the affected wheel arch. He said it was my lucky day! And we said goodbye with a handshake.
Then I made a classic destination trip back to SFO and finished my journey south, belting out Everywhere4 by Fleetwood Mac.
Happy new year!
1 Only SFO has a staging area per se. OAK and SJC have FIFO (First In First Out) zones which are specified public areas just outside airport property.
2 All SFO Uber pick-ups are from departures.
3 Are we ever in full control of our actions? Here’s a talk on free will by Sam Harris.
4 Often I’m so consumed by song that I forget if I have a passenger or not. I never have, but no song is more likely to make me feel this than Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac. Mainly its outro, which I sing differently every time.
Enjoyed reading this.
Thanks, Rebecca :)
Loved your story. :) I always sit in the front and had no idea that makes me a "fronty" :)
Every time I take an Uber/Lyft I always have really fun conversations and always ask how they like it. Seems to be working out well for you. Thanks for giving me a behind the scenes look. Following for future content.
I've listened to Sam Harris talk on it before. Great stuff. I want to read his book on it also. I enjoyed the Moral Landscape as well.
Thank you very much! What a lovely comment :D
I do love it. Much more than I thought I would. I've been writing privately for a while on Facebook but my friend thought I might find an audience here. I'm glad you're enjoying it and that you're a proper fronty.
I must read what some other people are writing on here, including yourself.
I keep meaning to buy a Sam Harris book but I really only listen to his podcasts.
All the best and happy new year!
The strangest thing: I just watched a couple of videos on Steemit basics and one of them was you! Is this a lottery-size coincidence or do you have a different reading?
Hahah. Nice.
Our brains like to make connections and build meaning even when there isn't any. I'm a (somewhat) early adopter who put out a video when few were doing so. If you go through videos, it's bound to come up eventually until more are created. Not much of a coincidence there. :)
Well in that case it's an honour to be followed by a Steemit pioneer! I hope to become as excited as you about the platform.
My big concern is that I might one day like to publish a book. But if everything already exists on the blockchain I wonder if any publisher will republish. Do you have any thoughts on this?
I have about thirty posts (including my Uber origin story) from Facebook that I would love to post but this is a worry.
My friend Jeff Goins would be the one to ask about book publishing. That said, in my amateur opinion, the traditional model of book publishing seems to be changing quite a bit. The gate keepers of information don't exist as they once did (or they aren't as valuable). I used to work at the same company as Jon Acuff who basically converted existing blog posts into a book which worked out really well for him. If the content is good, people will pay to have it organized in a book form instead of sifting through a bunch of blog posts to find the thirty you would include in a book.
Nowadays, having a book seems to be more about marketing than making a profit selling the book. If you're an author, you can more easily get speaking gigs and you have a really great business card at networking events ("Here, have a copy of my book"). I've been told I should write a book by various people, but haven't seen the need to yet. I'm fine running my company, I don't need the "author" title as well.
This is very interesting. The traditional publishing avenue stuff is something I was also told by @matrjoschka. It does make sense.
The marketing angle is new information and very interesting. I have no need to speak at events but if I do maybe I'll publish a book!
Thank you for your thoughts. I will publish some of my older work I think :D