Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet

Wow, what an amazing read. That guy is a great writer. It almost sounded like the narration of film noir.

Anyways, I had no idea that Uber drivers made so much money. $40-$50 an hour! That's incredible. I make the low end of that working as the tech lead of a ~15-person tech startup. I bet that car maintenance takes a big chunk out of his pay but still.

My first reaction to this piece was "what the fuck are you whining about? You make more than most people, and even more than me and my job is way harder than yours!"

Then again, I totally empathize with his alienation from his own job. It's hard, spending the precious hours of your short life on things other than what you're really passionate about. It sucks that our society rewards being a taxi driver more than creative things -- like this guy's amazing writing. I don't know what to do about that, and I feel his pain there.

When people call taxi they don't hope to see interesting human to talk with, they need a car to move them from point A to point B. This driver expects his clients to be wondered about him or his life, when they don't expect it and often don't want to spend their time to be somebody's psychotherapist.

It's sad he is so lonely, but taxi is not that place which should fix it - maybe dating sites.

"Many who work in tech are living their lives as if it's the carefree Roaring 20s, while I'm more or less stuck in the Great Depression."

Of course, the roaring twenties were themselves times of relative inequality, and that name only describes the excitement, culture, and affluence of the urban rich of the era. The author seems to be describing the modern day euphoria over the power of the tech industry to make a new world as similarly one-sided.

"If it makes you feel any better", Google seems to be pretty close to making driving a taxi worth almost nothing.