Most of the people are glued to their phones while ridding a cab...its a Mad Mad World!!
Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
21–30 of 107 posts
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#22When 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.
I think you've mis-read the tone, or just plain don't understand/have experience of the military mindset. This isn't a pity piece, he not expecting something from his passengers or expecting them to wonder about him. In fact, I'd say that's the whole point of the piece - how he knows he an outsider, a nobody in a world of somebodies, a dispassionate observer, one who recognises his own lack of humanity to his charges…
> he not expecting something from his passengers
That the author is passing judgement on the non-talkers shows that he is expecting something from them. Like when he talks of his Combat Infantry Badge, and the only two options available are 'not notice' or 'notice and not care'. Plenty of people would notice and care a lot, but not want to get into a discussion that they think would lead to an argument. He's basically expecting to get his ego soothed with the medal.
It's a well-written piece, but he is projecting a lot of motivation onto people that doesn't necessarily exist. For example, when I catch a cab, I don't like to talk to the driver. It's not because I think they're a robot or the 'hired help' or beneath me or whatever. It's because I loathe small talk, and most cab conversations are exactly the same. There's also a fair chance of getting into a conversation with a passionate bigot, which is never fun. The last taxi I had included a generally one-sided conversation where the driver kept trying to suggest-sell a brothel visit to me. Frankly, cab conversations are just not that interesting. Bit of an aside there, but I would guess a lot of people feel the same.
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#23A robot could do my fucking job.
In a few years, one will. God bless Silicon Valley.
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#24"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 ne…
Isn't it?
No one in Silicon Valley gives a damn about anyone outside it, or indeed outside their own social and professional circles. There's nothing intrinsically unusual about this, of course, but it lends a certain sardonic amusement to an outsider's perspective on the "changing the world" rhetoric which SV has taken beyond mere cliché to what may be a new and previously unimagined realm of banality.
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#25Wow, 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 whini…
It's hard, spending the precious hours of your short life on things other than what you're really passionate about
Isn't this true for the vast majority? Most people take jobs not because they're passionate about them, but because they need money to pay bills and buy stuff - simple as that. Some earn more, some earn less, but at the end of the day almost everyone would like to do something else. Even in IT, where wages are high and work is comfortable, I doubt most are passionate about their work - it's a different thing hacking some fun app or game in your spare time and working on some monstrous enterprise software, where you're just a tiny cog doing what you're told to do.
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you've mis-read the tone, or just plain don't understand/have experience of the military mindset. This isn't a pity piece, he not expecting something from his passengers or expecting them to wonder about him. In fact, I'd say that's the whole point of the piece - how he knows he an outsider, a nobody in a world of somebodies, a dispassionate observer, one who recognises his own lack of humanity to his charges…
> he not expecting something from his passengers That the author is passing judgement on the non-talkers shows that he is expecting something from them. Like when he talks of his Combat Infantry Badge, and the only two options available are 'not notice' or 'notice and not care'. Plenty of people would notice and care a lot , but not want to get into a discussion that they think would lead to an argument. He's basical…
> he is projecting a lot of motivation onto people that doesn't necessarily exist
Oh? I'd say you're projecting a lot of motivation onto him. You're not exactly making yourself look like the most charming person in the world, either; however you excuse it, your behavior expresses contempt:
Sometimes people who are rendering me a service say things that don't entirely accord with my view of an ideal world. I could learn how to politely dissuade conversational overtures I don't want to accept. Or I could actually engage in conversations that take me outside my personal comfort zone once in a while, whether to make a point or just for the hell of it. But, really, it's easier just to write off the entire category and ignore them as completely as possible, because, hey, I've got better things to do with my time than interact with people who might not measure up to my exacting standards.
And, to forestall the blustery objection you're no doubt scrambling to emit: No, of course, that's not what you said. But it's what you meant. And, hey -- you just finished judging Mr. Buzzell rather harshly, based on your interpretation of what he wrote. Why in the world should you be surprised or upset at my doing the same to you?
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#27> Most of the time I'm completely invisible to the people I drive. Perhaps we're all conditioned not to speak to the hired help. ... or to strangers.
Sure, because we're all six years old and walking home from school.
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are therapists expensive?
Hopefully they are covered by the medical system.
Did you not read the part about what it's like to try to get benefits through the VA? World War II was the last time the United States gave anything like a genuine damn about their expended soldiers; they've never given less of one than they do today. Why else would so many have no better option than to work for a company which plainly regards its human drivers as nothing more or less than an eminently disposable means of bootstrapping to the point where robot cars are practicable?
Re: Driving for Uber as an Iraq War Vet
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you've mis-read the tone, or just plain don't understand/have experience of the military mindset. This isn't a pity piece, he not expecting something from his passengers or expecting them to wonder about him. In fact, I'd say that's the whole point of the piece - how he knows he an outsider, a nobody in a world of somebodies, a dispassionate observer, one who recognises his own lack of humanity to his charges…
> he not expecting something from his passengers That the author is passing judgement on the non-talkers shows that he is expecting something from them. Like when he talks of his Combat Infantry Badge, and the only two options available are 'not notice' or 'notice and not care'. Plenty of people would notice and care a lot , but not want to get into a discussion that they think would lead to an argument. He's basical…
> most cab conversations are exactly the same
I know you said "most" but I have had plenty of conversations with cab drivers that I remember years into the future.
Two examples:
- a very elderly man picked us up in London, he was cheerful and chatty in his 1940s-war-broadcast-style accent, turns out he spent a chunk of his life as an engineer in what you might call "frontier" countries. So many stories. He had plenty of cash, but drove to chat with strangers and because he couldn't stand doing nothing.
- we got picked up in Duxton Hill in Singapore by a chap in his 60s, whose tone was a lot calmer and more attentive than your average "so where you from-aaaah?" happy taxi uncle. He made two fortunes from nothing, one per Asian boom, then retired and travelled the world with his wife for a decade. He got very bored of the luxury life, and also took up driving to meet new people and collect stories about humans. Singapore being great for this.
There's plenty of occasions where, if you spend a bit of attention on the driver, you unearth either life stories worth preserving and thinking about, glimpses of a completely different world, or just fun stories where you wonder how much was made up.
I learnt a lot about his community in a 25 minute ride with an Indonesian driver having his 8th kid (all boys, amazingly) and working Uber in his spare time from working on oil rigs. A Polish man gave me a glimpse of the harsh life as a low-earning immigrant in a major European city, their main preoccupation in life seemed to be which alcohol to buy that was the cheapest yet still relatively drinkable. A driver was missing a couple fingers and complained about how Africans and Pakistans slept 6-aside in the cabin he used to have to himself in the "golden days" of the merchant navy (I never got the story about the fingers). He also had 6 wives in as many cities (none the one he lived in now).
I'm going to miss the human drivers.