# FREEDOM!



## cb80907 (Aug 3, 2015)

A few weeks ago, I said I was going to be done with driving for good by early November. Well, it's the 9th, and I'm FREE! After 1,236 rides, countless hours spent waiting all over Colorado Springs and up in Denver for just that one request and tearing out my hair while seeing the screen fill up with 20 plus other drivers, and never getting more than a handful of rides each night, I'm out of it for good. Thus, I say these words:
Goodbye to spoiled rotten drunk millennial assholes who can afford $200 on a bar tab four nights a week, but not even a dollar tip for the shortest of rides.
Goodbye to self-centered know-it-all assholes who have the nerve to tell me to break every traffic law known to mankind in the name of convenience.
Goodbye to people who don't want to talk, yet still rate me poorly for being unfriendly despite their need to be quiet.
Goodbye to having to feel my ears burn up from shitty pop music, shitty rap music and shitty country music.
Goodbye to pretentious idiots who are too lazy to punch in the address they are at or even the business they are at, assuming instead that it is all the driver's fault.
Goodbye to pretentious jackasses who cannot take the time or have the courtesy to put in a destination address, assuming that it works just like a cab - better known as "I can just tell you where to go".
Goodbye to trying to find these people in a crowd of 400 other similarly dressed people on the side of a busy street, only to get the blame for not being able to spot them - inside, and not even having had their bar tab paid off ahead of time.
Goodbye to noisy, over the top passengers who all scream into my ear like a bunch of drunk schoolgirls at a Justin Beiber concert.
Goodbye to sulky dude-bros who take their anger out on me because they couldn't get laid at the bar.
Goodbye to sulky, angry women dressed like hookers who are pissed they got hit on all night and couldn't understand why despite the answer being in how they dressed at the club.
Goodbye to people who reek to high heaven of a bad mixture of cheap beer, cheap liquor, cologne or perfume.
Goodbye to the ever constant threat of people trying to screw in the back seat.
Goodbye to people slamming my doors shut as hard as they can and never once apologizing for it.
Goodbye to having to apologize to police officers in person because these drunk bastards choose to scream obscenities at them for simply being there to ruin their drunken fun.
Goodbye to having to worry about every single one of my tires possibly blowing out every few weeks from hitting a pothole I couldn't see on a dark street in this godforsaken city.
Goodbye to drunk, unapologetic jackasses trashing the inside of my car with all sorts of dirt and trash when I have a trash bag hanging right out in full view for their use.
Goodbye to drunk jackasses trying to light up a cigarette in my car.
Goodbye to having to gag and get sick from the reeking odor of marijuana on many of these passengers (I'm allergic to marijuana).
Goodbye to passengers who I am getting along great with, only to find the next morning they rated me less than 5 stars for no apparent reason.
Goodbye to passengers who insist on giving me conflicting directions, and then blaming me for getting lost when they were adamant about it.
Goodbye to putting up with overly aggressive steroid freaks and spoiled stuck-up Princess Peach passengers.
Goodbye to piss poor per mileage fare amounts.
Goodbye to putting extreme amounts of mileage on my car to pick these cheap bastards up.
Goodbye to having to see Lyft's bullshit about making a ton of money on holidays dominated by free cab night.
Goodbye to a glaring lack of intelligent discussions.
Goodbye to poor ratings for attempting to talk about local lore, art, history or anything beyond senseless gossip that has absolutely no bearing up anyone's life.
Goodbye to overly obnoxious, sweaty, loud sports fans.
Goodbye to sweaty, smelly gym rats.
Goodbye to people almost vomiting in my car every single night.
Goodbye to having to race with 30 other drivers during the daytime to get just one passenger.
Goodbye to doing the same late at night.
Goodbye to having to base my diet off of shitty fast food and questionable coffee because I cannot ever be home from doing this full time.
Goodbye to being broke all the damn time from said shitty food, from having to constantly work on the car, and from constantly having to keep gas in the damn car.
And finally, and most importantly, this: goodbye, you pink mustache loving goddamned hipsters who own Lyft and should NEVER own a company in light of how clear it has become that neither one of you, or any of your employees, even know how to run a goddamned company!

Lyft Off, and Uber Off, my friends. I finally escaped. I'm FREE!


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## Amsoil Uber Connect (Jan 14, 2015)

Soooooo, your moving to Montana


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## RainbowPlate (Jul 12, 2015)

The key metric, which Uber does not have to tell us but does have to tell its investors, is driver churn: What percentage of drivers become inactive each year (or how many quit each year)? Demographics only allows so many potential new drivers to be created each year.

Churn killed AOL; churn may kill Netflix (jury's still out on that). I don't know what Uber's churn is, but I know that somebody knows -- and somebody is probably sweating bullets right now.

The next step will be for Uber to play fast and loose with the definition of "active." Is someone who could drive but no longer does, "Active?" Does someone who went from driving 50 hours per week to 5 hours on Saturday mornings, "Active?" The definition will get looser and looser to make the "Active" number seem as big as possible going into the eventual IPO*.

(*Which cannot and will not happen until the "employee versus contractor" question is resolved.)


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## UberBlackPr1nce (Dec 28, 2014)

cb80907 said:


> A few weeks ago, I said I was going to be done with driving for good by early November. Well, it's the 9th, and I'm FREE! After 1,236 rides, countless hours spent waiting all over Colorado Springs and up in Denver for just that one request and tearing out my hair while seeing the screen fill up with 20 plus other drivers, and never getting more than a handful of rides each night, I'm out of it for good. Thus, I say these words:
> Goodbye to spoiled rotten drunk millennial assholes who can afford $200 on a bar tab four nights a week, but not even a dollar tip for the shortest of rides.
> Goodbye to self-centered know-it-all assholes who have the nerve to tell me to break every traffic law known to mankind in the name of convenience.
> Goodbye to people who don't want to talk, yet still rate me poorly for being unfriendly despite their need to be quiet.
> ...


That was actually entertaining.


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## FBM (Oct 30, 2015)

Drive during the day only.

But....

I DO have to agree on the other hand... So many *more *drivers than how many riders are looking for rides. In my area anyway. But, at least I rarely have to drive to the "other side of the world" just for a "one mile" trip.


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## FBM (Oct 30, 2015)

Speaking of which. Right now as I'm typing, I am *hanging out at **my house*, waiting for a ping. My house is far better than being uncomfortable sitting in the parking lot. Seems to me, I get a ping on average within a half hour. And typically it's a smaller trip around my area. At least, for me. I am not in need for a full time job. I am happy part time. Since my wife is the main income. On some days I get a handful of trips. On other days, I may get so bored waiting for a ping, I just call it the day. Still on other day, I take advantage of times for when I want or need to go somewhere, such as the mall or out of my area. As long as it's not urgent, I go online. Quite often, I'm guaranteed to get a ping on my way.


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## cb80907 (Aug 3, 2015)

FBM said:


> Drive during the day only.
> 
> But....
> 
> I DO have to agree on the other hand... So many *more *drivers than how many riders are looking for rides. In my area anyway. But, at least I rarely have to drive to the "other side of the world" just for a "one mile" trip.


I won't even consider driving during the day. Like I said, it's not worth it. Not worth the stress and the headaches at all.


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## cb80907 (Aug 3, 2015)

UberBlackPr1nce said:


> That was actually entertaining.


Because it's so true, all of it?


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## UberBlackPr1nce (Dec 28, 2014)

cb80907 said:


> Because it's so true, all of it?


Yea.


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## DieselkW (Jul 21, 2015)

Nice rant. 
Nothing at all you like about your 1200 rides?

I liked more than half of my riders - perhaps as much as 3/4 of them.
I liked getting out of the house. I like driving. I like most people. I like small talk and telling stories.

I like working when I want and not when I don't. 
I'm not now and never have been wealthy, or rich, or even "well off". I took a few swings at getting there, and fouled them off. I tried. I do this not forever, but for now I'm happy with it.

No, I'm not making serious cash. I spent 40 years doing that 40 hour a week thing. I'm so done with that, this seems better. Half as many rides as you've had so far.

Some months I have to borrow from savings, some months I'm happy to see we made more than we spent. So what? I don't have to wear a tie, or socks for that matter. I don't even have to shower.

No, it is not for everyone. First time my wife said: "Let's go on vacation" my first response was: "I don't know if I have any weeks left this year"

Like I said, 40 years of habitually having to say "Mother, may I?" to go on vacation. No more. If I want to take off, I'll take the hell off. I might not even come back on Sunday afternoon, I'll come back Monday when there's less traffic. I might leave on Thursday, because I no longer have to "save days" to string two weekends together.

There are positive aspects to all this - I'll focus on those, although the list is quite a bit shorter than yours.


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## cb80907 (Aug 3, 2015)

DieselkW said:


> Nice rant.
> Nothing at all you like about your 1200 rides?
> 
> I liked more than half of my riders - perhaps as much as 3/4 of them.
> ...


You have fun defending these passengers. They're clinically insane. I can't even make a decent living doing this full time. Not in any small city or even large city in this country. I'm done with it.


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## Aztek98 (Jul 23, 2015)

So much truth in your rant. Once I help my kid get through college doing this I'm done.

It could be such a nice gig but UBER keeps ****ing it up.


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## cb80907 (Aug 3, 2015)

Aztek98 said:


> So much truth in your rant. Once I help my kid get through college doing this I'm done.
> 
> It could be such a nice gig but UBER keeps ****ing it up.


I feel the same way about both Lyft and Uber. The disconnect between the owners and the people at the very bottom is nothing short of breathtaking. I don't know what their end game truly is anymore, aside from just making themselves as rich as possible. It's been a nice week without being around drunks, for that matter.


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## riChElwAy (Jan 13, 2015)

this rant clearly illustrates that driving around random strangers is, for the most part, a dirty job, a pride killer, a dignity destroyer

the only people who will deal with this crap are those who will get paid $ $ $ that's right get paid GOOD $ $ $ for dealing with all the B. S. that this job has to offer

it is not "fun" like Kalanick says on Colbert. he is worried about driver churn, so he markets this garbage as "don't worry about making money, it's just a fun thing to do" 

the only way to make this slavery "fun" is to get paid $ $ $


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## Rando57 (Sep 21, 2015)

cb80907 said:


> A few weeks ago, I said I was going to be done with driving for good by early November. Well, it's the 9th, and I'm FREE! After 1,236 rides, countless hours spent waiting all over Colorado Springs and up in Denver for just that one request and tearing out my hair while seeing the screen fill up with 20 plus other drivers, and never getting more than a handful of rides each night, I'm out of it for good. Thus, I say these words:
> Goodbye to spoiled rotten drunk millennial assholes who can afford $200 on a bar tab four nights a week, but not even a dollar tip for the shortest of rides.
> Goodbye to self-centered know-it-all assholes who have the nerve to tell me to break every traffic law known to mankind in the name of convenience.
> Goodbye to people who don't want to talk, yet still rate me poorly for being unfriendly despite their need to be quiet.
> ...


Goodbye to the job of being a cab driver by definition but without the pay and benefits.


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## Julescase (Mar 29, 2017)

cb80907 said:


> A few weeks ago, I said I was going to be done with driving for good by early November. Well, it's the 9th, and I'm FREE! After 1,236 rides, countless hours spent waiting all over Colorado Springs and up in Denver for just that one request and tearing out my hair while seeing the screen fill up with 20 plus other drivers, and never getting more than a handful of rides each night, I'm out of it for good. Thus, I say these words:
> Goodbye to spoiled rotten drunk millennial assholes who can afford $200 on a bar tab four nights a week, but not even a dollar tip for the shortest of rides.
> Goodbye to self-centered know-it-all assholes who have the nerve to tell me to break every traffic law known to mankind in the name of convenience.
> Goodbye to people who don't want to talk, yet still rate me poorly for being unfriendly despite their need to be quiet.
> ...


I know this is 2.5 years old, but it's freaking AMAZING.


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