The end of Uber.

It all started back around October.  I’m at home working and in our private chat that we have for technicians while discussing ways to make money on the side, someone says “Hey Frank, you’re in Houston now right? you should drive for Uber” to which I ask “Uber? wtf is that?”  – “It’s a car sharing service, you drive your car and pick people up and get paid $30/hour.” I was kind of skeptical at first but sure enough after researching the company, tried to find driver reviews and after telling my wife about it I signed up.  All you need to drive for Uber is 4 door vehicle, 2007 or newer, and have less than 120,000 miles along with your current registration and clean driving/background check.  Signing up took a few quick simple steps, submitting pictures of your car from the outside and inside and 3 days later I was sent a driving kit which included a Uber sticker, phone mount, cigarette usb lighter.  After installing the app on my smart phone I was ready to go.  I remember my first day being extremely nervous, but after the first few rides I settled in pretty quickly.  I only managed to pick up about 5 people totaling about $30 worth of fairs but considering how easy it was, I decided that this seemed like a good gig.

I started driving more frequently often on Sundays, since I figured everyone goes to Church, people need to drive to the airport, people who partied too much on a Saturday and sure enough that was the case.  I would start my day by washing my Kia Soul from the outside and clean it manually with a vacuum from the inside. I would pay close attention to small details, often I would sit in the back to adjust the front seats for the proper amount of leg room so that you have enough room for a normal sized passenger to not hit their knees but not too much room where it feels weird having the seat all the way up to the front. I wanted the passenger to have a good experience, I bought a medium sized bin to put mints, gum, hair gel, lotion, cologne, towelettes, hand sanitizer, waters and a lot of other goodies to make the passenger feel VIP, I took this idea from the washroom attendants at several bars where you go in the restroom and you can find just about everything you need to freshen up.  Many passengers complemented me in having a clean ride and of course having that little bin with all those goodies, made the passengers experience pleasant.  I was averaging on a typical Sunday $150 – $200 just for a few hours of work, and nothing more than just picking people up and taking them to where they needed to go.

After working Sundays, I decided to try my luck on Friday and Saturday nights since there is a big nightlife in Houston.  My earnings quickly doubled and I would easily make an extra $300-400 just for a few hours of driving, I often at times considered driving full time and quitting my regular job,  seriously the pay was good and all you have to do is pick people up, too good to be true right? Well unfortunately around February after a long winter break I decided to play basketball again and the first game that I went to the gym, I had a freak accident and broke my right hand. Doctor told me I would be out for 6 weeks and although I could still drive with my left hand, I decided not to drive for Uber for the reason that there’s a lot of people that would look at you weird and question why are they trusting you with their life while you can’t even hold the steering wheel correctly.  During my recovery, Uber started making a lot of regulations to implement that all drivers driving for them are licensed with the City of Houston and that you have the proper permits for each of the airports and as well as extra background checks and fingerprint which would be about $300 out of pocket and a whole’s day of running around and complying. With Uber rapidly becoming very popular around the city meant that more drivers signed up each day and meant more drivers going around and making less money.  I have been in a group called “Uber Houston” on facebook where drivers can join and share the stories, every time I would check the page, people will be posting how many passengers they had picked up,  how many tips people would leave and people quitting their jobs to drive full time but now a days that group has nothing but tumbleweeds and many of the people who loved Uber with passion has quit and has looked for money elsewhere.

Uber is somewhere valued at about $50 billion dollars but like all corporate companies, greed is the number work force.  Their Houston Office is always at a temporary location at some discreet place that you only know about a week prior and after a few weeks a new email or text is sent out giving you the heads up of the new office.  The one office I went to in the beginning was at some small co-shared office in Rice Village that you could drive by and pass it since there wasn’t even a Uber sign or anything.  Uber takes a cut of every fare at 20% which seems quiet high for me since if you make $1000 bux in fares, Uber made $200 for really not doing anything other than providing an app on your phone that you use mean while you’re the one that has to provide a fairly new car, have it well maintained,  insurance, gas, carwashes ,  phone with internet.  So out of the $1000 in fares minutes 20% cut uber takes and minus all your expenses in reality you probably have made about $500 dollars.  Depending on where you live, your city may take a small percentage because they also want a piece of the pie, in Houston that is 2% of the total fare and 2% less for you. I forgot to mention that there isn’t a tipping option and Uber tells passengers that the tip is included but in reality it is not.

All in all, Uber is a great platform if you are a passenger, you just press the button on your phone and someone picks you up and it’s relatively inexpensive but for the driver, it really doesn’t make any sense anymore to basically work for peanuts.