Rate your trip
I have a bit of a dilemma, and I do mean bit in the sense that I know I won’t do anything substantial about it or even devote much more time to it than I already have. And so I guess my coup de grâce — being so unceremoniously delivered — in an essay distributed to a paltry following (that’s you) seems fitting.
Now I find it rather telling that I should care to expound upon my 4.65 Uber rating. It’s a score that reveals nearly nothing about me as a person or even how I treat Uber drivers.
Am I already coming off as defensive?
I’d rather be offensive and get ahead of it — not offensive in the sense of insulting Uber drivers, of course. What I mean is that I hardly had a fair shake from Uber. You’d think the score would at the very least serve some prophylactic value in admonishing the purportedly lousy passenger for future course correction. And where lousy behavior never actually transpired, would at least allow them — Uber corporate — to correct their own lousy and dictatorial behavior in assigning shit ratings to unknowing passengers who did nothing wrong to begin with.
I didn’t really care that much though.
Then, just yesterday, Stephen came along. This guy — Stephen — pulled up in a defiantly off-color Nissan Sentra. It was a clear sky’s baby blue. That wouldn’t have a been an issue except that the Uber app advertised the car as a BLACK Nissan Sentra. Now I ordinarily wouldn’t want to make a fuss about it or my Uber rating for that matter. That is until I learned that this guy mockingly boasted a 4.99 rating while I, not driving the wrong and now that i consider it possibly even stolen vehicle, shamefully slid into the back seat with a 4.65. It felt like a personal indictment of my character. Was this guy — sorry I mean Stephen — in on it?
I don’t generally bite on conspiracies unless they’re so obvious like JFK as to be fact but this one was right in front of me, the evidence perfectly concealed in an avuncular and infuriatingly kind double-agent named Stephen. And they would’ve gotten away with it except that the fingerprint of a 4.99 Uber rating could not be ignored.
I didn’t really care that much though.
Except I had then, by circumstances just described, relegated myself to a prison of my own making in the back of this guy’s not-black-but-baby-blue vehicle. So I retreated to the even more sinister prison inside my head. And suddenly I knew why they — Uber corporate — had sent my rating to the depths at which it now sat.
And now the reason for my abysmally low Uber rating
I’m not one of those people who customarily resorts to the Irish exit, and certainly not without cause, which, for reasons both pertaining to pride and potential litigation, I shan’t detail here. I only mention it to suggest that I’m seldom alone in my Ubers. My co-passengers are, ostensibly, my friends. But, as I sit here, ensconced in my mobile prison of perceived betrayal, a horrid realization dawns upon me. My co-passengers are actually Stephen’s co-conspirators. Their incessant, almost ritualistic requests for the aux cord, their cacophonous, alcohol-lubricated howls from behind me, their chain-vaping plumes of sickly-sweet Elfbar — these aren't merely annoying quirks, but meticulously planned micro-transgressions designed to torpedo my rating in this increasingly dystopian gig economy.
While I'd love to emphasize, yet again, that I don’t really, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, care all that much—it has become painfully clear that my inaction, my sedentary acquiescence in the faux-leather backseat of this gig economy charade, can't go on. This isn’t just Uber, it’s the very foundation of the new-age economy that purports, with a sheen of altruism, to empower the hoi polloi, capitalize on dormant assets, and liberate the workforce. Yet beneath its shiny veneer lies a twisted tapestry of inflated surges, abruptly cancelled rides, and worst of all, the systematic demonization and scapegoating of unassuming riders like myself—foisted upon the sacrificial altar for the greater good. It’s almost Kafkaesque in its complexity, but then, isn’t that the point?
So, in solidarity with all the outmoded, perhaps nostalgically remembered taxi drivers and all the unassuming passengers just trying to mind their own business while their Uber drivers launch into unanswered dialogue about the weather:
Who is John Galt?