you made the right choice
… yeah. So I’ve been telling myself for 8 or so months.
Thank you for reviving this thread - this needs to be one that gets “grandfathered in” in that no matter how long between posts, it can’t ever be looked down upon as a “zombie”! 
Though can you help me out on {my bolded} above, with the “I get a call from … Heather”?
I’m only curious in that a gal who once drove me from Love Field to my car, and I thought I had a little bit of a “thing” for - I tried texting her later that afternoon with a “hey, great meeting you today, I was the Uber rider from Love Field”, and I immediately got an auto-reply (fashioned from Uber itself).
Something about “you’re forbidden from contacting your driver directly at this point, but if you have an issue from your ride or if you left an item behind, contact us at Uber Customer Service” {of course I’m paraphrasing most of that, and I can’t remember if we’re talking 2013 or 2017, or somewhere in between}.
I guess I didn’t realize you could just “dial up” your own personal Uber. So now I’m curious how close you and “Heather” are.
I’m already subscribed to the thread, but I’m interested to read Chapter 2.
Oh, it was just a normal, random call. I have never seen her again, of course.
Are you still driving in the midst of all this? I would think that would be somewhat scary, but I suppose it could be a great “in the meantime” gig if you’re willing to take every precaution known to man. Do you know, is the rideshare business up / down / the same? Affected a little / a lot / not much at all?
I have no experience driving for Uber/Lyft, so am talking as a passenger:
I didn’t know drivers dislike passengers sitting in front. I always feel like heading for the back is rather snobbish, like they’re mere serfs doing my bidding.
I prefer Lyft because, in my area, Lyft rides are usually cheaper than the same trip would be by Uber. I’ve also been told by people who’ve done both that Lyft has tougher background checks on drivers, which makes a middle-aged woman with lousy eyesight and occasional mobility limits (arthritic hips) feel safer about getting into a car with a stranger who is statistically much more likely to be male.
Lots of immigrants among the drivers I’ve ridden with, and I’ve had some very nice conversations with them.
About the only way a driver’s going to get less than 5 stars from me is bad driving (and I define tailgating as such) or offensive music. I’m pretty flexible on music, but don’t play foulmouth gangsta stuff at me, please. I’m a bit old and a bit melanin-deprived to fully appreciate that genre.
Sad tale of a Uber driver who probably got COVID-19 from a sick passenger and died–and naturally no Uber provided health insurance:
So, since the financial need (paying for the divorce lawyers) has receded, I don’t do much Ubering any more… just enough for “pin money” or boredom.
But I decided a few weeks ago to start delivering food, seeing what was happening and figuring that I could do something to alleviate many people’s boredom while staying at home.
A couple of notes, from the drivers side:
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Please don’t leave food instructions for the driver. Don’t put in the delivery notes “Need extra ketchup”, “Can you ask them to leave the mayo off”, etc. We will not see this until we leave the restaurant. Put this information in the restaurant order, not as delivery instructions.
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If you’re in an apartment complex, it’s a BIG FUCKING HELP to tell us not only the name of the complex, but the building number. Is Apt# 1304 in building 1 or 13? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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When I started, I got this black card so I could facilitate transactions to places which weren’t fully integrated into the Uber Eats system. For example, Whataburger: The process would be that I would go into Whataburger, place the order myself (which has its own problems), and then pay with the black credit card by Uber. I would guess 30% of my orders were like this. This has completely stopped, which indicates to me that Uber has made the decision to discontinue this service during the emergency, and to which I can’t blame them.
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Is it busy? Whoa, is it busy! Many times I pick up 2, 3 orders from the same restaurant, most times I’m assigned a new pickup before I’m done with the current one.
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Tips. I get tips on 80% of my deliveries. For driving, it was about 20%.
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The stories have dried up. Since I deliver food, there’s no weirdos, cranks, or assholes. Well, there was one - a woman called me up after I picked up her Popeye’s and started complaining that I didn’t call her to ask if she needed extra ketchup. I told her that’s not part of the training or process - she got snitty with me and demanded I take the food back to Popeye’s. I responded with “So, this bird lived its life and died, merely to be thrown in the trash because you wanted extra ketchup packets? Seriously? That’s who you are?”. I then called Uber support and filed a complaint on her because I can be an asshole too.
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About 1 in 10 apartments smell of weed. Yesterday, my first restaurant reeked of weed. So if you’re working in restaurants and smoking, that’s cool and all, just go out the back door like usual. Don’t blaze in the kitchen just because you no longer have sitting patrons.
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Some restaurants do well with distancing. Some do not. The number of times I’ve told people to “just put it right there…” pointing “… and I’ll pick it up when you back off” is kinda depressing. Handing me the bag of food is not proper distancing.
I’ll think of more as I have time…
Heh, yesterday at work I had a guy walking toward me to ask a question. For each step he took, I took one away from him. After three steps he stopped and said, “Oh, you’re one of the virus believers”.
Apparently there are COVID-19 deniers out there.
I literally had the same thing happen… well, kind of, as it was a neighbor. My response to the “believer” comment: “In matters of fact, belief is not required.”
Heh, Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister pretty much nailed down germ theory, yet there are people today who still don’t get it.
Will say, this must be putting a big hurt on Lyft. They never got in the delivery game and I can only assume that driving persons has taken a hit, from both the # of people requesting rides and the # of drivers who want randos in their car.
The Tale of Uber Eats and the Errant Pizza.
Last night had a pizza delivery to 25007 Whitestone ln. Get there, mask on, gloves on, pizza in hand, I knock on the door. A 40-something white woman comes to the door.
“Hello, here’s your pizza!”
“Odd. I didn’t order one.”
“Huh. Well, the address on my order matches your home…” I showed her the address “… is this the right address?”
“Yes. You know what I think happened? Everyone knows I love Grimaldi’s. It could be possible one of my friends ordered it for me!”
Odd, I think. “Can you tell me the name of this friend?”
“No, but I’m certain that’s what happened”, as she reaches for, and grabs, the pizza.
Not so fast, I pull it back. “Ma’am, I need some sort of…”
“HEY, IS THAT MY GRIMALDI’S?” I hear from behind me.
“Maybe. Your name?”
“Paul S”, matching what’s on the ticket.
“Sorry, Paul, the app told me to deliver to this address”, I showed him the phone, “my apologies.” (Paul lived next door, at 25003).
The woman shuts the door.
“What I don’t understand is why she was willing to take a pizza that wasn’t obviously hers.”
“Sorry, Paul. She was telling me that her friends randomly buy her dinner and that therefore the pizza was her’s.”
“Damned entitlement mentality.”
“Bet her name is ‘Karen’.”
Paul burst out laughing. Gave me a $10 tip. Now hates his neighbor. Good times!
I almost admire that woman for coming up with a semi-plausible story that quickly to try to abscond with the pizza.
Way to be alert, JohnT!
What she should’ve said: “Oh, THAT’S what my friend meant by ‘Hope you’re hungry, watch for a surprise delivery!’ What’s the name on it?” “Uhh, Paul S…” “That’s him! That Paul, what a sweetheart. Thanks, here’s a fiver.” Slam door, wolf down a slice.
For those of you interested in this thread, you may find my recollections of my absolutely insane family business of interest as well. The stories, they’re even crazier!
Spider Robinson has a tale in one of the Callahan series about a time traveler that is the exact same thing. He spent many years in a prison. The guy called himself a time traveler.
I’ve only ever used Uber once but the experience was very pleasant. It’s rare that I get that much good conversation out of a cab driver. Strangely enough, it was in San Antonio. Can’t wait to read more.
This is why I specify that our parking entrance is on the north side of the street, next to the playground. The even-numbered part of the complex is on the opposite side but we still have the occiasional delivery driver go to the wrong side; Google Maps having even & odd swapped for our block didn’t help any.
Uber has started a new package delivery service called Uber Connect.
It’s going as well as you would expect:
