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!