After attending a compulsory briefing at Damansara Glomac, I decided to pick up my first ever Uber passenger. I was nervous at first but at the same time excited by the thought of inviting a total stranger to travel with me. After putting myself "online", I got a request as I was driving from Damansara Glomac heading to Mid Valley direction.
The first request gave me a thrill, to be frank, but it didn't end well. The pick-up location was set somewhere near Sime Darby Convention Centre. As I was about to reach the pick-up destination, the passenger canceled the request. I got upset and to make thing worst, I was not compensated for the effort to travel there. I realized this in a hard way since I wasn't paying much attention during the briefing. After the unpleasant experience, I carried on and picked up two passengers before I called it a day.
To share the rest of my experience of being a week-old Uber driver, the feeling wasn't really good in general. In spite of having had pleasant conversation with some passengers, sometimes I had to pump up the volume of the radio to make myself ignore the awkward silence in the car. Another unpleasant experience would be the inconvenience it has caused me. Before I participated the Uber briefing, I was under the impression that it is a ride sharing application, which mean I could pick-up and drop-off a passenger whenever I want to travel from point A to point B. But in fact, it wasn't the case. Most of the time, as I was traveling to point B, a request would come in and I had to send the passenger to point C. After dropping off the passenger to point C, I would have to go offline to avoid passenger. Of course, I could have reject the ride request but it would affect my rating.
In term of the reward, I did have high expectation on this part at first but I can't really complain since I have just doing it part-time. I have made a total of 10 trips in 7 days and the reward could only compensate me with (about) 6 venti size Starbucks iced latte. Despite the reward could cover my expenses on petrol but I am not sure if it worth the money that I have to spend on my car maintenance.
I have talked to another Uber partner in the middle of the past week and that person seems to be enjoying himself. He owns a business and does Uber during his free time for several months. Since a business owner is willing to spend his leisure time to do Uber, I assume his is getting lucrative reward from Uber. During our conversation, he shared his interesting experiences to me. He has met fighting foreign couple, upset young lady and insensitive foreign tourist. He could have shared more stories to me if we had more time that time. Although he has met people of different walks of life, people in different mood swing when they ride in his car, he still enjoy it and like to share the experiences to his friends.
The bottom line. If you have extra free time to spend, Uber could be an interesting method to kill some time while getting some reward. However, I do not know how it will be like doing Uber full-time. I am looking forward to meet more people and share the experience to me. Also, for those who decides to join and become a Uber or Grabcar partner, please be careful. As Malaysian taxi drivers are not happy with the fact that their business are affected, becoming a Uber or Grabcar partner should be laid low profile in order to avoid unnecessary trouble. Also, I have read news about local authorities have tolled 70+ partners' cars. So, if anyone decides to become partner, please do it at your own risk at the moment and have the companies' emergency contacts at your finger tip.
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