Hour long Uber rides
Michelle and Ben spent 10 hours in Texas and mistakenly decided it'd be easier to Uber than rent a car.
We’re Over It: LONG DISTANCE UBERS
This past Monday night we were in Beaumont, Texas - 90 minutes east of Houston, to perform “Truth or Laughs” our interactive comedy + trivia gameshow for a college.
We had no time to spare between our flight landing and the show. As we’re getting in the Uber, the driver asks, “Where are you going?” We tell him and he goes, “I’m not driving you. Don’t get in. I’m cancelling it.” What is this, a Netflix show?
Ben starts to panic because it took ten minutes for this Uber to show up. Doing the math, he’d have to wait another ten minutes for the next driver. And then what if that one cancels too? Now we’d be so late we’re pregnant.
So Ben’s New Yorker instincts kick in and he gets in the Uber anyway. You can’t cancel someone that’s already sitting - those are the rules!
The driver starts complaining that although we’re paying $100 to Uber, he’s only gonna get $30 for the hour-and-a-half drive. We just want to get to the venue already to do the tech setup. Save your sob story for The Texas Tribune!
We offer to Venmo him the hundred bucks directly so it all goes to him. He says, “No. Because there’s insurance risks. And I’m concerned about your safety.” Is that a threat?!? Sounds like a threat!
Eventually the driver caves and takes us there. But not before guilting us into overtipping him. Was that his strategy all along? Was he lying about his cut to get a bigger tip? He seemed genuine enough that we’d cast him in the role of “disgruntled Uber driver.”
Now instead of rehearsing or relaxing in the Uber - we’re stressed out worrying that the driver’s gonna flip out again and decide to throw us out in the middle of cowboy country. We’re also spending half the drive going down rabbit holes of what Uber actually pays their drivers.*1
We get there, the show goes fine. And in the hopes of not having a similar situation on the way back, we use Lyft instead. Okay - you got us, Lyft was $2 cheaper, so that’s why we used it!
Did we have issues on the way back? Well there wouldn’t be a part two to this story if we didn’t….
(to be continued)
We’re Over It: NETWORKING
Our former acting agent, Johnny Dinapoli, is now a published New Yorker cartoonist! Here’s one of his latest - a snake at a networking event.
We’re Over It: SCREWING UP NAMES
One time Michelle got brought up by the wrong name. Go ahead and watch how she responded now
WHAT ARE YOU OVER?
Has an Uber ever refused to take you somewhere? What did you do?
ADD LAUGHS TO YOUR LIFE
We’re in Stamford, CT tomorrow night. If you’re in the area, there’s still some tickets available here.
😄 Learn to be funny up at Ben's Manhattan stand-up comedy class! The next six-week session starts on Sunday, May 12th. Get all the details here!
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*Feel free to ignore this whole note below*
The usual stat that Uber flaunts, that we thought was true, was the driver gets about 70%. We checked with a couple of NYC drivers we know, and they generally agreed. But here’s where the statistical manipulation gets interesting. Assume an Uber driver completes two rides:
First trip: $100 ride, Uber gets $50, driver gets $50 (that’s 50%)
Then second trip: $10 ride, driver gets $9, Uber gets $1 (that’s 90%)
If you average the percentages - the driver got 70% (avg of 90% & 50%)
If you average the dollars, the driver got 53% ($59 out of $110)
Both are technically mathematically correct.