Category: Road Journal Story Time

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Missed Opportunity #2

In my last post I mentioned another time that Lyft had missed an opportunity to possibly improve their services by being a little more proactive. This event surrounds a passenger that might have needed more help than most drivers could have been ready to handle. Luckily it ended without incident but it could have gone sideways on numerous levels!

The ride started off like any other ride, I got the ping with the additional note that this was going to be a 45+minute ride. Which tells me to buckle up for anything! Once I ended up going on a two hour drive, it’s all good I get paid!

So, I roll up to what looks like a medical clinic and get this cryptic text from Lyft that this ride is a nonstop ride, that I am not to make any additional stops and to take any bags from the passenger and put them in the trunk. I was not sure what to make of this so I tried calling the requester with no luck. This ride was requested by some third party service, I have encountered these before when someone that has limited access to a phone or computer needs a Lyft. I tried contacting Lyft about this ride no luck, I even tried to ask someone at the desk of this ‘clinic’ about this ride…no luck. What I did find out was that this was not a clinic, it was a locked psych ward…..oh no…..

Now, I started my work career as a security guard back in 1999 working at a hospital with a very active psych ward. Everything from self admitted, suicide watches and 5150 holds (Non-Voluntary Holds). I ended up helping out quiet a bit, being 6’2 and a solid 200 lbs I was used more like an orderly than a security guard. Once I found out that my passenger was coming from a locked down mental health facility, that message made more sense.

The nurse brought out the patient, walked them to the clinic door and then left. She did not do any hand off with me at all, she was back behind the access controlled door before the patient even made it to the car. She handed off this patient and just washed their hands of them! The passenger had all their belongs with them, four paper bags and according to the message I was suppose to take them from them. But the nurse did not inform me of anything and I was not about getting into a wrestling match with someone about THEIR belongings.

As far as I know Lyft is not trained, rated or even liable for any type of medical transport. So many questions were running through my mind about this person that was now sitting behind me rifling through their bags. Then I hear the sound of pill bottles rattling around behind me. I look in the rear view mirror hoping not to see them popping pills out of the bottles! At this point I start to engage in small talk, I was looking to distract them from whatever it was they might have been up to and to make them aware that I was paying attention to them. Luckily they just start talking….and talking. Come to find out that they were on a 5150 hold that was lifted earlier today and I am taking them to a halfway house out in the middle of no where. They had been put on a multi step program to get them back into society.

The ride itself was super chill, my passenger was very young; they could not have been over 21! They just unloaded all their issues and pains, I do not really say much I just let them talk. It was a sad story that I hope has gotten better, they seemed to be on the right track to getting getting better. I was just concerned that they were messing with their pills, I know that once they get to the home they take their meds and do a count. I was just hoping they did not sneak any out and I would later get a call from Lyft asking why I did not take their belongings like the text instructed.

This whole situation had disaster written alllll over it! I personally have been in this situation on many occasions as a security officer. I once sat with a 5150 patient for 9 hours. When working with people that are in a mental health facility you need to have some serious people skills. You need to know how to talk to people, show them that you are listening, and even connect with them. Sometimes the security officers were the only people they interacted with that did not have lab coats on. It is not easy and not everyone can do it, and all I kept thinking about was what if the next Lyft driver that picks up someone like this has a serious issue, how are they going to know what to do? We are not trained for this and I would say the majority of people have no idea what a 5150 patient even is!

I sent my concerns to Lyft, which by the way can be really difficult! I did get a canned response back about my situation and that was it. After another try and another canned response I let it drop. And I know that was a shit move on my part, I should have pushed more but life sits still for no one. Nothing came of the ride I gave and nothing came of the emails I sent, I just kept on plugging away at my life and I sure hope my passenger has done the same.

This was a serious missed opportunity for Lyft, if they are going to provide these types of services they really need some type of in-service for their drivers. I was telling this story to someone that is currently a security officer at a hospital and he said that Lyft and Uber drivers have flat out turned around in the hospital parking lot and canceled a ride once the driver saw that they were picking up passengers from certain parts of the hospital. It seems they release the 5150 patients from a certain door and the drivers have learned not to take those rides…..say what you will about that, but once you have an incident you will do whatever it takes not to have another one.

I know that this is probably a very difficult policy to write but something is going to happen and at that point it will be too late for someone. But, that is all I have to say about that, with all the this Corona Virus stuff going around this is probably pretty low on their priority list at the moment. They already have stuff on service dogs, handicap passengers and probably stuff about LGBT passengers….so there might be something in the works!

So until my next rant or share, please share the world around and please remember to WASH YOUR HANDS…..that mouse and keyboard your are touching is nasty!

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Missed Opportunity #1

Lets go back to the last time I worked for Lyft in 2019; It was a Friday night towards the end of December 2019. I was on my 5th or 6th ride of the night, it was around midnight or so and I was in the middle of bumble fuck nowhere! To be act it was somewhere near Tracey, Ca and I had just dropped off my last rider.

Up to this point nothing out of the ordinary had occurred; several drunk business men going out to get more drunk, a young lady who’s boyfriend was supposed to be getting out of jail before Christmas but from what I heard (loud and clear) this was not going to be the case due to a scheduling issue and my last ride was one of those non-talker types. I dropped my last ride off and my Lyft app gave me some vague message about how I had to contact the main office about an issue. And that was it….I could not call anyone, all I could do was send in request via the app and wait. So I did and waited, and after about 30 minutes of searching the site and the internet on what I needed to do I just decided to make the hour and half ride home; confused and frustrated.

By the time I got home I had gotten an email from a customer service rep that basically stated that one of my passengers had reported that I was intoxicated. My first reaction was of disbelieve, mainly because the first thought that crossed my mind was ‘Wait, a taxi app company gets a report that one of their drivers is operating a vehicle intoxicated and their one and only response is to turn off the drivers app….and that was it?!?!?!’

If I was drunk/high/impaired turning off my app, by no means, was going to stop me from driving, it just stopped me from using the app. So hypothetically I was now going to have to drive 58 miles back home drunk?!?! And what was their response? Send an officer to verify this information was correct, to get a potentially dangerous situation under control and or to check on the welfare of an employee that might be having some other underlining issues? NOPE, it was to turn off the app, send a copy and paste response to the driver and wait about an hour to send an email. This my friends was a huge missed opportunity on the part of Lyft as a company.

It falls into soo many categories it is hard to say which one was, or is, more important. I did finally get a call from the service rep later, like 12 hours later, and we spoke at length about the situation. I was not intoxicated at the time the infraction was reported; however, I was drunk at the time the call came in ha! We spoke about the event and since my track record with them of three years is damn near perfect he felt that was reported in error. I did make a point to tell him how this was super irresponsible on the part of Lyft on how this was handled. For one this could have been a public relations nightmare if a driver had been drunk and it got out that all they did was turn off their app with no real life follow up…Calling the cops! Fuck, they have my exact location at all times while I have the app running! Luckily this situation was not one that ended in an accident or incident, it only ended with an irate end user. The other thing I pointed out was that I would be very interested in the person who reported me, do they have a history of making reports like this?

The last passenger I dropped off was a rather big fare and if it was that person that reported it I am pretty sure Lyft refunded them their money. Can you smell scam? I sure can! The Lyft rep really could not go into details about that, which I knew, I just wanted to see if there was any standard practices around these type of inquiries. And from his response I got the feeling the actual investigation side of this occurrence was that there is very little done, it would take too much time and effort. We live in the day and age of do it now, do it fast and next…..

This whole thing left a really bad taste in my mouth, even though I was cleared and my app was reinstated but this is on my record and I do not feel any real due diligent was done here. And even to the point, what if I was drunk and I just got away with it??? (For the record I was NOT).

We were set to go on a three week vacation not long after this so I just kind of let it go and by the time we go back to our normal grind I just went back to driving. I have thought about reaching out to them about this but the last time I reached out to them about an issue I got the canned response ‘Thank you for reaching out to us….’ No follow up, even after several attempts I was never able to get any traction on the situation.

That situation I will be putting down here as well, and it will be ‘Missed Opportunity #2’. This again was another situation where Lyft could have done something a little bit more proactive than reactive but as of now….no dice

But for now lets just leave this story as is, and remember to share share share the world around, take pictures and tells us your story; we will read it!

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Just Another Day Behind the Wheel

With the approaching holidays we all need to do a little more. And yes I can hear the bullshit throwers ranting about how we should not go into debt for the holiday or over do things just for the idea of giving. And to that I say, fuck you and please go be poor some place else. And I am not throwing shade to people that are actually poor and struggling. I know all about the poor life! I am talking to the trolls that always want to shit in people’s corn flakes to make themselves feel better about their shity lives.

I love giving more than receiving, it’s fun! So I am going to work more this month so I can do just that. I am lucky that I am able to work an extra job to do this. My Lyft Life helps with many of our bills and one of them is always Christmas shopping. I did take a week off for Thanksgiving because…..I can. That is part of why I like doing Lyft. You get out of it what you put into it, you want money….earn it. You want to take time off….earn it. You need a break…earn it. You are your own boss, your car is your business. I put the good gas in my car, I get oil changes regularly and currently saving for those good tires! And just a little insight to this job, I average about $20 an hour.

Another fun part about this job is that it takes me all over the place. The other night I ended up in north bumble fuck Brentwood, Ca. This is about an hour drive from home, straight out into the fucking hills. Country lanes with no street lights, farms so far out in the distance you cannot see their lights, and fog, lots and lots of fog….well at least that night there was.

I picked up a rider in Dublin and their destination was a 45 ride north to Brentwood. I am thankful this rider was one of those talkative types. We rambled on about all kinds of things; from social issues of the local crack heads to the bad orange man. Nothing overly political, more comical than anything. So the ride up went by super fast, but she was to be my last ride of the night. It was getting late and I earned my punch out time.

The ride home was not all that bad, I had 90’s on the 9 pumping from the stereo (nothing says road trip like Paula Abdul early 90’s!)

But the ride into the country was wild! It was foggy and visibility was very poor. I could not see more that 6 feet in front of me. I was using the GPS, the road lines and the rumble strips to help me navigate this twisted country road. And to make things interesting I was probably the only one being cautious with my driving! At various times the road became two lanes (of which I could not actually see!) and people would fly past me at speed…what the actual fuck! I kept to the right and just let them barrel on down, it was not going to be me in a ditch or worse.

This went on for about 10 minutes then the fog cleared up, it was only foggy in that one particular area. I later found out that stretch of road has accidents on it everyday because people seem to think physics do not apply to them because of their fancy car and all weather tires!

I did have to drive back through the pea soup London style fog so it was back to the slow and steady, and yes there were more daredevils on the way back! I was almost expecting to see head lights off to the side of the road, but to be honest if they had gone off the road no one would have been able to see them!

This week was to be a good week for me with my earnings, let’s hope for the same for the coming weeks. I have some vacation time coming up in about two weeks and have no plans on driving during that time. I will do my part to make the money I need, that car payment isn’t going to pay itself! I want time off, and I am out on the hustle to earn it!

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Road Stories

As a Lyft driver there are times that I become the passenger. And for the most part I have never had any issues with any of my fellow drivers. The only one problem I came across was this one time we ordered a car for a short trip to the airport and the driver’s trunk was filled to the brim with stuff! But we made it work and moved on, but for future reference for anyone driving: Clean out your trunk before hitting the road.

But today I came across something that made me laugh way too hard. And it was my son that pointed it out. He is a teen so I am aware he knows allllll about this stuff so it really did not bother me, but I can see how this could bother someone. I mean hell, I keep my radio on The 80’s channel because the likelihood of a nasty or inappropriate song coming on is slim. But I still get the Tone Loc, Digital Underground, Prince, George Michael or Rick James dirty songs.

But this guy had no fucks to give, and I am certain he saw this! I saw him look right at it and did not try to change it, so I just took the trip on the BangBus with a smile!

I did give him the five stars, I mean…fuck I laughed all the way home about this one!

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My Road Stories

As a Lyft driver I get all kinds of people, 99.9999% of them are cool. Some of the most difficult ones are usually the drunks, but not always.

Yesterday I found my way into San Francisco thanks to one awesome ride from Pleasanton…about an hour drive with decent traffic. And the next pick up was one that I had to document:

It was about 6:30 pm on a Thursday night and I was out looking to make that money! I get a ping to pick up two riders and I was off. No issues no problems but the second they get in could smell the happy hour was good to them. They were joking and chatting away and here was the conversations:

Guy one: I am not sure about this place, they were not even on the deep cups.

Guy two: Yeah no snookies

Guy one: show me that video, I was so under the cap and that was toasted.

Guy two: Deep cups only, I will show you later

Guy one: I am just trying to give out good vibes because you know the world needs it!

Guy two: yeah *drunk mumblings that followed were so incoherent I gave up trying to follow*

Guy one: On point! Almost there!

From that point they got really quiet and I looked back to see Guy two nose deep into his phone and Guy one with his head back and mouth open. I am talking coma style OUT!

The ride was only about a ten minutes long, so these guys were in and out. And what was even funnier was seeing Guy one snap back online the second I pulled up to their stop. It was like his drunk GPS sent him an alert to notify him to boot up!

And to sum up their conversation…I am not sure what was going on but they understood each and that is all that matters.

After I dropped of Guy one and Guy two I drove past a park, nothing all that interesting till I spotted the office chair and what looked like a group of way ward hippies.

That is actually a common sight in San Fran but the next thing I see is sadly also becoming all to common:

About four of the six people in the group where casually injecting substances into each other’s arms. They were not trying to hide this or even make it a little less obvious of what they were doing. I mean for fuck sakes they had an office chair in the middle of this grassy area next to the sidewalk shooting each other up!

So if you are planning to come to San Fran, and I would advise to do so, be prepared to see lots of homeless people straight up camping on sidewalks, junkies doing drugs right in front of you, dodging piles of human poop on the sidewalk and taking in all the sites that the brochures promised! My advice: take one of those bus tours first and ask lots of questions. There are some places you really need to avoid! They are probably one of the more interesting areas but they are seedy to the tenth power. Here are a few places to avoid:

1) The Tenderloin: trust me on this….don’t go there!

2) The Mission District: it’s ok in the day time but after 8pm….just don’t

3) 6th ave: there a couple of cool bars/clubs/restaurants on 6th ave but at night this place is FUNKY!

I am not here to bash San Francisco, it is a very cool place to go. We go down to the Fisherman’s Wharf all the time! But like with any big city it has its issues. I listed the three I know from personal experience, there are other places you might want to avoid. Just check the internets, Siri can be a big help with that….

Me: Hey Siri, what are some areas to avoid in San Francisco?

Siri: Ok here is a listing of massage spas you have visited in the past week. Should I call ‘Madam Smooth Hands’ for you?

Me: Siri; No, erase all save data, purge all saved cookie, clear browser history and self destruct!

Well maybe Siri cannot help you, just be sure to speak slowly and overly annunciate all the words. One mispronounced word can change how you view technology as a whole!

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Road Journal Story Time: Story # 4

This story starts with a ping to go pick up ‘Steve’, he has his profile picture set and his address is only a few minutes away from my current location. (FYI people; if you use Uber or Lyft please set your profile picture, it really helps us out.)

I see from his profile he is an older gentleman with this sly little smile on him, cool lets roll! I arrive at his address, very up scale gated community. He come out and he is dressed to kill; black three piece suite, purple stripped tie and a black shirt. I first thought he might be heading to a funeral but I was wrong, just a benefit dinner for blah blah and blah.

Right off the bat if found out he is a talker. I get a read on people as they get in my car: Talkers, Mutes, Workaholics, Drunks, or the ‘Dear God I Hope This Ride is Over Soon’. I have one other one: ‘Invisible Driver’. This one needed a little more explanation. These are the riders that act like I am not even there and talk to each other about some of the most interesting things. Like the time I got these three Bros that were making plans to buy steroids to get jacked for their Halloween party in Vegas and step by step plans on how there were going to get the cocaine……Hey, dudes….you might not want to put that type of info on blast. Just saying….

So, Steve goes on to tell me that he is 86 and just had his drivers licenses taken form him. He said he has a nice BMW that he needs to sell, he said it is not that big of deal. He does not really go out much and its never very far when he does, but he said and I quote:

‘The said that my fainting spells behind the wheel was the main factor to why I should not be driving. But that is what makes life so interesting and exciting.’

He said this with a straight face, then the smile came out and he laughed it off. This was going to be one of those fun rides! He went on to tell me that he was a teacher back in the 60’s but was not making the money he needed to raise his family. It seems teachers salaries have always been on the fuzzy end of the lollipop!

He opened up a swim school, which he said was his money maker. The swimming business did very well for him and he even handed the business over to his son, who to this day is still running it. He then leans over and says this:

‘Want to hear something funny? I don’t know how to swim! I can teach someone how but throw my ass in a lake and I am done for! Swimming in a pool that you can stop and stand up in is one thing, but being in an environment where you cannot do that…..count me out.’

I just about spit laughing when he told me this, but then I thought about the person who taught me how to swim. It was when I worked at Bally’s Gym as the juice bar guy. The swim instructor would come and I would give her the hook up on the protein, and she hooked me up with some lessons. And come to think of it, I never once saw her in the pool! She did all the water aerobic classes, adult swim classes and so on, but not once did she get wet! I bet she was the same way! The pool was only about four feet deep so if she had to jump in to save someone, swimming would not really been necessary haha!

As our trip continued our conversation went on about all the usual things, and came to an end when I dropped him off at this high-end members only type of golf course. My car was the only one there that was not in the $100,000 range…..well excuse my KIA!

I dropped off Steve and went on my way, these are the type of rides I hope for. I hope the best for Steve and pray that he is never surprised by a deep body of water anytime soon.

I will end this post a little different, I love sharing pictures so I will end this post with one from about 18 years ago. I always end my post with the words: Journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything. I say this because time moves way too fast and I love the fact I have my journals and pictures to look back on. 18 years ago I married my best friend and by no means does it feel like 18 years!

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Road Journal

Today’s post is about……yep another journal! This one I actually found, a nice black leather Moleskine pocket journal! I did contact the person it belonged to, they had only used one page, and listed their name and an email. I sent them an email stating I had found it and three years later I still have not heard from them….Dufresnes party of two….has anyone seen the Dufresnes…who can eat at a time like this, the Dufresnes are missing….and if you do not get that reference you are a sad little person.

So after about a month of not hearing from the owner I took it an put it in my car, it was going to be a journal for anything note worthy during my driving job. I started driving part time for an app based taxi service (Uber and Lyft ) back in 2016. I am not sure about the legal ramifications of putting my passengers dirty laundry out here so lets just say I am a Taxi Dork or TD for short. I will change the names, dates, locations and even embellish a few details for story telling purposes but for the most part what I am going to share did happen. Please keep in mind when you get in my car, you are MY entertainment!

I will share three stories from the road journal today, these stories are not works of fiction. As time goes on I will share more of these, there are too many to plop out all in one post. On with the first post of the Road Journal Story Time:

Story #1:

While out and about I was driving through a generic nondescript downtown area and I saw a guy walking down the sidewalk. Nothing out of the ordinary but you could see that he was drunk or high. He had that thousand yard stare and very stiff movements, but then I saw the one thing that made this a true spectacle….in his left hand he had a fist full of uncooked lasagna! I tried my best to get his attention just to see if he would even register what planet he was on, but sadly he was locked in the throws of a pasta night daydream. He walked on like an Olive Garden solider, left, left, right, left….oh shit did you see that plumber stomp the crap out of that turtle!

Story 2:

Out driving one day and I ended up in the hills of fuck nowhere-ville San Jose and I get a ping from a possible passenger. I say possible because there are all kinds of things that can happen between the ping and your cheeks gracing the fabric of the car of awesome. But any-who, I am driving through the hills of San Jose and as I turned a corner, I see a small group of people just standing in the street. There was even a guy kneeling down on the grown holding up his phone, he was either taking a picture or a video of something. So, I rolled on up and go around this strange man….and then I saw it….the biggest fucking spider I have ever seen, just crossing the street! I swear it was as big as a soft ball! I would have loved to have gotten out of my car and gone over and used the guy kneeling down, inches away from this nightmare inducing creature, like a club and kill it before it reproduces! But I had a passenger waiting for me and with a little bit of luck we would be driving far far away!

Story 3:

I will finish off this post with one of favorite stories of alcohol, gambling and very poor life choices.

There I was out doing my duty, trying to earn some extra money doing my Taxi Dorking. I get a ping, just around the block from where I was parked, at the casino. Most of the pick ups I get here are from people that work here, but this night was going to prove to have a bit more spice! The second he got in I knew this was not going to go as planned. He literally jumps in and then jumps out mumbling something about his cellphone being in the casino. He returns just a few seconds later with his cellphone in hand and gets in the back. I confirm his name and the address I was dropping him off at, drunks have a tendency of just getting into any car. That has never happened to me but I have heard some stories about that from other drivers.

Now to add just a pinch more of ‘Dear Gawd’ to this story the ride was to be a Shared Ride event. This is where cheap asses share their ride with other strangers going in the same ‘general’ direction. You get a cheaper price for their ride when using this option. For the record, drivers LOVE these type of request!…Just to clarify we do not. Well I do not. If you send a request for a shared ride, I will not wait any more than the required time before I am allowed to cancel, collect my fee, and bounce. No hard feelings, you get 5 minutes to come out. No soup for you! If you send for a regular request I will go out of my way to find you, call you, even get out of my car if I see you need help. But shared, you get five minutes and we (or me) are out!

Back in the car of awesome we have this rather intoxicated man rolling around in the back seat, nothing really going on until he decides to face-time his girlfriend. Just as hi does this I get another request to pick another single serving friend! Now, this guy is in a suit, sober as a judge and looks about as square as square can be. He is about to serious regret his decision to go cheap on this ride.

Here is the dialog from the Casino Man and his soon to be ex girlfriend:

(Keep in mind this is on Face-Time on his phone and at full volume)
Casino Man: Hey baby whats up?
Girl: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!
Casino Man: I….I am *urp* in the taxi coming home, where are you?
Girl: I just got home from WORK and you were supposed to either be home or out looking for a FUCKING job! Where have you been?
Casino Man: Ah baby I got bored and went to the casino….
Girl: WHAT…with what money!!! Dont tell me you just spent our rent money on booze and gambling!
Casino Man: What, are you talking about I will pay you back
Girl: You have no MONEY and NO JOB *incoherent screaming and cursing in Spanish filled the next 20 seconds or so* 
Casino Man: Baby, I dont know why you you you are so mad, I should be the one that is mad. The only reason I went out was because I thought you were cheating on me.
Girl: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! *More screaming and cursing, not sure what language was being used at this point, it was pure anger in its rawest form at this point*

It was about at this moment I came to his stop, and he staggered out and I gunned it! I did not want to be there when his girl sent him into the next life ass first. As all of this was unfolding the other guy, who was sitting in the front seat, did not move a muscle. It looked like had gone into shock or something, he was so far out of his comfort zone I swear he was seconds from jumping out of the car. I pulled up to his stop just a few minutes later and he gets out without a word. No words ever came out of the suit. I really wished he would have said something but after thinking about it his silence. It would have made it that much more entertaining for me. The second he was out of sight I bust out laughing, and this is why I do this. Yes I love the money but you cannot make up this shit!

I have more stories but lets just say that is enough for now.

So till next post; journal often, journal more and take pictures of everything.