# The $100 tip



## El Cemento (Apr 25, 2017)

Tips have been miserable but I've been doing only X and pool and not expecting much. I think $8 was my best day. Many, many days = zero.

Then I got the call out to a fancy hotel in the suburbs. Super dead night. Hadn't had a ping in 45 minutes. So I drive the 12 minutes, against my own policy of no pickups over 10 mins away.
I park in front, no one in sight, so I fire up the stopwatch. 5 minutes comes and goes, there is no reply to my text, and I am lingering... trying to be a nice guy, figuring somebody's way behind schedule...

Finally this fella comes out and says, hey this isn't for me it's for my boss, he's in there drinking. He wants you to wait 15 or 20 minutes. He needs to catch a flight soon, so he will be out here for sure. Don't worry, he'll take care of you.

So I said what do you mean he'll take care of me? I don't get any money for sitting here, I haven't started the fare, and it wouldn't be worth it for me to do so.
He said, well go ahead and cancel if you want. If you stay, he will take care of you. I said he'll have to take care of me first and then I'm happy to wait. So this guy went back inside, came out again a few minutes later, and said no he is not coming out, you're welcome to cancel or wait your choice.

All the red flags were there, but I decided what the heck let's take a chance. I waited a half an hour. I really wanted to leave, but I kept thinking that if I did, he wouldn't even be able to get another Uber here in time to make that flight. Airports a good half hour away. So here I am feeling guilty about agreeing and then leaving, because I'm afraid the guys going to get stiffed and miss a flight. I'm no fan of hanging around waiting for people to drink though. So there's a little bit of an inner conflict going on here, and I'm wondering if I've just been dunced.

The fella finally shows, and he's cool as a cucumber and a nice guy and not too drunk, and he is now concerned I think about the timing, I know I am cuz I'm doing the math in my head and if I can get him there in a half an hour he's going to have about 40 minutes to get through security and on that flight.

He says can you please hurry? I asked him if he's okay if I do a little extra over the speed limit, because I don't want to make him feel uncomfortable but I'm willing to do whatever what I can safely do to get him there.

He says step on it.

I got him there as fast as was humanly possible. Much more of an aggressive ride than I normally would have ever done. But he was all for it, sat in the front seat enjoying the ride with a big smile and compliments. He totally got it that I was saving that flight.
Drop him off and with a big smile and handshake he handed me a $100 bill.

The fare itself was 25 bucks, and I was immediately pinged at the airport for a $30 following ride.

It was a fine day to Uber indeed.


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## Veju (Apr 17, 2017)

It worked out but if you had gotten a ticket that $100 would merely put a dent into your ticket attorney fees. That's an awesome story but I would have cancelled.


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## El Cemento (Apr 25, 2017)

Veju said:


> It worked out but if you had gotten a ticket that $100 would merely put a dent into your ticket attorney fees. That's an awesome story but I would have cancelled.


It's a bit of a weird situation in the Bay Area, if you do the speed limit you're actually doing often 15-20 miles an hour slower than everyone else. And that makes you a bit of a hazard. So you either do the speed limit and be the slowest person on the freeway, or you keep up to the rate of speed with everyone else and then you're going over. Kind of a no-win situation if someone else is paying attention to the digits.


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## Transportador (Sep 15, 2015)

You should have posted this in the "Carma" post. Your gamble and patience paid off, cool!


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## louvit (Dec 30, 2016)

El Cemento said:


> Tips have been miserable but I've been doing only X and pool and not expecting much. I think $8 was my best day. Many, many days = zero.
> 
> Then I got the call out to a fancy hotel in the suburbs. Super dead night. Hadn't had a ping in 45 minutes. So I drive the 12 minutes, against my own policy of no pickups over 10 mins away.
> I park in front, no one in sight, so I fire up the stopwatch. 5 minutes comes and goes, there is no reply to my text, and I am lingering... trying to be a nice guy, figuring somebody's way behind schedule...
> ...


Problem for him is that they do not allow drunks to board the plane.....lol, great story though it's always a decision to wait or not.


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