Template Conversation

There is a template for conversations in ride sharing. Everyone seems to know. The most common questions I get are:

1. Oh my god, how can you drive a stick in San Francisco?
2. How long have you been a driver?
3. Do you like driving?

There are times when these starter prompts lead to interesting things. There are other times when these are the only questions people can come up with and the rest is silence.

The more interesting question for me is, why do people in ride share situations feel the need to chat? Do you chat with the taxi driver normally? Truly the situation is kind of awkward. A rider taps the phone and a completely random person arrives in their car to take them for a ride. 

#awkwardnessofthefirstworld

The question of tips

Tipping is among the most American of social expectations. The fact that it is necessary is a commentary on capitalism itself. I am not going to debate the constructs of society that have allowed for a subset of jobs which pay for services is not included in the base price. Further I will not comment on the idea that owners escape the need to pay a living wage by creating jobs which depend on the tips for economic viability.

Instead, I want to simply dispel a long held rumor. The price you pay in ride sharing apps does not include a tip. The price, is the fare for the ride and the fare alone. NYE is here and undoubtedly, many of you will find yourself in a ride share of one sort or another so, I put this out there. It is a simple question and paradigm which, in my opinion, should influence and dictate your actions. When you take a ride ask yourself, "If I were in a taxi would I have given this driver a tip?" If the answer is yes, then please give your driver a dollar or two. The gesture will be well received and, at least the way I look at it, follow the convention of how we have set up our society.

Cheers and have a happy and safe new year. May the best of your past, be the worst of your future.

PS Please leave me comments, I want to hear them! Also, I have added a gadget to let those interested follow the blog. Thanks for reading!

Make room for my Charlie

In the rain, I picked up a nice middle aged couple in Russian Hill. They were nice, and I would say, very San Francisco. Upon entering they told me they needed to make a quick stop to pick up Charlie. I assumed this to be their child.

They gave me the address and we arrived at a place called Foggy Doggy. The man hopped out and soon came back with Charlie in tow. I was quite surprised to see that Charlie was a 75 lbs. black lab. They got back in with the dog on the seats and said, "You're ok with dogs right? He's so nice." I was in driving mode and just went with it. They gave no tips and gave a cordial goodbye when I dropped them, with Charlie, at their posh Broadway apartment complex.

This was not OK with me. You bring your dog in my car, without warning and without asking, on a rainy day? Sure, the dog was being picked-up from a place where he was probably treated better, and with more care than most people in this world. But c'mon people! I realize in this position I am 'the help'. But you'd think people would have more sense or perhaps curtesy. At least if you are going to do this you could tip. Yes, Uber and Lyft drivers deserve tips just like you would in a taxi.

What's your score...in snapchat?

I got a pickup out in Noe Valley. As I got closer to the spot I realized I was being sent to an elementary school out there. My riders were not teachers; they were two little girls. If I had to guess, I'd put their ages at about 12. The fact that these girls had smart phones at their age, is another post all together.

I felt strange, like I was doing something shady driving these young ones without any parental guidance. (it turns out this is actually against policy to pick up people under the age of 18). I usually start conversations with my riders but in this case I felt very much out of my depth. So, in lew of taking part of the conversation, I became the fly on the wall

These girls were talkers. As someone in their 30's with no children of my own, the presence of non-adults is a novelty to me. These two were clearly friends. The dynamic between them was somewhat combative though. The conversation was a big pissing contest between two tweens. They were talking about nothing but Snapchat. This persons' Snapchat, that persons' Snapchat. This snap, that snap.

The success of Snapchat and its popularity have always been a mystery to me. I really just don't get it. I mean, how can a dick pick app be so popular? And now, why is a dick pick app the center of these little girls lives? Isn't that just wrong?

Listening to these two talk was incredibly interesting to me. The dynamic of competition between them. It was very female, tween, biting, oneupmanship. They were in competition with each other but doing so with politeness. The things that came up, which was truly interesting to me, was the Snapchat score.

I was never aware there was such a things as a Snapchat score, but for these girls the score was so very important.

The conversation went something like this:

Girl 1: "OMG, did you see John's new snap? It was so crazy?"

Girl 2: "We aren't friends anymore. I think he started a new Snapchat because his parents made him take down the old one."

Girl 1: "Yeah maybe, his score is really low now. My score is 3000. What's yours?"

Girl 2: "Oh, that's good, my score is 5000."

Girl 1: "Yeah, I had to close my old account but my old score was like 7000. But I've only had this one for like 2 weeks so, I'm sure I will be back at 5000 soon.

They went on like this the whole ride, comparing snaps, snap scores, critiquing classmates and boys' snaps and scores. After about 10 mintes of listening to this I finally had to ask, "How to you get points for your snapchat score?"

"Well, like, you just snap," Girl 1 said. She answered with the tone that mrans I am an old out of touch idiot not worth trying to explain this all important status marker to any further. She then went back to her friend.

Thanks, that clears everything up for me.

Two 4.7's equal 1 awkward ride

As I have stated here before, pools are a lottery. Sometimes you hit the jackpot, more often you get nothing.

Something a lot of people don't know about ride sharing is that ratings go both ways. When riders complete a ride they rate the driver, this is obvious to most. But what is not known to all is drivers rate passengers too. Most people have ratings somewhere in the 4.8-4.9 range. I think this is because drivers are more sensitive to ratings and give 5 stars by default, at least that is my normal move.

So when you get a rider with a score of 4.7, that is pretty bad. Like really bad. Like, what the fuck did you do to make drivers hate you bad.

I started looking at rider ratings a bit more, mostly as a curiosity. Then I formed a working theory that perhaps putting 2 low scoring riders together in a pool leads to the more awkward or rides. Having tested this for a couple weeks I am here to tell you, two 4.7's= awkward. Also, an opportunity to kinda mess with these people. To delve deeper and try to get them talking.  Challenge accepted.

Waze for the advanced driver only, novices beware.

Part of being a driver is navigation. It may seem this is perhaps the only part one must really master. As a curious observer, and a competitive mind, I have queried those I come in contact with regarding this and other traits among my driving peers. It seems that there are quite a few operators on the road who have major trouble in this aspect of the job. I have come across many myself. In fact, the reason I have always tended towards Uber as a rider is because of some non-professional rides I found myself on. For me the transaction is simple. I, the rider, tell you where I want to go and you take me there. You, the driver have one task. As with taxi's, in my mind as a patron, I always felt giving cross streets should suffice as a start for you, the driver, to get me where I want to go. It seems that this is not always the case.

The issue arrises from the fact that ride sharing, as a business opportunity, represents incredible monetary upside to near anyone with a beating heart and a car. I have come across many a driver in San Francisco commutes from locales as far as 100 miles away to frequent our fair city with their eyes on the $$$. Alas, many of these willing transporters know little to nothing of the local geography. It would seem this deficiency would be remedied through the use of technology and simple direction, but I am here to tell you that is not the entire story.

I use Waze. This, I have found is the best navigation application. I say this because it tends to give directions as if the app was a local person with 40 years SF residency under its belt. That said, this app will give you some crazy routes with the hopes of saving you precious minutes in transit. I have lived in this city for nearly a decade and know my way around fairly well. That said, there are times when this piece of technology will give you routes which, in my opinion are for the advanced driver only. When done with finesse and a little bit of finagling, these routes will save you those minutes. But novices beware, taking some of these more advanced journeys with only a few mistakes in timing will cost you, and your passengers far more time than they would have saved.

To the folks at Waze: perhaps you should add a difficulty level to the suggested route so these out-of-towners don't lose stars with their customers...

Jump in, the water is nice

There is this new thing, I don't think they have it everywhere. Lyft calls them 'lines' and Uber calls them 'pools', but they are the same thing. Basically the way it works is that there are several people who request rides at the same time. When they do so there is the option to get a lower cost if you will go with other people in the car at the same time. What this amounts to is a carpool where you have 1-4 folks who are in the car at the same time and thereby split the total cost of a ride. For my taste as a rider, it is a hokey deal and not worth the savings on a short trip; I don't want to be in the car any longer than I have to. But there are many folks who use this exclusively in SF. I have tried to profile them and basically have come up with two types: people who are cheap and people who kinda get a kick out of it.

This setup takes the ride sharing idea to the ultimate level. What you have are a driver, me, and several complete strangers in 1 car for an unspecified amount of time and no one really knows where we are going next, driver included. The unexpected turns come from the fact that the app is in control and can add new riders at any time and the driver is required by the app to use the internal navigation and not deviate. All these factors together equal a great roulette wheel of opportunity and awkwardness that no one in the car can predict.

Some pools are great, others are some of the most awkward moments one can experience. The shared space of your personal conveyance suddenly inhabited by complete wild cards and potential for the unbelievable multitudes of life to establish themselves at any moment. As a driver I both invite this unknown and am completely weary of it. You just never know what you are going to get.

Donald Trump's Pacifica

After a slow few hours on the road this afternoon, I was about to head home and get back online for some job searching. I was slow on the switch though and picked up a ride. At first, I was fairly happy because the lady I was to drive came out with a suitcase which usually means SFO and $$$. This was not the case.

After loading her two, very hefty suitcases into my trunk my optimism was dashed when my phone informed me we were headed to Pacifica, not SFO. Great, a ride out of the city, to the wrong side of drive time traffic only to get stuck with no one to take back to the city. This was why I wanted to head home.

With my passenger already in the car, I had no choice but to head south. After making a wrong turn in a futile effort to avoid some of the traffic and finally getting back on course, I settled in. Rides like this can be kind of awkward. This was going to be a 30 min plus trip and with a literal stranger in your car 30 minutes can be vary painful if they have no conversation in them. I finally got some luck in this aspect.

As a slow start in my settling in for the drive I asked my patron, "Mind if I turn on NPR? If you weren't here that is what I would be listening to." Bingo, we have liftoff. "Yes!" she replied. "I love NPR." Things are looking up.

The current show on NPR was doing a piece on past Vice Presidential candidates. They mentioned Geraldine Ferraro, of whom my patron was a fan.

She was a nice Australian expat and we spent the next 30 minutes in great conversation. Just another example of how serendipity and bay area charm can lead to some good vibes and good conversation on the road.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Did you really just f**ling do that?

If I had to guess I'd say this lady was about 55 years old. She was the type of person who got in the car took her ride and did not have anything to say to me. All that is fine, sometimes it is nice to just drive.

So there we are both minding our own business. I happen to look in the mirror at the exact moment this woman took gum out of her mouth, reached in a plastic shopping bag for paper, put the gum in the paper and then THREW it across the back seat. The light changed right at that moment. 

I was very close to my driving goal for the day, and focused so I did not comment. I honestly didn't believe what I just saw. I was in such disbelief that after I dropped her I turned off and parked, I had to check. 

Sure enough this women had actually thrown her gum in my car.

This level of rudeness and disrespect is incredible to me. My real question is, why did she wrap it up first?

Why I am here

Hello!

I started driving for Lyft because I needed money...come to find out after a few hours on the road, I actually find it to be quite fun too!

Inviting complete strangers into your car is, on the surface, a crazy idea. We were all warned about hitchhikers at some point, were we not? Once I got my head wrapped around the idea, mostly because of the need for $$$$, things started to fit.

NO ride is the same and no passenger alike. In a city like San Francisco, you get all types. Some, you are sad to see go. Others, you want to push out of the car and some are nearly invisible.

I record these experiences here for myself but make them public to share the truly interesting variety of people I encounter by when opening my car for business.

Maybe I will see you out there!