Hey, yeah, it’s storytime right?
Since you asked all politely and shit… 
The reason I started doing this was boredom. Sophia was entering high school and, being an active and social person, was involved in a lot of parties, after school stuff, etc., which involved me driving Sophia to point X, then driving back to point X 2 hours later to pick her up. And it was irritating me to drive 15 minutes, drop her off, drive 15 minutes home, wait 1.5 hours, then drive 15 minutes to pick her up and 15 minutes back.
So my wife was like “Well, why don’t you drive Uber or something to kill that 2 hours?”
Sophia goes to a private school in Castle Hills and was on some dance committee or something. She had to be dropped off at the school at 7pm, to be picked up “9, 930, maybe earlier. I’ll call you!” Drop her off, turned on the app (Uber this time), and immediately got a call: Pick Michael up at Castle Hills Baptist Church.
I drive to the church and the first sign that the drive might be unusual was the two police SUV’s*, lights flashing, in the parking lot. I pulled in and there’s Michael – a 50-ish white man with an “executive” look about him, arguing with the police officers.
Police Office 1: “Are you the Uber?”
“Yes”
“Need you to take this man home.”
“OK.”
The police officer proceeds to hand Michael his (Michael’s) phone**, Michael gets in the car still sputtering and bitching, and we’re off.
I look at the destination and verify: “I’m taking you home to Timberwood Park…” (a community way north of SA, with homes ranging from $250k-1.5m) “…correct?”
“You’re not taking me home. We’re going downtown.”
Well, I’m not in the kidnapping business, so if the guy in my car wants to go elsewhere, we go elsewhere. It’s not like I’m being followed by those two cops or anything.
“God, I hope you’re not a dick like that last Uber driver.”
“I’ll try not to be.” (Narrator: I failed) “What happened?”
“Guy started arguing with me for no reason! Didn’t want to take me to my destination, was just a complete asshole about it. We started screaming at each other, then the asshole kicked me out of his car and… I guess… called those two cops.”
“Huh, sorry to hear that.”
So a few more minutes pass in that vein, then we get close to the I-10/I-35 split, NW of downtown:
“Where are we going?” (My app still says to take him to Timberwood Park.)
“Take 35, get off on New Braunfels Avenue.”
Now, I don’t want to profile or anything, but as a general rule, white male executives don’t go to New Braunfels Ave unless they’re on the way to the Spurs game. And there was no Spurs game that night.
We get to New Braunfels Ave, I turn south, and that’s when the fun really started.
“Where are we headed?”
“There’s a convenience store about a mile down the road, past Houston St. We’re going there to buy some crack.”
“OK. Well, I’ll drop you off before we get there and you can walk, but I’m not pulling in there now.”
“What? Don’t be a dick! All the guy has to do is come to our window – I don’t even have to get out!”
“The fuck you don’t! You’re not buying crack while sitting in my car, who the hell do you think you are?”
“You’re just like that other Uber driver! Goddammit it – take me to that store!”
So while this convo is happening, I’m approaching Commerce and Houston. And what dipshit doesn’t know, but what I know, is that there is always a police SUV sitting in the HEB parking lot. I whip the car into HEB, turn to the asshole and say:
“Get out. Or I will involve that police officer right there…” and I point to the SUV “… and he can figure out who is in the wrong here. You got lucky once tonight – don’t fucking press it.”
“Goddammit, how am I going to get home?”
“Call a fucking Uber, you junkie. Now get the fuck out.” (I resort to Fuck-Speak when pissed.)
And he gets out.
Driving away, I try to close his ride… and the app won’t let me. Says I’m too far from his destination – it will allow me to cancel it (resulting in no payment), but I can’t just finish the ride because I’m not where he said he wanted to go (this has since been fixed). This means, because of the crackhead, I can’t get any more rides until he does whatever with his app.
And then I start laughing because I realized what the solution was: I drove 40 miles to Timberwood Park, go to his home, and then closed out the ride, resulting in $46 of earnings for me and a $70 charge to his account, for what should’ve been a $12 ride. Good times!
*We don’t have police cars in San Antonio. We have police SUV’s.
** The guy has the cops called on him because he was threatening violence against his Uber driver, and in response the cops use his phone to call an Uber to take him home. Think this happens if he’s a 24yo Hispanic male?
Whew! 
Gotta say, Stuntman Mike, this story would be even better if you had jumped out.
Looks at user name.
Looks at last sentence.
Wonder’s why I’m feeling a vague sense of disappointment here… 
Yeah, really! Given his user name, it would’ve been an obvious, easy solution.
Enjoying your thread, JohnT!
most of the drivers here work for uber lyft uber eats and door dash at the same time which I’m told makes for some unique situations …
my cousin who uses uber all the time said in the middle of a ride home one time her driver received a delivery call and asked if they could run by burger king … since she wasn’t in a hurry she said sure … he came out with 3 orders … one for himself one for her since she was being nice and the order he was delivering … it was 3 houses down from hers …
The couple across the street lives off of delivery … and their car broke down … so one day guy gets a ride home from uber and is sitting next to a largeish Chinese food order so he’s getting hungry but by the time he texted his SO about dinner he was home … come to find out shed ordered the food he was sitting by …
Now that’s funny.
My only weird Uber incident: One time in Chicago we got picked up by this driver who was listening to some really offensive rap music. It had the A word, the B word, the C word, etc. He didn’t turn it down or change it, and my husband, who is ordinarily pretty confrontational, didn’t say anything. We silently made faces at each other during the ride, but hell, we don’t have virgin ears anyway. I don’t think the driver ever spoke to us.
The weird part was that the driver had a really good rating.
Not an insane tale, but once I was picked up by Uber at the airport for a ride home, about a 40 minute ride. As we approach home the driver start to get excited saying “Oh, wow!” Turns out he was my next door neighbor, who had just moved in recently!
Uber in Eastern Europe is pretty cool, and for some reason you are much more likely to find a driver who speaks English than by just getting a random cabbie, which at least in Poland, (even in Krakow, which is by far the most “Tourist-Centric” city here) is not easy to find.
Get a call from Tessa one Sunday afternoon, somewhere near Bandera and 1604. Now both Uber and Lyft have photos of the passengers, but this picture is more prominent on Lyft and Tessa is quite a good-looking woman in her 30s.
I arrive at Tessa’s, a house on a long cul-de-sac, press “arrived” on the app, and a few minutes later she comes out with an older woman in tow. Tessa helps her get in the car, goes around and gets on the passenger side.
The fun starts immediately.
“Hi, John! This is my mother and she’s ill so we need to go to the clinic.”
“Of course! Let’s go.”
I press “proceed to destination” on the app… and there’s no destination entered.
“I’m sorry, but where are we going?”
“I was still looking up med clinics when you pulled up.”
“Tessa, I’m fine.” comes from the back seat.
“Mother, I got this.”
So I get on Google Maps and do my thing.
“There’s a Texas Med Clinic 2 miles away, and they’re open. Let’s go there.”
…
“Is that OK?”
…
…
“Oh, look at this review. We can’t go there.”
“Tessa, really, I’m OK.”
Tessa starts frantically pressing buttons on her phone. As I mentioned upthread (maybe), we’re supposed to wait 5 minutes on our riders so I let Tessa take 5 minutes, a few more, to search for an adequate medical service for her mother.
“Ma’am, I need to know where to go or I’m going to have to cancel this ride.”
"You’re not cancelling this ride on me, goddammit! My mother is sick!”
”Dammit, Tessa, why do you get like this?”
With that last, Mom exits the car and heads back inside the home. Tessa, however, is not done.
“I just want you to know that I think your manners and customer service are horrible!”
“OK” (I could not have cared less)
“NO, GODDAMMIT, IT’S NOT OK!”
So Tessa whips out her phone, starts pressing, then points it at me
“I’m now on Facebook Live and talking to the biggest asshole Uber driver”… (it was a Lyft)… “ever! Here he is, everyone!”
“Tessa, I allow you to record me on the sole condition that I get a copy of this for my attorneys, invoking the Internet Freedom Act of Texas passed in 2014* which allows me the rights to any recording made of me and placed on social media**. In addition, to all those viewing, I have already asked Tessa to leave my vehicle, which she has refused, deciding it better to record her committing the crime of theft by taking***. So, for the record, Tessa – I need you to leave my vehicle and ensure that I have a copy of this video for further prosecution, should I decide to bring it.”
Tessa’s phone enters her purse faster than she whipped it out a minute earlier – I don’t even think she took it off FB Live. Exiting the car, slamming the door, she has to have the last word:
“You’re not supposed to treat your clients this way, dammit!”
I refused it, rolling down the window:
“You’re not a client, honey, you’re just a customer.”
And I drove off, with Tessa screaming soundlessly behind me.
*LOL
**LOL
***LOL
If I lived in/near a larger town I might consider a job with Uber just based on these tales.
A few years ago my gf went to the Shaky Knees music festival in Atlanta with a friend. They took an Uber at some point and the driver talked music with them. At the end of their ride, he gave them a business card with his name and cellphone number, explaining that they could call him direct and he’d give them a better rate.
I assume this isn’t Uber-kosher, right? Anyway, they avoided Uber the rest of their time in Atlanta, fearing they’d get the same driver and he’d be pissed off at them.
LOL, the odds they would get the same driver in the ATL is almost zero. And trust me - this guy isn’t getting call backs.
No, it’s not kosher. It’s also stupid on his part - you can purchase a nice insurance policy via Uber and doing without it is folly. It’s subordinate to your insurances, of course, but it’s still there for you and the passenger. By doing rides outside the Uber system, he ups his liability and increases the risk for his passengers.
My most interesting Uber driver was a Pashtun from Afghanistan, where he had been a translator out on patrol for the US marines. He could have been exaggerating but spoke with the usual calm, no bs, no drama way that rang true to me at least. We had a pretty interesting chat mainly about what was interesting to him as a relative newcomer to the US on our way to SeaTac.
I’d say 80% of the drivers I get in Seattle are immigrants from all over. The ones that have stood out came from Afghanistan, Brazil, various Eastern Europe, various African countries. Although not an immigrant, I lived outside of the US for 20+ years, so feel some common ground with these folks. We usually shoot the shit about families, kids, stranger in a strange land type observations. No great stories that come to mind like JohnT’s standout rides.
That’s funny, I hadn’t actually made that connection. I’m a disgrace to my online persona. :smack:
I broke my Uber cherry a couple of days ago and while the guys and their cars were lovely each way I wound up having a very bad night thanks to their car air fresheners pissing off my lungs. I know the US and Canada is way ahead of Australia in recognising indoor air pollution as an issue, do Uber have any rules on such over there? I can’t use the service again and as we are a nation with high rates of asthma it strikes me as a bizarre thing to allow.
I used to drive Uber. Interested in my stories?
Of course!
These are old posts, so the tenses might not match. None of them are “today.”
Here’s an interesting Uber ride from earlier today - stopped at a laundromat and picked up three huge men - linebacker size. All dressed in all black, down to black gator shoes. Each carried a duffel bag that they didn’t want to put in the trunk. Their leader - I assume - sat in the front seat and spoke in German on his phone the whole time while the other two sat in the back, seeming out of breath and nervous but completely silent. I dropped them off at a PATH station and am happy to hear there was no bombing of any trains today.