“What does this mean for my drivers?
In a nutshell, more work, if you want it. Uber, together with other corporate and blue-chip demand partners will be directing significant additional demand to your business supplementing your own trips – which means less dead miles for drivers and greater weekly earnings potential.”
Of course, Uber is based on hype, or what I have always called ‘Uber-Speak. Let’s not forget that the Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, stated back in 2019 that he wanted the $1.50 ride. See:
tinyurl.com/onedollarride.
However, whilst the ‘Uber Local’ service has ceased, it is very clear that the Uber bods sitting around the table have been scratching their heads to come up with another plan because some bright spark came up with ‘Uber Chore’. Yes folks, if you need your toilet cleaned then get on the Uber app and choose ‘Uber Chore’ and you will have an ‘Uber Odd-Jobber’ sorting out those stubborn ‘Jobbies’ that won’t flush away!
Or, if you have had a huge New Year’s Eve dinner party and cannot be bothered to wash up or even clear up the vomit left by your guests then go straight to ‘Uber Chore’ and your ‘Uber Odd-Jobber’ will be around in a jiffy with his or her pink marigolds to get stuck in.
Maybe this is needed to prop up Dara’s pay cheque of $24m so pull up your sleeves you Uber drivers and strap on your pinny’s. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up! I had to look at which month we were in to check it wasn’t April when I read about ‘Uber Chore’.
However, I do recall years and years ago we had a lonely old lady who would phone us up at the cab office to send a driver to play cards with her for a couple of hours. So, the driver got paid his time, plus there could be the bonus of winning at poker as well!
Another one was an old gent who would phone up for a driver to take his rubbish down several flights of steps on the day before the collection. We still get calls for shopping jobs which some drivers are happy to do. So based on this, ‘Uber Chore’ isn’t new.
Lastly on Uber (no I am not fixated) I see that Uber is now looking at introducing ‘Uber Cash Jobs’.
Wow...so innovative! First Uber introduced ‘Scheduling’ which was a reinvention of what local cab companies have
PHTM DECEMBER 2023
done for donkey years; taking pre-bookings, and now it is going full circle and looking to have drivers take cash for jobs. Whatever will it do next?
Oh Yes, ‘Uber Chore’ But maybe, out of principle, only use locally licensed drivers and not drivers licensed hundreds of miles away and ‘out-of-sight’ and ‘out-of- mind’ of respective local enforcement.
LONDON CABBIES ON OUR RANKS
We still have some arrogant London cab drivers who think that it is perfectly acceptable to use our busy ranks for free private parking, like this one who left the cab on a very busy rank at a recent weekend for over eight hours.
This is absolutely not acceptable and I would like to thank those London cab drivers who replied to my Twitter post that shamed this driver and supported us. Although of course there was the odd post stating “Snitches get stiches”. Really how quaint.
London cabs using our ranks only adds to the continuous issues with out-of-town private hire drivers also using our ranks which are reported to our Licensing Department to deal with, along with the public plonking their cars on the ranks as well.
However, from now on we will be reporting any
metropolitan London cab that blocks a rank directly to TfL, so it will be interesting to see what and if any action is taken and whether the driver would be regarded as being ‘Fit & Proper’. At the time of writing this it has been over two weeks since the complaint was put in, but hopefully I can report back on this in January 2024.
So, with Christmas just around the corner I wish you a very good one, and let’s hope that we all get what we deserve!
….and don’t forget to call ‘Uber Chore’ to scrub your oven of burnt turkey juices and to unblock your drains of stubborn animal fat and sprouts.
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