Day 5. I haven't quit this thing yet. Wow! It's been a few days since I've driven at this point, so I'm excited to be going out. Liz needs to go to Kendall Square, and is leaving later than planned, so I offer to take her over there and start somewhere different for once.
Before we get started though, I ask for some Ben Franklin's World bookmarks to put in the car. Ben Franklin's World is Liz' popular podcast about early American history, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to have some bookmarks (her awesome swag - made from recycled tires, and functional to boot) for people to grab if they happen to notice them.
Liz has suggested a few times (including again on this occasion) that I should play the podcast while driving for my riders. So far I have been somewhat resistant to this suggestion; I'm really not sure that people would react well to that. So far I've primarily kept my usual station, Mix 104.1, or WEEI when the Red Sox are playing, on the radio.
What do you think, dear readers? What type of music/content do you prefer to have on the radio as an Uber rider? Would you ask the driver to change, or just be unhappy and possibly give a lower rating if you didn't like what was on?
Anyway, on to the driving. I got Liz over to Kendall Square, and went online. Quickly there was a ping, right outside Legal Seafoods Kendall. I was a little unclear on the location from app, and after waiting a couple of minutes turned around, only to then see my rider waving from right where I was. Fortunately Ames St was quiet so I just turned around in the street again and picked her up.
Amusingly enough, as the rider was getting in I saw her badge, which immediately identified her to me as a Google intern. Too funny, though not surprising, since that corner is right by the Google Cambridge office (where I work). I wouldn't have guessed that my first pick-up there would happen to be a Googler, though I did consider it a possibility.
We went out to Allston, no major conversation, so it didn't come up that I was also a Googler. I didn't exactly volunteer it, but it was a quiet trip, so I wasn't really hiding it either. After all, I'm posting all of this publicly. :) If you happen to read this and you're the intern I picked up - hi!
Trip 1 earnings: $6.74
Next pickup was not far from my drop-off, in Allston. The destination, much to my dismay, was in Eastie. I have nothing against Eastie on principle, but as a driver it's a bit problematic, because you have to pay a toll to get back, and if you don't get a rider coming back, that's on you. This was another quiet trip, nothing to report.
Trip 2 earnings: $14.28
I tried to cruise around Eastie a bit for riders, but it didn't seem particularly hot, so I started heading back towards downtown where things were a bit hotter. I popped out in Government Center and got a request outside one of the big towers in the State St area. It was a bit of an intimidating pick-up, because it was along a busy street without anywhere to really pull over effectively, but fortunately the rider was on the ball and was right there.
Pro tip: drivers will be much happier with you if you're there waiting, especially when you're doing downtown-type requests without good places for them to pull over. It's much less painful for a driver to wait when you're doing a residential pick-up, because there are usually places they can pull over and less traffic to block/contend with.
Confirmed destination, and we were off to JP. This was my first chatty ride of the night. The rider was a lawyer, but doing consulting work rather than big legal firm trial law practice. I guess she had done that, but the 80+ hour week expectations were too much. In the field she was in now, apparently 60 hours was still pretty common, but it was less stressful and demanding than big firms/corporate law. Note to self: don't become a lawyer.
Eventually we got to our destination, and I was a little unsure about its suitability for a drop-off - it was a kind of sketchy looking building that wasn't clearly open in any way. I expressed this concern to the rider ("does this look right to you?") and as we pulled up a bit further we did see a courtyard opening - I guess it was a trendy loft in the end, it just didn't look that way from the outside (maybe that's what makes it trendy?). Rider was okay with getting out, so we had a successful and happy trip.
Trip 3 earnings: $8.67
Next pickup was on Huntington Ave in JP. It turns out this was my first UberPOOL trip! I didn't realize it at the time though, because I generally hit accept without looking closely at anything other than the location - the incentives are really to accept ASAP, plus I don't want to distract myself too much if I'm driving.
I picked up the first passenger, and as we were heading to our destination, the alert came up for another pickup, which is when I realized it was an UberPOOL trip. I informed the rider that she had apparently used UberPOOL, and she grunted somewhat non-committally - a good start, right? Anyway, I explained that we wouldn't wait long for a pool pickup, and it shouldn't take her too far off the route. I accepted the pickup, and hit navigate to get to the next segment.
We arrived, and after a short wait, got our second passenger. Uber informed me that the first passenger would be dropping off first, so we were back on our way to her destination, in the Fens.
Along the way a pool miracle happened, and the riders started chatting. It turns out that they were both Northeastern students, and even in the same major! They were just one year apart but didn't know each other. It was interesting to hear their bonding experience. Hopefully that took a bit of the discomfort in the pool experience out for the first passenger.
Both drop-offs went okay with no intervening pool requests. But boy was it not a money maker!
Trip 4 and 5 earnings: $6.15
I figured I had a bit of time left, so I headed back towards the South End, and managed to find a bit of surge, with a pickup not too far from my place. It was one of the small dead-end streets up against the Southwest Corridor Park, an area I know well, so I figured it wouldn't be too much trouble. Well, it wasn't TERRIBLE, but it was a bit crazy.
Turns out a company's event at one of the houses there was getting out, so there were a ton of rideshare drivers arriving and waiting to pick people up. I was about the second one to arrive, and more kept arriving. This is on a tiny dead-end street with parking on both sides, making it pretty narrow. As you can guess. it made navigating to actually get out a little exciting.
Thankfully most of the folks leaving were doing so together/at the same time, so the waiting wasn't too bad. Just had to do a little three-point turn, then chill a few moments while another pick-up happened in front of us, and we made our way out to JP with no other shenanigans.
Trip 6 earnings: $8.30 (not much of a surge)
That was all I had time for for the night, so it was offline and back home for me! See you next time!
Day 5 trips: 6
Day 6 earnings: $44.14
Site Reliability Engineer decides to take to the roads of Boston as a Transportation Network Company (TNC, aka Uber/Lyft type ridesharing) driver. Why? Because he can. Learn how that works out.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Staying up late
We had to stay up late tonight so Liz could be on a live radio show at midnight, so I did a bit of a later evening than usual. Couple of interesting groups...
UberXL Group
My nightmare of UberXL classification came true on my first trip of the night - it was a group of six heading from Copley to Somerville, and it wasn't like the UberXL group I had early on that was interested in piling in together. So, I ended up fumbling for a couple of minutes getting one of the rear seats flipped up. It was definitely not optimal, and I'll definitely be paying more attention to ride types going forward, and probably trying to bug Uber again to see if I can get un-UberXL-classified. The extra money is great but I don't want to get bad ratings (and it would have been totally fair for this group to give me a bad rating, it was not the type of experience I wanted to provide).
It went okay, I was apologetic, they seemed more amused than annoyed, but I still felt bad. I did put my car back in order in the parking lot of the hotel where I dropped them off, because I had turned it into a mess.
Trip details: 16m 40s duration, 3.90 miles, $17.00 payout
North End Crowd
Amusingly my next trip could/should have been an UberX trip. I picked up a group of 5 in the North End, but they had requested UberX, not UberXL, so I didn't feel particularly bad about not offering to flip the seat again. They also didn't ask - they had definitely been having a good time. Their destination entered was the Cactus Club, which I had to sadly inform them was no longer open (and in fact hasn't been for a while - apparently Uber needs to update their place database), but they were just heading to the Boylston St area for more drinking, so it wasn't a big deal.
The ride was definitely boisterous - they started out asking to crank some tunes, and we rocked out much of the way to Boylston St. There was also much talking about "dick fingers" - apparently they had been playing Cards Against Humanity the previous night, and that came up, and they've been obsessed ever since. It was an amusing ride, including one of the back seat passengers walking their "dick fingers" up my neck. They were all pretty harmless and having a good time, so I had no problem with it.
Trip details: 15m 42s (loud) duration, 3.52 miles, $9.98 payout
No other super interesting trips to report tonight, just a few trips around downtown, Southie, and Cambridge. A decent evening. Now it's time to go to the radio station!
Total trips: 6
Total earnings: $57.95
Current rating: 4.89
UberXL Group
My nightmare of UberXL classification came true on my first trip of the night - it was a group of six heading from Copley to Somerville, and it wasn't like the UberXL group I had early on that was interested in piling in together. So, I ended up fumbling for a couple of minutes getting one of the rear seats flipped up. It was definitely not optimal, and I'll definitely be paying more attention to ride types going forward, and probably trying to bug Uber again to see if I can get un-UberXL-classified. The extra money is great but I don't want to get bad ratings (and it would have been totally fair for this group to give me a bad rating, it was not the type of experience I wanted to provide).
It went okay, I was apologetic, they seemed more amused than annoyed, but I still felt bad. I did put my car back in order in the parking lot of the hotel where I dropped them off, because I had turned it into a mess.
Trip details: 16m 40s duration, 3.90 miles, $17.00 payout
North End Crowd
Amusingly my next trip could/should have been an UberX trip. I picked up a group of 5 in the North End, but they had requested UberX, not UberXL, so I didn't feel particularly bad about not offering to flip the seat again. They also didn't ask - they had definitely been having a good time. Their destination entered was the Cactus Club, which I had to sadly inform them was no longer open (and in fact hasn't been for a while - apparently Uber needs to update their place database), but they were just heading to the Boylston St area for more drinking, so it wasn't a big deal.
The ride was definitely boisterous - they started out asking to crank some tunes, and we rocked out much of the way to Boylston St. There was also much talking about "dick fingers" - apparently they had been playing Cards Against Humanity the previous night, and that came up, and they've been obsessed ever since. It was an amusing ride, including one of the back seat passengers walking their "dick fingers" up my neck. They were all pretty harmless and having a good time, so I had no problem with it.
Trip details: 15m 42s (loud) duration, 3.52 miles, $9.98 payout
No other super interesting trips to report tonight, just a few trips around downtown, Southie, and Cambridge. A decent evening. Now it's time to go to the radio station!
Total trips: 6
Total earnings: $57.95
Current rating: 4.89
Why am I doing this?
The most common question I get from friends and family when I tell them about my decision to drive for Uber (and blog about it) is "why?".
For basically as long as I've ridden in Ubers, I've considered them a) better than taxis (especially here in Boston!) and b) not as good as they could be. Let's be honest, I'm type A, I'm a geek, and I think I'm a better driver than almost everyone else on the road (who doesn't? :)). Combine those things and sitting in a car while a driver stumbles around a city, barely avoiding death and failing repeatedly to follow their GPS' directions, and you've got your answer.
That said, there was one story that really broke the camel's back. It happened on a recent trip to Baltimore to watch the Red Sox at Camden Yards. Liz, naturally, jumped at the chance to turn it into a history tour, so one of our days we went out to Fort McHenry National Monument. The trip out there was fine, but the ride back, woo boy...
We made the request - it was several minutes out, unsurprisingly, because Fort McHenry is sort of out on the edge of a peninsula (that's why it was a good spot for a fort, after all), so that was no problem or surprise. Soon enough the driver arrived, we got in, confirmed our destination (we'd entered it from the app, like good Uberers), and he fired off his nav - Waze, which I took to be a good sign. Turns out, I was wrong.
Waze sent us on a somewhat unbeaten path, as it is wont to do. Fine, no problem. But it sent us in a direction that crossed a major rail yard. And there was a train blocking the path. The train was moving, but not especially quickly. Okay, we thought, no huge deal, we'll sit here a bit, it'll clear out, we'll go on. No problem. Welllllll, let me tell you about that train. I think it was looped in a circle, because it just kept going, and going. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. Oh shit, it's slowing down. Phew, it's speeding back up again. 15 minutes. Now it's stopped. WTF.
Meanwhile, cars in front of and behind us are turning around, but the driver is just sitting there. I tried pulling out Waze on my phone and marking the road ahead of us as blocked, so the driver's Waze would re-route, but I couldn't manage to get it to let me mark that one segment blocked, only the segments behind us - doh! When the train stopped, I finally tried to ask the driver to turn around. His English was not super great, but I think he was basically saying "but the GPS says go this way".
I ended up having to basically coach him into turning around, and then Waze tried to send us the same way again! I think I managed to explain that no, he should just go past that intersection and it would re-route. He didn't seem to believe me, but eventually we did in fact do that, and got back on a route towards our destination.
But wait! The fun doesn't end there! Somehow in all of that, it seems that the destination in Waze got messed up, and once we got into the city, all of a sudden in a random not-so-great neighborhood the driver tries to drop us off, asking which side of the street we wanted to get out on. The answer was quite clearly "neither", and the driver was so unable/unwilling to communicate that he just handed his phone back to me to put in the destination. Great, that's probably actually the best solution all day. I fixed the destination, and, whew, a few minutes later we actually got there.
Unfortunately, it turned out "there" was in fact closed. Doh. But that one wasn't the driver's fault, at least. I did make sure to update Google Maps' data with the opening hours so hopefully others wouldn't get messed up.
So, that adventure was why I decided to become an Uber driver. I actually started the process right there in his car, while we were sitting at the train tracks. Probably around minute 8, though I really am just making that up, I don't have that kind of memory. :) So I guess we all have that guy to thank - thanks crappy Baltimore driver!
For basically as long as I've ridden in Ubers, I've considered them a) better than taxis (especially here in Boston!) and b) not as good as they could be. Let's be honest, I'm type A, I'm a geek, and I think I'm a better driver than almost everyone else on the road (who doesn't? :)). Combine those things and sitting in a car while a driver stumbles around a city, barely avoiding death and failing repeatedly to follow their GPS' directions, and you've got your answer.
That said, there was one story that really broke the camel's back. It happened on a recent trip to Baltimore to watch the Red Sox at Camden Yards. Liz, naturally, jumped at the chance to turn it into a history tour, so one of our days we went out to Fort McHenry National Monument. The trip out there was fine, but the ride back, woo boy...
We made the request - it was several minutes out, unsurprisingly, because Fort McHenry is sort of out on the edge of a peninsula (that's why it was a good spot for a fort, after all), so that was no problem or surprise. Soon enough the driver arrived, we got in, confirmed our destination (we'd entered it from the app, like good Uberers), and he fired off his nav - Waze, which I took to be a good sign. Turns out, I was wrong.
Waze sent us on a somewhat unbeaten path, as it is wont to do. Fine, no problem. But it sent us in a direction that crossed a major rail yard. And there was a train blocking the path. The train was moving, but not especially quickly. Okay, we thought, no huge deal, we'll sit here a bit, it'll clear out, we'll go on. No problem. Welllllll, let me tell you about that train. I think it was looped in a circle, because it just kept going, and going. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. Oh shit, it's slowing down. Phew, it's speeding back up again. 15 minutes. Now it's stopped. WTF.
Meanwhile, cars in front of and behind us are turning around, but the driver is just sitting there. I tried pulling out Waze on my phone and marking the road ahead of us as blocked, so the driver's Waze would re-route, but I couldn't manage to get it to let me mark that one segment blocked, only the segments behind us - doh! When the train stopped, I finally tried to ask the driver to turn around. His English was not super great, but I think he was basically saying "but the GPS says go this way".
I ended up having to basically coach him into turning around, and then Waze tried to send us the same way again! I think I managed to explain that no, he should just go past that intersection and it would re-route. He didn't seem to believe me, but eventually we did in fact do that, and got back on a route towards our destination.
But wait! The fun doesn't end there! Somehow in all of that, it seems that the destination in Waze got messed up, and once we got into the city, all of a sudden in a random not-so-great neighborhood the driver tries to drop us off, asking which side of the street we wanted to get out on. The answer was quite clearly "neither", and the driver was so unable/unwilling to communicate that he just handed his phone back to me to put in the destination. Great, that's probably actually the best solution all day. I fixed the destination, and, whew, a few minutes later we actually got there.
Unfortunately, it turned out "there" was in fact closed. Doh. But that one wasn't the driver's fault, at least. I did make sure to update Google Maps' data with the opening hours so hopefully others wouldn't get messed up.
So, that adventure was why I decided to become an Uber driver. I actually started the process right there in his car, while we were sitting at the train tracks. Probably around minute 8, though I really am just making that up, I don't have that kind of memory. :) So I guess we all have that guy to thank - thanks crappy Baltimore driver!
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Quiet night (Surge: Low)
Hi Uber Geekers! I'm going to change up the "posts about driving" format a bit - rather than listing out trips, I'm just going to do shorter posts with summaries of the day/night's driving, and maybe one or two (or three or four) interesting stories, if any happened. I hope this will let me post a little more consistently while still driving.
There's a few longer format posts still in my buffer, which you'll see over the coming days/weeks, but I'll be publishing these shorter posts the day of or soon after I drive - more real-time enjoyment for you!
Tonight I went out around 7pm for a quick fix before it is Game of Thrones time at 9pm. It was a quiet night, only 4 trips, 2 on a combined pool, $14.50 earnings. No exciting rides, just some circling around in Harvard Square for my pool pick-ups - second pick-up was like 300ft behind the first one, but the wrong way on a one-way, so we had to go way around, yay.
Time for winter and dragons, have a great night all!
Edit 2016-06-30: While answering a comment below I noticed that the earnings amount in this post was wrong; according to the Uber partner site (and what they actually paid me for the week) I actually made $19.98 on those 4 trips. Sometimes the app doesn't report things very well right away, I'll have to be more careful about that!
There's a few longer format posts still in my buffer, which you'll see over the coming days/weeks, but I'll be publishing these shorter posts the day of or soon after I drive - more real-time enjoyment for you!
Tonight I went out around 7pm for a quick fix before it is Game of Thrones time at 9pm. It was a quiet night, only 4 trips, 2 on a combined pool, $14.50 earnings. No exciting rides, just some circling around in Harvard Square for my pool pick-ups - second pick-up was like 300ft behind the first one, but the wrong way on a one-way, so we had to go way around, yay.
Time for winter and dragons, have a great night all!
Edit 2016-06-30: While answering a comment below I noticed that the earnings amount in this post was wrong; according to the Uber partner site (and what they actually paid me for the week) I actually made $19.98 on those 4 trips. Sometimes the app doesn't report things very well right away, I'll have to be more careful about that!
Friday, June 24, 2016
Day 4, Night (Surge: None)
I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while, sorry, it's hard to post while driving!
On the evening of the Pride Parade, I went out again for a couple of hours more after dinner. My first pickup was on Huntington Ave, and we went out to the Whole Foods in Brighton. A quiet trip, nothing exciting to report.
Trip 1 earnings: $5.19
I got another request pretty quickly in Brighton, and picked up a young professional who was heading down to Legal Harborside in the Seaport District. We chatted a bit about Uber - I gather he has some friends who drive for Uber and/or Lyft, somewhat similarly to my reasoning. He works in the seaport district for a financial firm, and was talking about how he was thinking about moving to Quincy to have a better commute than from Brighton. (I'm not actually sure that's a lot better, but he did mention his firm has an office in Quincy as well so maybe he meant switching there too.)
Pleasant ride, good conversation, this is what I'm doing this for!
Trip 2 earnings: $11.41
Got another pretty quick request (I love it when that happens), just down the road in front of Morton's Steakhouse. At least, that's what the Uber app claimed... I pulled up and waited a couple of minutes, and as I was getting ready to call, I got a call from the rider. They asked if I was near the red awning, which confused me, because as I looked around there were no awnings in sight. I tried to describe where I was, and it became clear that we were nowhere near each other.
They mentioned they were near Harpoon, and I immediately realized which red awning they meant - they were at the Harpoon Brewery. Thankfully it's only a very short distance from where I was, so I told them I'd be right there, and apologized for the mix-up. They were very gracious about it, and I quickly got down to Harpoon and picked up a couple, heading to Charlestown. They were nice, we chatted a little bit, but as is often the case with couples, they talked amongst themselves mostly, which is also fine.
The drop-off location was a bit weird, along one of the feeder/semi-big-roads along the edge of Charlestown, but they seemed happy, so I guess it was good.
Trip 3 earnings: $6.30
I kept heading north-ish for lack of a better idea, and relatively quickly got a ping for the Costco in Everett. Having been to that plaza once before to actually go to Costco, I dreaded it a bit, because it tends to be very busy. I hadn't really considered the time of night, though - I got there and was wicked confused at first because the parking lot was totally empty, it was dead! I pulled up out front though and there was my rider waiting - turns out she was one of the last employees out closing up for the night, which explains the emptiness.
We were off to Tony C's in Assembly Row, and had a nice quick trip, no fuss. I wished her a good night, and went on the prowl in Assembly Row.
Trip 4 earnings: $4.81
Yay, local ping in Assembly Row! Of course it turned out to be right BEHIND me, so I ended up driving a little loop (slowly, because things were pretty busy), and picked up a group of friends heading out to Tavern in the Square, in Cambridge. They were obviously on their way out for the evening, and spent much of the ride discussing who was and wasn't going to meet them, and also texting back and forth with various people trying to get them to come out.
It was a pleasant trip - they were happy, excited about going out, but not over the top obnoxious (I've had a couple of those now, you'll have to wait for more writeups though...), and I certainly had no complaints. Easy enough drop-off, and back online I went.
Trip 5 earnings: $6.74
I wandered Cambridge a bit, and got another request without too much waiting. Picked up my riders, a nice couple - his name was also Tim - and we were off to the races.
The couple was talking about the brewery they were going to, in Somerville as well as various other breweries they had been to, etc. When we actually got to the address, though, I wasn't sure the GPS had gotten it right, because it really just seemed like a dark street corner. They got a look down an alley though, and believed they saw the brewery, so I wished them luck, and they headed off.
I looked up the address later to try and see if I'd taken them to their deaths, and it turns out it was in fact legit, and down that alley - they were heading to Aeronaut Brewing Company. Some of those beers look tasty, I might need to head over there myself!
Trip 6 earnings: $3.92
With that I decided to call it a night. Overall quite a long day of driving, but it was a lot of fun.
Day 4 night trips: 6
Day 4 night earnings: $38.37
Day 4 total earnings: $182.14
On the evening of the Pride Parade, I went out again for a couple of hours more after dinner. My first pickup was on Huntington Ave, and we went out to the Whole Foods in Brighton. A quiet trip, nothing exciting to report.
Trip 1 earnings: $5.19
I got another request pretty quickly in Brighton, and picked up a young professional who was heading down to Legal Harborside in the Seaport District. We chatted a bit about Uber - I gather he has some friends who drive for Uber and/or Lyft, somewhat similarly to my reasoning. He works in the seaport district for a financial firm, and was talking about how he was thinking about moving to Quincy to have a better commute than from Brighton. (I'm not actually sure that's a lot better, but he did mention his firm has an office in Quincy as well so maybe he meant switching there too.)
Pleasant ride, good conversation, this is what I'm doing this for!
Trip 2 earnings: $11.41
Got another pretty quick request (I love it when that happens), just down the road in front of Morton's Steakhouse. At least, that's what the Uber app claimed... I pulled up and waited a couple of minutes, and as I was getting ready to call, I got a call from the rider. They asked if I was near the red awning, which confused me, because as I looked around there were no awnings in sight. I tried to describe where I was, and it became clear that we were nowhere near each other.
They mentioned they were near Harpoon, and I immediately realized which red awning they meant - they were at the Harpoon Brewery. Thankfully it's only a very short distance from where I was, so I told them I'd be right there, and apologized for the mix-up. They were very gracious about it, and I quickly got down to Harpoon and picked up a couple, heading to Charlestown. They were nice, we chatted a little bit, but as is often the case with couples, they talked amongst themselves mostly, which is also fine.
The drop-off location was a bit weird, along one of the feeder/semi-big-roads along the edge of Charlestown, but they seemed happy, so I guess it was good.
Trip 3 earnings: $6.30
I kept heading north-ish for lack of a better idea, and relatively quickly got a ping for the Costco in Everett. Having been to that plaza once before to actually go to Costco, I dreaded it a bit, because it tends to be very busy. I hadn't really considered the time of night, though - I got there and was wicked confused at first because the parking lot was totally empty, it was dead! I pulled up out front though and there was my rider waiting - turns out she was one of the last employees out closing up for the night, which explains the emptiness.
We were off to Tony C's in Assembly Row, and had a nice quick trip, no fuss. I wished her a good night, and went on the prowl in Assembly Row.
Trip 4 earnings: $4.81
Yay, local ping in Assembly Row! Of course it turned out to be right BEHIND me, so I ended up driving a little loop (slowly, because things were pretty busy), and picked up a group of friends heading out to Tavern in the Square, in Cambridge. They were obviously on their way out for the evening, and spent much of the ride discussing who was and wasn't going to meet them, and also texting back and forth with various people trying to get them to come out.
It was a pleasant trip - they were happy, excited about going out, but not over the top obnoxious (I've had a couple of those now, you'll have to wait for more writeups though...), and I certainly had no complaints. Easy enough drop-off, and back online I went.
Trip 5 earnings: $6.74
I wandered Cambridge a bit, and got another request without too much waiting. Picked up my riders, a nice couple - his name was also Tim - and we were off to the races.
The couple was talking about the brewery they were going to, in Somerville as well as various other breweries they had been to, etc. When we actually got to the address, though, I wasn't sure the GPS had gotten it right, because it really just seemed like a dark street corner. They got a look down an alley though, and believed they saw the brewery, so I wished them luck, and they headed off.
I looked up the address later to try and see if I'd taken them to their deaths, and it turns out it was in fact legit, and down that alley - they were heading to Aeronaut Brewing Company. Some of those beers look tasty, I might need to head over there myself!
Trip 6 earnings: $3.92
With that I decided to call it a night. Overall quite a long day of driving, but it was a lot of fun.
Day 4 night trips: 6
Day 4 night earnings: $38.37
Day 4 total earnings: $182.14
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Day 4, Daytime Part 2 (Surge: Low)
Where were we? Ah yes, the fifth trip of day 4... what a trip that was.
Day 4, Trip 5...
Pickup in Beacon Hill. Tiny streets, always fun to navigate... managed to find a decent spot to pull in though, not too far from the magical pin. Took a couple of minutes, but a pair of riders showed up right as I was thinking about making a call or text.
Aside: Uber recommends you don't contact riders for at least 2 minutes after you've arrived. They notify riders via the app when you arrive, and (and I agree with this from experience), people don't love getting an "I'm here" call when they've already been told you're here.
Anyway, two guys hop in, and boy are they bros. Everything about them has that vibe, which is fine - not necessarily the guys I'd regularly hang out with, but hey, I'm not hanging out, I'm driving them. I have to admit, I at least made an attempt to affect a bit of the bro attitude myself to make them happy (or maybe as a self-defense mechanism, I'm not sure :)). I confirm the destination in Eastie, and right away they ask if we can stop at a liquor store.
Sure, there's nothing wrong with stops, I ask if they've got one in mind, and they say they don't, but they'll holler if they see one. I can tell this is a priority for them, so while waiting at a light I plug "liquor store" into Waze and look what we've got on our route. Conveniently, there's one right across from the TD Garden, which we're very close to - easy peasy.
I pull in, and as I'm negotiating to a reasonable place to stop (there's all sorts of construction), one of the riders informs me that he works for National Grid, so if anyone hassles me I can just say my rider works for National Grid and it'll be fine. I'm not quite sure how expects that to work, but hey, okay. He heads in, comes back with a couple of twelve packs, and we're back on the road.
As we're pulling out, National Grid Guy asks if he can smoke in my car. I decline, and after "I'll do it out the window" is rejected, he offers me a beer in exchange for letting him smoke. Uh, no. I think I lose my attempt at bro-ish-ness at this point and say yeah, definitely no then, I'm kind of driving here. Okay, fine, no big deal.
It seems the bros don't want to talk to each other, so they just keep talking to me, asking about where I'm from, where I live... and when I say the South End, it's hilarious, because they have no idea what the South End is. First they think it's like Quincy or Braintree, then I'm like no, it's part of Boston, then I foolishly try to pre-emptively point out it's not the same as Southie, and they're like so Dorchester, Mattapan? No... JP? No... I can't figure out how else to explain it, but that's okay because they just keep talking, telling me how they remember when they played hockey for a North End team how they'd play the South End team and all those Southie kids (no...) would be all worked up to play them. Sigh.
Finally, after it feels like forever, we get to the drop-off. As we're pulling up, National Grid Guy tells me he's totally going to give me a tip for being so great about the liquor store, even though he never tips Uber drivers. Oh, and he had promised that earlier too (not that I expected or requested it, mind you). But it's okay, his streak remained solid, because he and his friend just hopped out of their car with their beer, and no tip left behind. Shocker!
Trip count: 5. Trip earnings: $13.41 (and no tip)
It was about time to get some gas, so I decided Eastie couldn't be any worse than anywhere else for gas prices, and had Waze take me to a reasonably priced station. I stayed online for some of the way there but then went offline to make sure I didn't lose credit for declining rides.
Post-gas, came back online and started navigating roughly back towards downtown, thinking I might wind up paying the toll to get back on my own, when I got my next ride.
This one was a super-local - woman just heading not too far down the street to the Shaws. She saw the forecast calling for rain and didn't want to risk her usual walk, which seemed reasonable. When Waze took me on the highway she was a bit confused, but it basically just skipped some lights on the local drag, and she was cool with it - I did offer to go the surface route if she preferred though. She ended up getting out before the Shaws, apparently seeing one of the other stores made her think of something else she had to do. Quick and easy.
Trip count: 6. Trip earnings: $3.75
Since the Shaws was on my mind, I decided to make a pit stop of my own there to use the bathroom and grab a drink. Offline for a few minutes, then back in business, again cruising towards the tunnel, lamenting the toll, when boom, ride request!
This one was a kind of tricky "find the rider" situation. It was in a very dense area, with somewhat high traffic. I pulled in around the pin, but after a minute or two started second guessing myself, and ended up banging a U-turn and pulling to the other side of the street. That seems to have worked out, because the riders found me quite soon thereafter.
And I really mean riders plural. Turns out this had been an UberXL request, and after helping them with bags, I noticed that there were four people piling into the back seat, in addition to the one riding up front with me! I offered to put the second row of seats up, but they just asked if it was okay for them to sit like that, and I said sure, if they were comfortable that was fine with me.
Turns out they were in for quite a ride - the destination was Foxborough! It turns out they were heading down to stay with some friends and take in some Copa América matches. The trip went fine, though it was quite a long one - there was a good bit of traffic on I93 southbound. We chatted a little bit about traffic and things in the area, but mostly the riders chatted amongst themselves, mostly not in English (I suspect Portuguese or Spanish because they were talking about the Brazil vs Peru match).
One interesting thing I noted about myself during this ride - while the front seat rider was on his phone a decent amount, I kept feeling paranoid that he was checking my route and making sure I wasn't taking them the wrong way. In retrospect this is probably more because that's what I often do to Uber drivers in unfamiliar cities - the glimpses of his phone that I caught when looking over seemed to be texting and the like, not following me on the map.
51 minutes and 31 miles later, we arrived - I ended up going past their destination and having to make another quick U-turn, because it was a house that kind of jumped out at me. They had no complaints though, and I ended the trip and helped them with their luggage. When I got back in, I could hardly believe the estimated earnings!
Trip count: 7. Trip earnings: $79.93!
The downside of such a big trip is that I didn't really see a ton of demand in Foxborough, nor did I get pings on the highway on the way back. I basically decided to call it a day and head home for groceries and dinner, unless I got a ping on the way back. Well, eventually I actually did.
Last ride of the daytime stint was a pickup in Dorchester. Unfortunately I got the request right as I was passing the exit that would have been convenient for the pick-up, so I had to take the next exit and hunt down a place to turn around. Eventually I made it there though, and picked up a rider heading to Back Bay Harry's, which was pretty ideal for me and my plans to head back to the South End.
I wasn't sure we'd get there without hassle due to the Pride Parade earlier, but it turned out okay, things were generally back open by this time (it was after 4:30pm). There were still some rocking street parties and other things going on, but we were able to get there just fine. A pretty quick easy trip.
Trip count: 8. Trip earnings: $8.78
Day 2 Daytime trip count: 8
Day 2 Daytime earnings: $143.94
Day 2 Daytime time online: 4hr 49min
Off to the grocery store, home for dinner, and up next... out again for a few trips in the evening!
This one was a kind of tricky "find the rider" situation. It was in a very dense area, with somewhat high traffic. I pulled in around the pin, but after a minute or two started second guessing myself, and ended up banging a U-turn and pulling to the other side of the street. That seems to have worked out, because the riders found me quite soon thereafter.
And I really mean riders plural. Turns out this had been an UberXL request, and after helping them with bags, I noticed that there were four people piling into the back seat, in addition to the one riding up front with me! I offered to put the second row of seats up, but they just asked if it was okay for them to sit like that, and I said sure, if they were comfortable that was fine with me.
Turns out they were in for quite a ride - the destination was Foxborough! It turns out they were heading down to stay with some friends and take in some Copa América matches. The trip went fine, though it was quite a long one - there was a good bit of traffic on I93 southbound. We chatted a little bit about traffic and things in the area, but mostly the riders chatted amongst themselves, mostly not in English (I suspect Portuguese or Spanish because they were talking about the Brazil vs Peru match).
One interesting thing I noted about myself during this ride - while the front seat rider was on his phone a decent amount, I kept feeling paranoid that he was checking my route and making sure I wasn't taking them the wrong way. In retrospect this is probably more because that's what I often do to Uber drivers in unfamiliar cities - the glimpses of his phone that I caught when looking over seemed to be texting and the like, not following me on the map.
51 minutes and 31 miles later, we arrived - I ended up going past their destination and having to make another quick U-turn, because it was a house that kind of jumped out at me. They had no complaints though, and I ended the trip and helped them with their luggage. When I got back in, I could hardly believe the estimated earnings!
Trip count: 7. Trip earnings: $79.93!
The downside of such a big trip is that I didn't really see a ton of demand in Foxborough, nor did I get pings on the highway on the way back. I basically decided to call it a day and head home for groceries and dinner, unless I got a ping on the way back. Well, eventually I actually did.
Last ride of the daytime stint was a pickup in Dorchester. Unfortunately I got the request right as I was passing the exit that would have been convenient for the pick-up, so I had to take the next exit and hunt down a place to turn around. Eventually I made it there though, and picked up a rider heading to Back Bay Harry's, which was pretty ideal for me and my plans to head back to the South End.
I wasn't sure we'd get there without hassle due to the Pride Parade earlier, but it turned out okay, things were generally back open by this time (it was after 4:30pm). There were still some rocking street parties and other things going on, but we were able to get there just fine. A pretty quick easy trip.
Trip count: 8. Trip earnings: $8.78
Day 2 Daytime trip count: 8
Day 2 Daytime earnings: $143.94
Day 2 Daytime time online: 4hr 49min
Off to the grocery store, home for dinner, and up next... out again for a few trips in the evening!
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Day 4, Daytime Part 1 (Surge: Low)
I had a couple of non-driving days after Day 3, but on Saturday it was time for a weekend day and serious driving - and the Boston Pride Parade, just to make things extra crazy. I got on the road right around noon (this is a hobby, after all).
I was hoping for good surge pricing due to the parade, but it turns out every Uber driver in the area must have been thinking the same thing, because by and large there were limited surge opportunities around. There did appear to be some surge out near Southie as I was getting on the road, so I headed in that direction again to get started.
The Trips
My first pickup was a couple at a restaurant on the edge of Southie, a couple with a destination in Roxbury. After confirming the name and destination, they informed me they'd actually be going to Cheers, they just needed to go out to Roxbury to pick up a wallet that had been left behind this morning (whoops).
I of course needed to clarify (and let's be honest, show off that I do at least know a little bit about what I'm doing driving around Boston) to find out if they meant the "real" Cheers. The woman confirmed that yes, they meant the real Cheers, which I reconfirmed as the one in Beacon Hill. The gentleman then inquired about the existence of more than one Cheers, and we explained that there's the exterior that was used for filming, that they're going to, which looks nothing like the film set inside, then there's the replica of the film set for tourists out in Fanuiel Hall Marketplace.
So, off we went to Roxbury. From their conversation I gathered that the gentleman was just visiting, but the woman had lived in Boston for a while, working at one of our many hospitals. It sounded like they were both leaving / had left the area, though, maybe having one last hurrah or visit with friends on the way out. There was considerable mirth discussion of expected jeering from friends about the leaving of the wallet, plus discussion of how exactly to correctly get in and out of the wallet's location.
We got to Roxbury, the gentleman headed up, then not too long afterward, the woman followed him. Turns out she may have forgotten something as well. A couple of minutes of waiting ensued, and then we were off to Cheers. I informed the riders that I wasn't certain how close I could get them because of Pride Parade closures, but that we'd do the best we could. As it turns out, we got right there, no closure problems, thankfully.
Trip count: 1. Trip earnings: $12.24
I got an immediate fare after going back online at Cheers, and the pickup was right on Beacon St on the next corner - score! I arrived very quickly and picked up a young woman who was heading to Southie.
This was a semi-chatty but otherwise not noteworthy ride. The rider asked me about how long I'd been driving for Uber, and I gave her the short story of who/why/etc. Soon enough we got to Southie, another ride successful.
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $8.78
Picked up the next trip on a tiny street in Southie, and headed back in towards the mess of the start of the Pride Parade in Copley Square. First, though, we had to make a Dunkin' stop for the rider, which was conveniently right after we got started.
I informed the rider we might have a hard time getting exactly to her destination because of parade shenanigans. In the end it looked like we were going to have to loop way around Copley Square, so I suggested and the rider agreed to a drop off that was about 2 blocks away from where she was heading, but was going to cost her way less than navigating all the way around. A successful trip despite the parade fun.
Trip count: 3. Trip earnings: $7.10
Next pickup request came from the Cheesecake Factory in the Pru. I got a little nervous here because I was waiting a couple of minutes and didn't have great visibility to make sure I was picking up at the right spot for the rider. I haven't really talked about it much yet, but finding the right pickup spot can be a bit stressful. I want to wind up as close to the magical map pin as possible, but have to balance that with keeping the street passable, traffic flow to get to the right side, etc.
Fortunately, the rider showed up before I got to the point at which I was going to call, and all was well. It was a pretty straightforward ride to the Science Park area, man and his daughter (I presumed). The daughter asked if she could eat her cookies/crackers/something of that type, and I said sure. The father ended up cleaning up the seats a bit after they got out, but it didn't seem like that much of a mess.
One sort of interesting interaction, our logical route was Storrow Drive, but Waze was saying there was a bit of traffic there and it might be a minute faster to take Memorial Drive instead. But that's a quarter mile more, so I wasn't comfortable just calling an audible, and checked with the rider, informing him about the traffic. He said he'd rather stick with Storrow, which we did.
Trip count: 4. Trip earnings: $9.95
Next request was back in Beacon Hill... this one was a bit of an adventure, so I think we should split to another post... To Be Continued!
I was hoping for good surge pricing due to the parade, but it turns out every Uber driver in the area must have been thinking the same thing, because by and large there were limited surge opportunities around. There did appear to be some surge out near Southie as I was getting on the road, so I headed in that direction again to get started.
The Trips
My first pickup was a couple at a restaurant on the edge of Southie, a couple with a destination in Roxbury. After confirming the name and destination, they informed me they'd actually be going to Cheers, they just needed to go out to Roxbury to pick up a wallet that had been left behind this morning (whoops).
I of course needed to clarify (and let's be honest, show off that I do at least know a little bit about what I'm doing driving around Boston) to find out if they meant the "real" Cheers. The woman confirmed that yes, they meant the real Cheers, which I reconfirmed as the one in Beacon Hill. The gentleman then inquired about the existence of more than one Cheers, and we explained that there's the exterior that was used for filming, that they're going to, which looks nothing like the film set inside, then there's the replica of the film set for tourists out in Fanuiel Hall Marketplace.
So, off we went to Roxbury. From their conversation I gathered that the gentleman was just visiting, but the woman had lived in Boston for a while, working at one of our many hospitals. It sounded like they were both leaving / had left the area, though, maybe having one last hurrah or visit with friends on the way out. There was considerable mirth discussion of expected jeering from friends about the leaving of the wallet, plus discussion of how exactly to correctly get in and out of the wallet's location.
We got to Roxbury, the gentleman headed up, then not too long afterward, the woman followed him. Turns out she may have forgotten something as well. A couple of minutes of waiting ensued, and then we were off to Cheers. I informed the riders that I wasn't certain how close I could get them because of Pride Parade closures, but that we'd do the best we could. As it turns out, we got right there, no closure problems, thankfully.
Trip count: 1. Trip earnings: $12.24
I got an immediate fare after going back online at Cheers, and the pickup was right on Beacon St on the next corner - score! I arrived very quickly and picked up a young woman who was heading to Southie.
This was a semi-chatty but otherwise not noteworthy ride. The rider asked me about how long I'd been driving for Uber, and I gave her the short story of who/why/etc. Soon enough we got to Southie, another ride successful.
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $8.78
Picked up the next trip on a tiny street in Southie, and headed back in towards the mess of the start of the Pride Parade in Copley Square. First, though, we had to make a Dunkin' stop for the rider, which was conveniently right after we got started.
I informed the rider we might have a hard time getting exactly to her destination because of parade shenanigans. In the end it looked like we were going to have to loop way around Copley Square, so I suggested and the rider agreed to a drop off that was about 2 blocks away from where she was heading, but was going to cost her way less than navigating all the way around. A successful trip despite the parade fun.
Trip count: 3. Trip earnings: $7.10
Next pickup request came from the Cheesecake Factory in the Pru. I got a little nervous here because I was waiting a couple of minutes and didn't have great visibility to make sure I was picking up at the right spot for the rider. I haven't really talked about it much yet, but finding the right pickup spot can be a bit stressful. I want to wind up as close to the magical map pin as possible, but have to balance that with keeping the street passable, traffic flow to get to the right side, etc.
Fortunately, the rider showed up before I got to the point at which I was going to call, and all was well. It was a pretty straightforward ride to the Science Park area, man and his daughter (I presumed). The daughter asked if she could eat her cookies/crackers/something of that type, and I said sure. The father ended up cleaning up the seats a bit after they got out, but it didn't seem like that much of a mess.
One sort of interesting interaction, our logical route was Storrow Drive, but Waze was saying there was a bit of traffic there and it might be a minute faster to take Memorial Drive instead. But that's a quarter mile more, so I wasn't comfortable just calling an audible, and checked with the rider, informing him about the traffic. He said he'd rather stick with Storrow, which we did.
Trip count: 4. Trip earnings: $9.95
Next request was back in Beacon Hill... this one was a bit of an adventure, so I think we should split to another post... To Be Continued!
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Day 3 (Surge: Moderate)
Day 3 was Wednesday - continuous days and I'm not bored, that's a plus. Another 8-10pm evening planned, and it worked out similarly.
Meta note: these reports are likely to get a little shorter - if I'm spending my free time driving, it doesn't leave that much free time for blogging, I didn't calculate that! So I'll probably just list trips, and write more detail about the more interesting ones. Format comments welcome!
No surge in my area starting out, so I headed towards the Seaport district, which was surging. It was 8:35 by the time I got my first trip, which is the longest I've waited for the first rider to date.
First pickup was from a hotel in the Seaport district, heading to the Hilton at the airport. Single rider, nothing exciting. I did notice a lot of runners bibs on people walking around the Seaport, which seemed a likely source of the surge. Good to know for later in the night.
Trip count: 1. Trip earnings: $11.47
Since I don't have livery plates or a jitney license, which are required by the City of Boston and Massport to pick up at Logan Airport, I didn't really expect much by way of requests in that area, so I just headed back towards the Seaport.
Got another request in the Seaport, headed out to Charlestown near the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center. Nice young woman, she gave me a couple of routing suggestions, obviously had experience with GPS making bad calls and just wanted to get home. No problems, another smooth trip.
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $10.24
Of course, that last trip left me in Charlestown (near the Navy Yard, a mostly residential area) on a Wednesday evening - not necessarily a hotbed. I didn't expect to get another pickup, but as I was on my way out of the neighborhood, boop boop, pickup request! Turning around, back I go...
Another single rider, this a young man heading to the Park Street area. This was a night of quiet riders, mostly, another short quiet trip.
Trip count: 3. Trip earnings: $6.56
Finally, as I was cruising towards home and debating calling it a night, got a pick up in the South End. Picked up a younger couple who had been out at dinner with friends, and we were heading to the MGH area.
Finally, something a little interesting for the day, I got to listen to a bit of gossip about the people they had dinner with, and then we hit the jackpot - relationship shenanigans! They discussed a conversation the woman had had with an ex, who insisted he was still madly in love with her, despite the fact that he was moving to Europe with another woman who was just "the next best thing". The conversation was a bit awkward at times, but definitely interesting to listen to. :)
Trip count: 4. Trip earnings: $4.19
Day 3 trip count: 4
Day 3 earnings: $32.46
Total trip count: 10
Total earnings: $99.96 (+$3.50 Logan incentive)
Almost a hundred bucks! Actually, it turned out to be $3.50 more because my first trip should have qualified for the Logan incentive ($3.50 that basically pays the return toll for drivers who go out to the airport area but aren't going to be able to pick up a return fare because of that Massport shenanigans I mentioned earlier), but Uber had a glitch with that on Wednesday (which, to be fair, they did an excellent job at communicating and handling), so that got added to my account a day or two later.
So now, dear readers (both of you?), I have a question: how frequent do you want these posts? Should I try to post them as fast as I can? Do you want a regular posting schedule? Do you want the world? Comment to show me you really exist!
Meta note: these reports are likely to get a little shorter - if I'm spending my free time driving, it doesn't leave that much free time for blogging, I didn't calculate that! So I'll probably just list trips, and write more detail about the more interesting ones. Format comments welcome!
No surge in my area starting out, so I headed towards the Seaport district, which was surging. It was 8:35 by the time I got my first trip, which is the longest I've waited for the first rider to date.
First pickup was from a hotel in the Seaport district, heading to the Hilton at the airport. Single rider, nothing exciting. I did notice a lot of runners bibs on people walking around the Seaport, which seemed a likely source of the surge. Good to know for later in the night.
Trip count: 1. Trip earnings: $11.47
Since I don't have livery plates or a jitney license, which are required by the City of Boston and Massport to pick up at Logan Airport, I didn't really expect much by way of requests in that area, so I just headed back towards the Seaport.
Got another request in the Seaport, headed out to Charlestown near the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center. Nice young woman, she gave me a couple of routing suggestions, obviously had experience with GPS making bad calls and just wanted to get home. No problems, another smooth trip.
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $10.24
Of course, that last trip left me in Charlestown (near the Navy Yard, a mostly residential area) on a Wednesday evening - not necessarily a hotbed. I didn't expect to get another pickup, but as I was on my way out of the neighborhood, boop boop, pickup request! Turning around, back I go...
Another single rider, this a young man heading to the Park Street area. This was a night of quiet riders, mostly, another short quiet trip.
Trip count: 3. Trip earnings: $6.56
Finally, as I was cruising towards home and debating calling it a night, got a pick up in the South End. Picked up a younger couple who had been out at dinner with friends, and we were heading to the MGH area.
Finally, something a little interesting for the day, I got to listen to a bit of gossip about the people they had dinner with, and then we hit the jackpot - relationship shenanigans! They discussed a conversation the woman had had with an ex, who insisted he was still madly in love with her, despite the fact that he was moving to Europe with another woman who was just "the next best thing". The conversation was a bit awkward at times, but definitely interesting to listen to. :)
Trip count: 4. Trip earnings: $4.19
Day 3 trip count: 4
Day 3 earnings: $32.46
Total trip count: 10
Total earnings: $99.96 (+$3.50 Logan incentive)
Almost a hundred bucks! Actually, it turned out to be $3.50 more because my first trip should have qualified for the Logan incentive ($3.50 that basically pays the return toll for drivers who go out to the airport area but aren't going to be able to pick up a return fare because of that Massport shenanigans I mentioned earlier), but Uber had a glitch with that on Wednesday (which, to be fair, they did an excellent job at communicating and handling), so that got added to my account a day or two later.
So now, dear readers (both of you?), I have a question: how frequent do you want these posts? Should I try to post them as fast as I can? Do you want a regular posting schedule? Do you want the world? Comment to show me you really exist!
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Uber riding as an Uber driver
Today I had my first Uber rides since becoming an Uber driver. One of them was something of a repeat of why I started this thing in the first place (a story I'll detail later), while the other wasn't bad, but I still like to think I'm doing better.
Normally Liz and I don't Uber much. Boston is a very walkable city, and that's part of what we love about it - we walk everywhere. Liz doesn't even like taking the MBTA - she calls the buses and trains "flu rockets". I take the T somewhat frequently, because walking the 2.5 miles to and from work is only pleasant in certain specific weather conditions, and takes 15-20 minutes longer than the T.
So mostly we Uber when we have a particular reason - to the airport, for example, or today, because we had more stuff than we wanted to lug onto the T while heading to a friends' house for a Bunker Hill Day Parade party (hi Eric!).
Getting There
We got our stuff together, and fired up the app - wow, the South End was swarming with Ubers, no wonder it's been taking me a while to get fares around here. Good for a rider though. Request in, a short time later we've got our driver heading over.
We get in, and the first warning sign to me is lack of a phone mount. The "toss phone in console and look down and up, pick it up, fiddle, etc" is the kiss of death for a good rating for an Uber driver in my experience. He confirms our destination, and I immediately am suspicious that he thinks the Washington St we're heading for is the one that's a block away in the South End, not in Charlestown. But he's using Google Maps so I figure he'll get us there.
Then I look at his rating, a 3.90, and I'm not so sure.
Well... he did get us there, but through the entire trip he was basically asking me to confirm/assist his GPS navigation. "This way? Turn here? Straight or right?" over and over. It's one thing to ask if the rider has a preferred route, which Uber recommends (personally I don't think it's all that useful - if someone really has a preferred route they're generally going to be reasonably vocal about it; I only ask if I'm looking at traffic and considering a non-standard route due to blockages and want to see if they have a preference), it was another thing entirely to do the level we got from this guy.
Towards the end of the ride, the driver said (I think) that he was on his third day driving for Uber (did I mention his English was somewhat heavily accented?). I'd like to think I was much more prepared and on-the-ball during my third day (and my rating so far certainly implies so, at least compared to his). Wow. (PS: I'm actually through day 4, but you'll have to wait for the blog posts, I can't type and drive!)
I ended up giving a 3 star rating, and tried to constructively suggest getting a phone mount and not asking riders about every turn in the comments section. Before I drove I don't think I ever used the comments section for bad ratings, just the little mandatory reason selector (which I really wish let you choose multiple reasons), but I felt somehow obligated to help out a fellow driver here. Of course he might not be a fellow driver for long if that remains typical behavior.
Interestingly, I got a ticket generated from Uber support, presumably because of the comments I included. I'd just assumed they went straight to the driver, but I guess they get triaged (maybe for potential anonymity busters? They do say they may be shared anonymously with the driver) first. A support rep replied quickly saying how sorry they were about my bad ride and they'd address the concerns with the driver. It'll be interesting to see how that looks the first time I'm on the receiving end of that (I assume it's inevitable sometime).
Getting Back
We might have taken the T home (Charlestown to the South End isn't a bad straight Orange Line shot, after all) but we were heading to Fenway Park for the Boston Bacon and Beer Festival, so we decided to Uber over there as well. This time we got a 5.0 star driver, which I immediately pegged as either a newbie or very good - I'm not sure yet how the rating algorithm works, if it drops outliers, etc. I just know that my rating stayed at a solid 5.0 for some number of rides, then it seemed to pass a "we're not faking it any more" point and dropped, presumably from one or more 4 star ratings, then started going up again.
Right now I'm at a 4.90, with 17 5 star ratings and 19 rated trips, which works out to 2 4 stars (well, my math calls that 4.89, but I'll take the extra point). I have nothing in my "issues reported" section so it appears I haven't had anything below a 4 yet. I'm too lazy to do the math to try to figure out what it would take to get back to a 5.0, and again I'm not clear on their rounding, but anyway, it is what it is.
Anyway, our driver was coming in a Mercedes Benz C Class - swanky, right? Well, it turned up and it wasn't so swanky, but it wasn't terrible either. Our driver in this case was also decent. She was nice enough, had no accent problems, and had a cell phone mount. Actually, she had two, plus a GPS - that's what I call redundancy! The Mercedes wasn't really super swanky, the head liner was collapsing a bit in the back, but it was serviceable and overall decent.
She got us over to Fenway with minimal fuss, a little small talk, and generally no problem. When we got in the Fenway area she asked if we wanted to get out at any particular location, and took directions to the gate we wanted easily and efficiently. An easy 5 star trip. Maybe she really has a legit 5.0 rating!
Share your experiences
Have you had an "interesting" Uber experience, in Boston or elsewhere? Feel free to share in the comments section!
Normally Liz and I don't Uber much. Boston is a very walkable city, and that's part of what we love about it - we walk everywhere. Liz doesn't even like taking the MBTA - she calls the buses and trains "flu rockets". I take the T somewhat frequently, because walking the 2.5 miles to and from work is only pleasant in certain specific weather conditions, and takes 15-20 minutes longer than the T.
So mostly we Uber when we have a particular reason - to the airport, for example, or today, because we had more stuff than we wanted to lug onto the T while heading to a friends' house for a Bunker Hill Day Parade party (hi Eric!).
Getting There
We got our stuff together, and fired up the app - wow, the South End was swarming with Ubers, no wonder it's been taking me a while to get fares around here. Good for a rider though. Request in, a short time later we've got our driver heading over.
We get in, and the first warning sign to me is lack of a phone mount. The "toss phone in console and look down and up, pick it up, fiddle, etc" is the kiss of death for a good rating for an Uber driver in my experience. He confirms our destination, and I immediately am suspicious that he thinks the Washington St we're heading for is the one that's a block away in the South End, not in Charlestown. But he's using Google Maps so I figure he'll get us there.
Then I look at his rating, a 3.90, and I'm not so sure.
Well... he did get us there, but through the entire trip he was basically asking me to confirm/assist his GPS navigation. "This way? Turn here? Straight or right?" over and over. It's one thing to ask if the rider has a preferred route, which Uber recommends (personally I don't think it's all that useful - if someone really has a preferred route they're generally going to be reasonably vocal about it; I only ask if I'm looking at traffic and considering a non-standard route due to blockages and want to see if they have a preference), it was another thing entirely to do the level we got from this guy.
Towards the end of the ride, the driver said (I think) that he was on his third day driving for Uber (did I mention his English was somewhat heavily accented?). I'd like to think I was much more prepared and on-the-ball during my third day (and my rating so far certainly implies so, at least compared to his). Wow. (PS: I'm actually through day 4, but you'll have to wait for the blog posts, I can't type and drive!)
I ended up giving a 3 star rating, and tried to constructively suggest getting a phone mount and not asking riders about every turn in the comments section. Before I drove I don't think I ever used the comments section for bad ratings, just the little mandatory reason selector (which I really wish let you choose multiple reasons), but I felt somehow obligated to help out a fellow driver here. Of course he might not be a fellow driver for long if that remains typical behavior.
Interestingly, I got a ticket generated from Uber support, presumably because of the comments I included. I'd just assumed they went straight to the driver, but I guess they get triaged (maybe for potential anonymity busters? They do say they may be shared anonymously with the driver) first. A support rep replied quickly saying how sorry they were about my bad ride and they'd address the concerns with the driver. It'll be interesting to see how that looks the first time I'm on the receiving end of that (I assume it's inevitable sometime).
Getting Back
We might have taken the T home (Charlestown to the South End isn't a bad straight Orange Line shot, after all) but we were heading to Fenway Park for the Boston Bacon and Beer Festival, so we decided to Uber over there as well. This time we got a 5.0 star driver, which I immediately pegged as either a newbie or very good - I'm not sure yet how the rating algorithm works, if it drops outliers, etc. I just know that my rating stayed at a solid 5.0 for some number of rides, then it seemed to pass a "we're not faking it any more" point and dropped, presumably from one or more 4 star ratings, then started going up again.
Right now I'm at a 4.90, with 17 5 star ratings and 19 rated trips, which works out to 2 4 stars (well, my math calls that 4.89, but I'll take the extra point). I have nothing in my "issues reported" section so it appears I haven't had anything below a 4 yet. I'm too lazy to do the math to try to figure out what it would take to get back to a 5.0, and again I'm not clear on their rounding, but anyway, it is what it is.
Anyway, our driver was coming in a Mercedes Benz C Class - swanky, right? Well, it turned up and it wasn't so swanky, but it wasn't terrible either. Our driver in this case was also decent. She was nice enough, had no accent problems, and had a cell phone mount. Actually, she had two, plus a GPS - that's what I call redundancy! The Mercedes wasn't really super swanky, the head liner was collapsing a bit in the back, but it was serviceable and overall decent.
She got us over to Fenway with minimal fuss, a little small talk, and generally no problem. When we got in the Fenway area she asked if we wanted to get out at any particular location, and took directions to the gate we wanted easily and efficiently. An easy 5 star trip. Maybe she really has a legit 5.0 rating!
Share your experiences
Have you had an "interesting" Uber experience, in Boston or elsewhere? Feel free to share in the comments section!
Friday, June 10, 2016
Day 2 (Surge: High; Rain)
Tuesday, Day 2. I'm ready for what I imagine will be my "standard" weekday evening hours, roughly 8-10pm. And it's about to rain, and you know what that means - surge pricing!
For those who don't know, Uber has a concept of surge pricing - this is an increase in pricing when demand for rides vs. drivers on the road exceeds certain amounts. The idea is that this pricing multiplier will serve as an incentive for more drivers to get online and service the demand. Surge pricing generally happens for one of a few reasons:
For those who don't know, Uber has a concept of surge pricing - this is an increase in pricing when demand for rides vs. drivers on the road exceeds certain amounts. The idea is that this pricing multiplier will serve as an incentive for more drivers to get online and service the demand. Surge pricing generally happens for one of a few reasons:
- Bad weather
- Peak times (rush hours)
- Sporting events
- Conferences / other types of special events
In this case the surge was related to rain - it had been beautiful earlier in the day, but around 8pm the skies started opening up. Jackpot for me!
I jump online, and I can see that the surge is better towards downtown, so I start driving in that direction. Pretty quickly I have a request from Dalton St - I accept, and recognize that it looks like the Back Bay Sheraton, no problem. My first hotel pick-up!
I find my rider easily, confirm her name, confirm the destination in the Financial District, and we're off. I'm a little surprised by the direction Waze takes me in, but then I figure out that we're heading for Storrow Drive and it makes sense - better than taking surface streets, if it's not busy, and that's the beauty of Waze, it knows pretty darned well if it's busy or not.
Another first on this ride, my rider is interested in chatting. She says hello, asks how things are going, and we start having a conversation. Somehow we start talking about Uber, and I admit that this is my second day on the job. We talk about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, and the rider tells me that she likes to talk to Uber drivers about their backgrounds, what they do, etc. It's a nice conversation.
We also end up talking one of my other passions - baseball. My partner and I are huge Red Sox fans, and have full-season tickets at Fenway (which we split with a few partners, because let's be honest, 81 games is a heck of a lot of baseball to go to, especially when you have a job, and now a hobby too!). It turns out my rider actually lives in Chicago and works in Boston - she commutes each week - ouch! But her family has Cubs season tickets that they share, so at least she's got Wrigley Field to go to when she's at home.
We arrive at the destination, and I wish her well - a great trip.
Trip count: 1. Trip earnings: $9.42
Back online, I start heading back towards the center of downtown Boston, and very shortly I've got another fare, this one from The Langham hotel, right nearby in the Financial District. Two hotels in one night!
I pick the rider up, confirm the destination in Cambridge, and it's off to the Mass Pike. This one is a quiet ride, rider is interested in whatever he's up to back there, so it's just me and Waze up front. The rain kicks up quite a bit and there's some near-flooding on the Mass Pike, whee. We make it safely to the destination though, and this one's a big one:
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $27.77 (!)
Back online, I aim towards Kendall / Boston again, since that's where the darkest surge is. It takes a few minutes, but I get a pick-up request in Harvard Square as I'm heading into that area, so back we go.
I pick a nice gentleman up, and we're heading (just barely) across the river, to the Harvard Business School. This rider is another talker, so we get to chatting a bit. He's from Budapest, and tells me about how small of a world it is that he's here taking a course, and found out that some people he knows from back in Budapest are also here in the Boston area at the same time, for totally unrelated reasons. It's a short trip and a nice conversation.
Trip count: 3. Trip earnings: $6.00
It's just after 9pm so I figure I've got a couple more trips possibly. Request comes in pretty quickly for a Harvard residence house. Well, I didn't know that's what it was then, but now I do. :)
I pull up, and thankfully there's a spot I can pull into, because the building is set back a bit so I'm going to have to wait. I don't actually have to wait long, and four students pile into my car. Destination: Target in Somerville. Confirmed and we're off.
This group is my most boisterous so far, talking to each other and to me. They start off figuring out how they're going to pay each other for the ride, debating between Uber's built in ride split vs Venmo, SnapCash, and some other things I'm not sure I've ever heard of before (in the end they all got Uber ride splitting to work - which I'm sure Uber loved because it makes them more money in fees, but alas, doesn't make me any more money).
As we're talking about fare splits, the conversation takes a markedly less-great-to-my-ears turn as one of the riders talks about the (multiple!) times she has had to pay Uber cleaning fees for puking both in and on cars. Apparently she only drinks on her birthday, "so [she doesn't] know [she doesn't] know how to hold [her] liquor" (and apparently also has amnesia just on that day, since she remembers it just fine today). I knew about the $200 interior cleaning fee but I learned there's also a $50 exterior cleaning fee if someone barfs on your car - thanks riders!
Fortunately they didn't appear to be drunk at the moment. They did, however, then segue into asking me if I know where there were "liquor stores on campus" and bars with good happy hours. I was sadly unable to help with either, not being well oriented to the Harvard scene, though I did offer the semi-random suggestions of Causeway Street near the TD Garden and the Fenway Park area for bars in Boston. I have no idea if those bars are actually good happy hour bars - kids these days.
Dear readers, do you have any better bar or Harvard liquor store suggestions for me to offer in the future? I must be a font of valuable wisdom... or something.
We made it to Target without any vomiting, thankfully, and I decided to go off the clock for the night, since I wasn't sure if my next ride would take me towards or away from home and I didn't want to stay out late. I'm old, you know!
Trip count: 4. Trip earnings: $11.61
Day 2 trip count: 4
Day 2 earnings: $58.30
Total trip count: 6
Total earnings: $67.50
Still not getting rich, but not bored yet either... :)
We arrive at the destination, and I wish her well - a great trip.
Trip count: 1. Trip earnings: $9.42
Back online, I start heading back towards the center of downtown Boston, and very shortly I've got another fare, this one from The Langham hotel, right nearby in the Financial District. Two hotels in one night!
I pick the rider up, confirm the destination in Cambridge, and it's off to the Mass Pike. This one is a quiet ride, rider is interested in whatever he's up to back there, so it's just me and Waze up front. The rain kicks up quite a bit and there's some near-flooding on the Mass Pike, whee. We make it safely to the destination though, and this one's a big one:
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $27.77 (!)
Back online, I aim towards Kendall / Boston again, since that's where the darkest surge is. It takes a few minutes, but I get a pick-up request in Harvard Square as I'm heading into that area, so back we go.
I pick a nice gentleman up, and we're heading (just barely) across the river, to the Harvard Business School. This rider is another talker, so we get to chatting a bit. He's from Budapest, and tells me about how small of a world it is that he's here taking a course, and found out that some people he knows from back in Budapest are also here in the Boston area at the same time, for totally unrelated reasons. It's a short trip and a nice conversation.
Trip count: 3. Trip earnings: $6.00
It's just after 9pm so I figure I've got a couple more trips possibly. Request comes in pretty quickly for a Harvard residence house. Well, I didn't know that's what it was then, but now I do. :)
I pull up, and thankfully there's a spot I can pull into, because the building is set back a bit so I'm going to have to wait. I don't actually have to wait long, and four students pile into my car. Destination: Target in Somerville. Confirmed and we're off.
This group is my most boisterous so far, talking to each other and to me. They start off figuring out how they're going to pay each other for the ride, debating between Uber's built in ride split vs Venmo, SnapCash, and some other things I'm not sure I've ever heard of before (in the end they all got Uber ride splitting to work - which I'm sure Uber loved because it makes them more money in fees, but alas, doesn't make me any more money).
As we're talking about fare splits, the conversation takes a markedly less-great-to-my-ears turn as one of the riders talks about the (multiple!) times she has had to pay Uber cleaning fees for puking both in and on cars. Apparently she only drinks on her birthday, "so [she doesn't] know [she doesn't] know how to hold [her] liquor" (and apparently also has amnesia just on that day, since she remembers it just fine today). I knew about the $200 interior cleaning fee but I learned there's also a $50 exterior cleaning fee if someone barfs on your car - thanks riders!
Fortunately they didn't appear to be drunk at the moment. They did, however, then segue into asking me if I know where there were "liquor stores on campus" and bars with good happy hours. I was sadly unable to help with either, not being well oriented to the Harvard scene, though I did offer the semi-random suggestions of Causeway Street near the TD Garden and the Fenway Park area for bars in Boston. I have no idea if those bars are actually good happy hour bars - kids these days.
Dear readers, do you have any better bar or Harvard liquor store suggestions for me to offer in the future? I must be a font of valuable wisdom... or something.
We made it to Target without any vomiting, thankfully, and I decided to go off the clock for the night, since I wasn't sure if my next ride would take me towards or away from home and I didn't want to stay out late. I'm old, you know!
Trip count: 4. Trip earnings: $11.61
Day 2 trip count: 4
Day 2 earnings: $58.30
Total trip count: 6
Total earnings: $67.50
Still not getting rich, but not bored yet either... :)
Day 1, Part 2 (Surge: None)
When we left off, our intrepid SRE cum Uber driver had his first trip request... and his first cancellation. Doh! It can only go up from here, right?
Well, actually, I managed to have another mix-up/cancellation before getting an actual rider! I got a request as I was driving towards downtown from the South End, and accepted. But then I paniced a little because I realized it was an UberXL request, and I wasn't sure how that would go.
A quick aside on UberX vs UberXL - UberX is any random car, while UberXL requires that you have 6 seatbelts in addition to the driver - so an SUV or van of some type. It so happens I drive a Ford Explorer, which qualifies for UberXL, because it has a third row of seats. Problem is, I drive with the third row folded down so it has a non-zero amount of trunk space. That's going to be a PITA if I drive up to a rider who has 6 people and wants to go - it's not too hard to switch out, but it's not instantaneous either. So I quickly canceled and presumably they got another driver.
Trip count: still ZERO.
Quickly though, another request comes in, just for an UberX, and it's a location I know, Jacob Wirth in the theatre district. Woohoo! Off I go!
I quickly identify my riders after pulling up, and open the door (I'm such a gentleman! Also, the Uber video told me riders like that) - woot, we're ready to go! They've entered their destination in the app (on the "other side of the world" in Cambridge), so I confirm it with them, and back to Waze to navigate. They immediately start speaking rapid-fire Spanish or Portuguese (sorry, I don't know either well enough to tell the difference) to one another, and I guess I'm purely the silent driver for this one - no problem.
As we're getting close, they asked me to take a specific turn (which I was taking anyway) for a quick stop - no problem. We stop by an apartment building and let one of the two women out, then continue the short remaining distance to the destination. I am confused when the rider suggests I drop her off "by all the other Ubers", but sure enough, there's a big cluster of what must be Ubers waiting for their next fare outside of our destination. I drop her off, and the first trip is done!
Trip count: 1! Trip earnings: $5.29
At this point I'm halfway through my planned hour of driving for my first night, so I stay online hoping to get in one or two more rides. I just randomly start meandering through Cambridge towards Kendall Square, figuring maybe I'll get someone working late heading home, or someone from MIT.
Sure enough, the app starts blinking at me, and I've got a pick-up on Memorial Drive. Waze gets me there and I pick up a college student or young professional. He's also entered a destination in the app and... it's just 2 minutes down Memorial Drive? I confirm it with the rider, and sure enough, that's his destination, so off we go. I don't really need nav for this one, and 2 minutes later, I pull over and drop off rider #2. More success!
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $4.00
That $4.00 represents the minimum possible fare for UberX in Boston, by the way. It cost the rider $6.15 (including Uber's fee to me plus their booking fee) unless he had a monthly pass, which they've been testing out here in Boston.
I decided to call it a night, even though I'd only done two trips; I didn't want to stay out late, and I knew I'd be online again soon.
Day 1 trip count: 2
Day 1 earnings: $9.29
Hmm, I'm definitely not going to get rich on this. Don't worry, Day 2 gets much better!
Well, actually, I managed to have another mix-up/cancellation before getting an actual rider! I got a request as I was driving towards downtown from the South End, and accepted. But then I paniced a little because I realized it was an UberXL request, and I wasn't sure how that would go.
A quick aside on UberX vs UberXL - UberX is any random car, while UberXL requires that you have 6 seatbelts in addition to the driver - so an SUV or van of some type. It so happens I drive a Ford Explorer, which qualifies for UberXL, because it has a third row of seats. Problem is, I drive with the third row folded down so it has a non-zero amount of trunk space. That's going to be a PITA if I drive up to a rider who has 6 people and wants to go - it's not too hard to switch out, but it's not instantaneous either. So I quickly canceled and presumably they got another driver.
Trip count: still ZERO.
Quickly though, another request comes in, just for an UberX, and it's a location I know, Jacob Wirth in the theatre district. Woohoo! Off I go!
I quickly identify my riders after pulling up, and open the door (I'm such a gentleman! Also, the Uber video told me riders like that) - woot, we're ready to go! They've entered their destination in the app (on the "other side of the world" in Cambridge), so I confirm it with them, and back to Waze to navigate. They immediately start speaking rapid-fire Spanish or Portuguese (sorry, I don't know either well enough to tell the difference) to one another, and I guess I'm purely the silent driver for this one - no problem.
As we're getting close, they asked me to take a specific turn (which I was taking anyway) for a quick stop - no problem. We stop by an apartment building and let one of the two women out, then continue the short remaining distance to the destination. I am confused when the rider suggests I drop her off "by all the other Ubers", but sure enough, there's a big cluster of what must be Ubers waiting for their next fare outside of our destination. I drop her off, and the first trip is done!
Trip count: 1! Trip earnings: $5.29
At this point I'm halfway through my planned hour of driving for my first night, so I stay online hoping to get in one or two more rides. I just randomly start meandering through Cambridge towards Kendall Square, figuring maybe I'll get someone working late heading home, or someone from MIT.
Sure enough, the app starts blinking at me, and I've got a pick-up on Memorial Drive. Waze gets me there and I pick up a college student or young professional. He's also entered a destination in the app and... it's just 2 minutes down Memorial Drive? I confirm it with the rider, and sure enough, that's his destination, so off we go. I don't really need nav for this one, and 2 minutes later, I pull over and drop off rider #2. More success!
Trip count: 2. Trip earnings: $4.00
That $4.00 represents the minimum possible fare for UberX in Boston, by the way. It cost the rider $6.15 (including Uber's fee to me plus their booking fee) unless he had a monthly pass, which they've been testing out here in Boston.
I decided to call it a night, even though I'd only done two trips; I didn't want to stay out late, and I knew I'd be online again soon.
Day 1 trip count: 2
Day 1 earnings: $9.29
Hmm, I'm definitely not going to get rich on this. Don't worry, Day 2 gets much better!
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Day 1, Part 1 (Surge: None)
Monday. It's time to drive. Yes!
Oh crap, I have to go to my real job first. Doh. I only ended up with an hour to drive because I had to finish getting the car ready by dropping stuff off at storage (we tend to use it as a local storage unit - the joys of having an Explorer with lots of cargo space).
Around 9pm I'm finally ready to hit the big blue "Go Online" button in the Partner app. Push... wait. Oh, I have to agree to the partner agreement. I was wondering when I'd actually get that. Click click. Woot I'm online!
I'm not sure what other drivers do, but so far when I'm online but not en-route I just drive lazily around. I started out in my neighborhood, and very soon I get a request - woot! Tap the screen to accept, hit the "Navigate" button to open the pick-up location in Waze - hey cool, I know where this is, it's super close. I drive over, look around, don't see the fare.
One of the things that jumped out at me in Uber's driver partner intro video is that they emphasized a lot that riders prefer texts over phone calls. I found this interesting, because as a rider, that's definitely true, but I've only once ever had an Uber driver text me, and I've been called many times. That said, I quickly discovered that it's a heck of a lot easier to deal with calling than texting, unless you're going to use Siri or the like to dictate a text for you.
So I waited a couple of minutes, as suggested before contacting a rider, and as I'm preparing to text the rider, my phone rings with a number I don't recognize - great, that's probably them! I answer, fiddle with the fact that my phone is paired to my car's bluetooth but isn't routing the call there because I answered on the handset (doh), and eventually get in touch with my rider.
Who says they didn't actually request an Uber, but they "want my service" anyway. Okay, fine, I tell them I'm just outside the Walgreens, and they say "oh no, I'm not there, I'm down the road at Stella". Oh-kay... but it gets better... "and I want to check, I have a dog, will that be okay?"
I have dogs. I love dogs. But I just removed the dog protector from my seats minutes ago so I could try out this Uber thing, and I'm not sure I really want to take that. I ask what size of dog we're talking about, and the answer tells me what I need to know - it's a 48 lb 1 year old puppy. I say sorry, no thanks, the caller asks that I cancel and don't charge them, which I happily do.
Trip count: still 0! Time to wait for the next fare...
Edited to add: A couple of folks have raised the very valid question "what would you have done if the caller had said it was a service animal?" The answer is, of course, said yes without hesitation. I still might have been a bit annoyed about the wrong location, but service dogs are a 100% yes requirement, both from a legal perspective and just doing the right thing. Many of you don't know me from Adam, so you'll just have to take my word on that, but hey, there you go.
Oh crap, I have to go to my real job first. Doh. I only ended up with an hour to drive because I had to finish getting the car ready by dropping stuff off at storage (we tend to use it as a local storage unit - the joys of having an Explorer with lots of cargo space).
Around 9pm I'm finally ready to hit the big blue "Go Online" button in the Partner app. Push... wait. Oh, I have to agree to the partner agreement. I was wondering when I'd actually get that. Click click. Woot I'm online!
I'm not sure what other drivers do, but so far when I'm online but not en-route I just drive lazily around. I started out in my neighborhood, and very soon I get a request - woot! Tap the screen to accept, hit the "Navigate" button to open the pick-up location in Waze - hey cool, I know where this is, it's super close. I drive over, look around, don't see the fare.
One of the things that jumped out at me in Uber's driver partner intro video is that they emphasized a lot that riders prefer texts over phone calls. I found this interesting, because as a rider, that's definitely true, but I've only once ever had an Uber driver text me, and I've been called many times. That said, I quickly discovered that it's a heck of a lot easier to deal with calling than texting, unless you're going to use Siri or the like to dictate a text for you.
So I waited a couple of minutes, as suggested before contacting a rider, and as I'm preparing to text the rider, my phone rings with a number I don't recognize - great, that's probably them! I answer, fiddle with the fact that my phone is paired to my car's bluetooth but isn't routing the call there because I answered on the handset (doh), and eventually get in touch with my rider.
Who says they didn't actually request an Uber, but they "want my service" anyway. Okay, fine, I tell them I'm just outside the Walgreens, and they say "oh no, I'm not there, I'm down the road at Stella". Oh-kay... but it gets better... "and I want to check, I have a dog, will that be okay?"
I have dogs. I love dogs. But I just removed the dog protector from my seats minutes ago so I could try out this Uber thing, and I'm not sure I really want to take that. I ask what size of dog we're talking about, and the answer tells me what I need to know - it's a 48 lb 1 year old puppy. I say sorry, no thanks, the caller asks that I cancel and don't charge them, which I happily do.
Trip count: still 0! Time to wait for the next fare...
Edited to add: A couple of folks have raised the very valid question "what would you have done if the caller had said it was a service animal?" The answer is, of course, said yes without hesitation. I still might have been a bit annoyed about the wrong location, but service dogs are a 100% yes requirement, both from a legal perspective and just doing the right thing. Many of you don't know me from Adam, so you'll just have to take my word on that, but hey, there you go.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Getting online (Surge: None)
The process of signing up as a driver for Uber was actually quite simple and easy - winning! I started off on Uber's driver partner site (aka "I want to drive"), logged in to my existing Uber rider account, and started off to the races.
The information required was reasonable:
The information required was reasonable:
- SSN and consent for a background check to be performed. A check box was available to request the results of the background check (sure, I love data!)
- Snap a photo / upload an image of driver's license
- Snap/upload vehicle insurance
- Snap/upload vehicle registration
That's it! They already had my phone and e-mail from my consumer account, and pulled the address from my driver's license by default. I didn't have insurance and registration handy when I started the process, but that was fine as well.
At some point in there I got a link to download the Uber Partner app. It's not on the app stores so you download from them and have to trust their developer certificate. It handled some (maybe all?) of the sign up flow - my memory is terrible so I've forgotten already 😀
I consented to both texts and e-mails somewhere in there, and boy did they start flowing. I got notifications as information was updated from my license, and as my background check got started. Then I was lazy for a few days and didn't upload other docs right away - clearly there's a drop-off rate, because I got repeated (but not too excessive; I did opt in after all) reminders to upload my docs, as well as suggestions/invitations to stop by the in-person Partner Support center in downtown Boston to complete the process.
I eventually got around to pulling up the last docs on my computer after receiving the notification that my background check had cleared. I uploaded them on a Saturday mid-day, and on Sunday evening I got the "ready to drive" e-mail, woohoo!
To be continued when I found time to actually drive...
Hello World! (Surge: None)
Greetings! My name is Tim, and I am a geek. Specifically a computer geek, and a systems engineer. I'm currently working as a Site Reliability Engineer (first typoed as "Engibeer"; I really considered leaving that in there :)) at Google - so I'm doing pretty okay. (To be clear up front, this is a 100% personal blog, I don't speak for Google or Uber, all opinions are my own.)
A couple of weeks ago, after taking several very different UberX rides on a trip to Baltimore, I decided to try my hand at this whole Uber driver thing myself. Not to make any serious money, but because I enjoy driving and have a car I don't use much and hey why not?
Then, after coming home from day 2 of driving and regaling my partner Liz with my rides of the night, I thought to myself hey, why not blog this? I'm sure someone else has done it before, but I haven't meaningfully blogged in years and it felt like this experiment needed an outlet. So here you have it - Tales of an Uber Geek!
The plan is, I'm going to drive people around, on evenings and weekends and whenever I feel like it, then you, faithful Internets, will get a recap of how it all went. Exciting, right? Obviously I won't provide names or detailed locations because user privacy is important to me (and Uber, and my contract with Uber), but if anything interesting happens, you'll hear about it! I may or may not post detailed revenue details too, we'll see (but to be clear, I'm not actually doing this to make money...)
Coming next: the signup process, and how surprisingly painless it is!
A couple of weeks ago, after taking several very different UberX rides on a trip to Baltimore, I decided to try my hand at this whole Uber driver thing myself. Not to make any serious money, but because I enjoy driving and have a car I don't use much and hey why not?
Then, after coming home from day 2 of driving and regaling my partner Liz with my rides of the night, I thought to myself hey, why not blog this? I'm sure someone else has done it before, but I haven't meaningfully blogged in years and it felt like this experiment needed an outlet. So here you have it - Tales of an Uber Geek!
The plan is, I'm going to drive people around, on evenings and weekends and whenever I feel like it, then you, faithful Internets, will get a recap of how it all went. Exciting, right? Obviously I won't provide names or detailed locations because user privacy is important to me (and Uber, and my contract with Uber), but if anything interesting happens, you'll hear about it! I may or may not post detailed revenue details too, we'll see (but to be clear, I'm not actually doing this to make money...)
Coming next: the signup process, and how surprisingly painless it is!
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