Uber and the Elevator Pitch

 

I started driving for Uber a couple weeks ago.

So far at least I’m doing 2 nights per week for 3 hours a night. That’s not a lot of course, but I have other plans to make money that don’t include driving perfect strangers around. Actually I kind of like it. I like meeting people in quick bursts. In Hollywood there is such a thing as the elevator pitch. The idea is to summarize your movie idea in the time it takes to ride an elevator. Quite a few people are transplants like me. I like to find out why they moved here and how they like it. What about this city is different? How is it similar? One guy told me he thought Tulsa was a big/little city. He meant a smaller city that wants to be larger than it is. It didn’t feel like an insult to me, more like a sense he picked up. He worked downtown in the business district and probably got that feeling from the professionals and the newspaper.

Initially I only wanted to do the Uber Eats portion. I didn’t like the idea of strangers in the car. I’m an introvert by nature and don’t like to talk people up. But I’m changing too. Delivering food wasn’t enough money. The orders weren’t happening so I decided to jump on the ride sharing part. I’ve already met some interesting, sweet and sketchy riders. One kid had to go pick up a puppy. He told me this via the notes section that the riders can send the driver. I didn’t have all the details but figured I can deal with a puppy, probably. We are required to pick up service animals but pets, I wasn’t sure. He explained along the way that he sold two huskies to a guy who decided after a few hours he didn’t want one of them.

I’m not sure how the kid talked this guy into both dogs but he did. The goal was to pick up the female but when we arrived, he walks out carrying a dog under each arm. In my head I can see two dogs pooping in my car and jumping around, scratching my seats. This doesn’t look good.

 He gave the guy back his money because he couldn’t stand the thought of both dogs being separated from each other. The puppies sat patiently on his lap while we drove away. The nightmare scenario averted. He was really down and didn’t think he’d get rid of both. His plan to give them both to the same customer seemed a little unreasonable to me. Maybe he’ll get lucky though.

I took a women home from Cici’s pizza. I had to wait for her for almost 10 minutes. I could have left of course but I’d already had one rider stand me up and I didn’t want to lose another. She had a son, maybe 6 or 7 years old with her. They had 3 pizzas which explains some of the waiting I guess. I didn’t have a seat for the kid even though I think the nanny state requires it for kids up to 9 or 10? Anyway it didn’t matter because they needed a ride. She was pleasant, talking about the books she liked and how she stayed up late to read. Her son had a tough ride. He kept asking for his lemonade, his mom said no. He asked again, she said no again. Each time the “NO” had a little more of an edge to it. I did feel bad for him. We were in car for almost 30 minutes-the aroma of pizza and breadsticks reminding him of how hungry he was.

Uber requires a mask for drivers and passengers. I don’t wear it though unless the passenger gets weird about it. I ask them first because passengers could give me a poor rating for something like that. I’ve probably had 50 people in the car so far and only 1 requested I wear it. He looked a little skittish to me about getting in the car, like a boy taking his first swimming lesson. I put the thing on though and he warmed up OK. I guess I’m getting pretty good at the elevator pitch. Good enough to allow people to relax at least.

Something tells me I’ll have a few stories to tell with this job.