Tales of Uber

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

{does three-months-dormant qualify as a “zombie”? I hope not}

I have no ties whatsoever to JohnT (other than sharing a TX mailing address) but I had an Uber-related thing come up recently, and the thought occurred to me "wait, wasn’t there a dude who used to post on the SDMB, telling his “people-watching-on-steroids stories about driving for Uber?”.

Call this a shameless “bump” because I sure miss reading those stories (though selfishly, I do also have a question as an Uber “rider”).

Most of my trips are 20 minutes or less, right here around town (going out drinking on a Saturday night, needing a ride to the airport, etc).

I sit in the backseat, always keep to myself, make as much conversation as the driver insists upon, and when I hop out I’ll 9-times-out-of-10 leave a tip (either $5 cash, or a few bucks on the app right after I hop out).

I noticed recently that my “rating” had dropped to a 4.93. Doesn’t take a math-major to figure out that somewhere along the way (let’s call it 40 rides) some rat-bastard left me a less-than-5-rating.

I’m having hell trying to figure out from the app, looking at the prior “My Rides” which driver that was - am I wasting my time?

I have a feeling it was the prick who in March took me from my downtown Vegas hotel to the airport, and - instead of driving the freeway (which Google Maps told me would have been 12 minutes) - insisted on taking me the side-streets for 22 minutes, hitting all the red lights, all the while telling me he “grew up in Vegas so he knows his way around”. I got out at the airport, pulled my own suitcase out of his trunk, said “thanks” and headed for the Southwest gates without any tip whatsoever.

So two pointless questions: 1) am I wasting my time fumbling around in the Uber app trying to figure out what rider-ratings I’ve received in the past? and 2) JohnT what happened my man? Are you no longer driving for Uber? I (and I’m sure a handful of others) sure miss the crazy stories.

82

Sorry, but I don’t know enough about the rider app to go back and check ratings. Wish I could help! :frowning:

Let me think of some stories… :slight_smile:

83

My last few Uber drivers told me they were required to take the route shown on the app or they would not get credit for the ride, even if it meant sitting in traffic.

84

Well, that’s not true in San Antonio. How can it be, with construction and road closings everywhere? Hell, even the passengers say “it’s going to tell you to turn right… don’t turn right” many times, and you listen to the person who actually lives there. And, often, they’ll hit you with a “can we stop at the Whataburger @ Blanco and 1604?” request… the driver gets paid for that as well.

(Not doubting this is what your drivers told you, but I’m doubting the accuracy of what they were saying.)

85

After our event this weekend, one of the guys was lamenting that he had a 14-hr ride home, only to have to drive back thru the area with the equipment in a few weeks, & how if he planned better, he would have left the van locally & flown home. The safest place to leave it ‘locally’ was at the event organizer’s property but that’s hellawaze from any major airport. If you have a long, one-way trip are you given any extra compensation to get back to your territory? IOW, does a 50-mile one-way trip pay you more than 5 10-mile trips or 10 5-mile trips?

86

Funny, I just today sought out this thread to see if any more stories have been added, to find it has just been bumped. Count me among the ‘fans’ - you write well and entertainingly, JohnT, more when you can please.

87

Also not true for Lyft (the service I use when I have to) in San Francisco. The drivers nearly always ask me if they should follow the map’s route or do I want to give them directions.

88

Sadly, most of y’all are pretty normal and you won’t be featured in a “Tales of Uber” thread… and usually that’s a good thing, for most people get mentioned because they’re fuck ups (Tessa) or they have interesting tales to tell (Time Traveler). But there are some people who deserve a shout-out because of their personalities, not because of their actions.

So, Luke and his buddy (I’ll call him Cody) were in downtown SA, needing to go directly to Lackland Air Force Base (about 10 minutes or so). Drunk, of course, but I quickly got the vibe that “drunk” is a well-practiced state of mind with these two, and they were smart enough to stay within their limits.

Now, Luke… Luke is the the sort who likes to repeat what he hears, which can be quite irritating:

“So, I had lunch with Judy and Arthur.”
“Lunch with Judy and Arthur? How are they?”
“Fine - Judy’s pregnant again.”
“Judy’s pregnant?”
“Yes, they think it’s going to be a girl.”
“A girl! Oh, how fun!”

yadda, yadda, yadda.

And this could have been the case with Luke except… except… look. Luke lives in a mental world where everybody is going at it 110%, living life to the max, and no one ever just does anything in Luke’s world, they just… hell, unlike above, listening to Luke recast your life is the entire reason you would talk to Luke.

Cody was recounting what he did for Father’s Day, and the conversation went like this:

“Yeah, my dad and I drove into San Antonio…”
Luke: “Cool! So you were rippin’ and runnin’ with Pops! I can get with that.”
“We had a beer before we left…”
“Doing 12-ounce presses with the old man! I like it!”
“Well, we only had one because Mom was with us…”
“Your mom was making hard with the brews before rippin’ and runnin’? My kind of Family Day out.”
“Eh, mom didn’t have anything to drink…”
“Got to keep your sorry asses in line, got it. Mom’s gotta mom!”
“So we went to that Brazilian steakhouse downtown…”
“Awesome! Eating hoof and popping cold ones with the parents!”
“Damn meal was over $200.”
“Holy shit! Did your card have a $200 hole in it?” (I assume he meant that “I sincerely hope you had $200 credit available on your credit card, my dear friend Cody.”)
“Yeah, got it covered.”
“Now that’s what I call livin’!”

I would love to have this little tale end with some sort of narrative resolution, but sadly, sometimes life isn’t like that as Luke’s favorite song of all time decided to be aired, resulting in 3 minutes of bad air guitar, worse singing, and a lot of fuckin’ noise. And I can’t fuckin’ stand “Bad to the Bone”!

But, really, all of us need a Luke in our lives, someone who makes our lives sound more exciting than they really are.

89

Well, you didn’t disappoint. I was going to attempt a “Luke-style” response but I just can’t compete. Keep them coming!

90

Isn’t there a way to tell whether the passenger wants to go somewhere truly unusual?

I used Lyft a lot last year when I had wrist surgery and couldn’t drive for a couple months. I would usually chat with the drivers just to see if they had any interesting tales. One driver said he declined a fare to New York (we are in northern Virginia) - during a snowstorm. I asked him why the passenger hadn’t simply taken the train (they run roughly hourly from DC to NYC) and he said “the trains had closed down due to the storm!”.

91

I typically take an Uber about 3-4 times a month, usually to/from the airport locally or when traveling for work out of town.

I normally like to sit in the back seat, start off the ride with a few pleasantries of conversation, but would prefer to sit quietly through the ride, catching up on news on my phone.

Sometimes you get drivers that are overly talkative. I can understand that some riders want to talk to people, but drivers should take the cue from the rider.

Most recent ride I had was with a very talkative and opinionated driver. Tried to explain to me that the reason that the democrats are so pissed off with republicans is because none of the top 1% paid any taxes last year!

I usually keep my opinions to myself and just said, “Interesting.”

92

On my last few rides I have been asked when I order the ride for my “conversation preferences.” It might only be available for the black car level and above.

93

  1. The worst thing to text your driver is: “I’m here.” It’s a big fuckin’ Universe, and “here” is just a small part of it. How about “I’m at the lobby of the Hilton”?

  2. If you have a gate code or a building number, be a champ and send it to us before we get there.

  3. Feel free to talk about any details of your sex life to each other, like we don’t exist. That one conversation between the two young ladies about their various partners attributes was quite illuminating, to say the least. “I mean, David is perfect husband material, but he’s kind of a dud in the sack. Jack, on the other hand… if I were to marry him we’d be divorced in 10 years, but then I’d have his cock for ten years, and holy shit, Amy, that thing was just made for me!”

  4. Always verify that the driver knows your name, and that you know the driver’s name, before you get in the car. Also, check the license plate info as well.

  5. The best ways to type in your location, ranked:

  6. Business name (with address). So if you’re at the Best Buy, type in “Best Buy” and choose the correct one from the list.

  7. TYPED address. If you’re at home, TYPE in “12345 Home Street ZIP”.

  8. Blindfolded, using your ass

  9. Pickup at My Location

Don’t use that last one. For the love of God, I beseech thee - don’t use that last one!

You’re sitting in your apartment, immersing yourself in the latest products from the fine people at AXE Body Wash and Sprays, and you’re ready to go out and see what’s happening at The Paper Tiger. Picking up your phone you call an Uber, telling the app to “pick me up at my location” (or whatever). You wait, combing your hair and deciding between jackets, when your phone chimes… and your driver is in the apartment complex next door. Again. You don’t know why this keeps happening, but it always does. Anyway, you pick up your phone and you type in “Wrong apartments” (again, thanks for the illuminating info, JT), your driver texts back “where?” and you respond “Willow Bend Mist Estates” because something has to justify your $1700/mth bachelor pad, so why not some tortured name? Anyway, you wait and perhaps the driver gets there, perhaps she cancels, but now you’re going to be late, all the good seats will be taken, and that asshole might already be hitting up Marcie by the time you arrive.

The above tragedy would have been avoided had you merely typed in the name of the complex or the address. The “My Location” has to take a guess as to where you are, and since your apartment sits near the fence to Broken Down Shithill Oaks, the Uber driver was sent to BDSO by the app… and now, the first thing you see when entering the Paper Tiger is Marcie fucking laughing at that asshole’s jokes. The night is ruined! Just because you used “Pick me up at my location”!

Consider yourself warned…

  1. You’d think this would be easy, but there are just some people who are just bad at this job. That’s the thing which surprised me the most was hearing the complaints about the other drivers shocking… and many times illegal… behavior.
94

I’m really curious about this… can you share some of these stories?

95

Had one couple tell me of their previous driver whose car smelled like freshly smoked weed. When they mentioned it, he said, “Sorry, forgot to roll the windows down”, rolled down his window.

Another issue I hear about is drivers leaving passengers in bad situations, wrong dropoff points, etc. A common one around here involves military personnel being dropped off at a specific base - the address is similar enough to another point on the same road, but 4 miles away. The passenger would want to be dropped off at the base, but the driver insists they get out of the car because he “dropped them where they were supposed to go.” :rolleyes:

You hear of drivers padding their rides by taking the long-cut.

96

I don’t get the idea of padding rides by taking the long way. Now I’ve only taken Uber three or four times, but every time, the app tells me upfront exactly how much the ride will cost. (And actually, that’s something I prefer to the yellow cabs I was previously taking from the airport, because with that, the cost varies depending on how much traffic there is or whether the driver has to take a long detour.)

97

Picking people up… sorry, “ripping and running” shoppers at Walmart one day, I get a call to get Kaitlyn at Seedy Woods apartments towards the inner city. I arrive, wait for somebody to leave (or enter) because Kaitlyn wasn’t giving me the gate code, and I’m about to drive off when the gate opens, a car behind me using the code entry box. Yay!

Usually I have to drive around apartment buildings looking for the ride, but this one was readily apparent - a sobbing woman and her four/five year-old little girl, bags of clothes around them and about 3 boxes of various possessions. It was a Bad Situation, and I started looking for the guy, expecting to see some Drunk Asshole in a wife beater t-shirt. I mean, shit, sometimes this gig is like a movie.

“Kaitlyn?”
“Y-y-yes? Hi… sorry”, she wipes her nose.
“Here, let me help - are we taking all this?”
“Yes, please, before he gets back.” (THANK GOD, but now there’s a clock ticking - and I don’t know the timer!)

We put everything in my car (I’m better at packing than I am at Tetris, and I was pretty damned good at Tetris) and she and the kid get in my car.

Without a car seat.

So this is one of those times, right? Do I do what’s right or do I do what’s right? And I did what’s right, and drove away, without a mention. Fortunately, we don’t run into Mr. Wife Beater Shirt on our way out, and we were off.

She got on her phone (for even the poor in America have phones) and distracted the little girl for the drive, which was rather long, taking us out to some ranch NW of San Antonio. I pull in, have to get out to open the gate, move the car, get back out to close the gate (she insisted - I guess she thought she may have been followed, an idea that blissfully didn’t occur to me until the ride’s end), and drive about a mile to a typical one-story Texas ranch house where her family was waiting for her… brother, father, and mother if I had the measure of them right.

Kaitlyn starts crying again, and runs to her father, the little girl being picked up by her grandmother. The guy (brother?) helps me unload, both of us silent the whole time, until I thank him (I wasn’t about to interrupt her), tell them all “God bless you” because it’s about what they need to hear and not what I need to say, and get in the car, driving away, and doing the same gate routine but in reverse.

And I hope and pray she’s OK and her little girl is OK and she resists whatever temptation it was which made her get into a situation which she had to flee, sobbing.

…

I picked up this one guy 5(!) times in a months period. Every time it was a weeknight. Every time it was to a different bar. Twice he talked with his companion about how drunk he got the previous weekend.

Dude. Might want to watch that.

…

98

I hope that family is ok. I’m glad she was able to leave.

I would be curious about this too. Do drivers get $ for miles driven by Uber?

99

Yes, mileage + time + surges + tips + pickup fees (if applicable) + a couple of other things I’m forgetting.

I do think at times the driver gets paid more than what the person pays. Just a hunch, though.

100

What do you know about Uber Eats? I’m thinking of signing up as a driver, to pick up some extra cash.