today’s uber story was one of the best in conversations, round trip. For the most part, my experiences here riding uber living in the SF Bay Area are smooth , compared to my husband who always, on one part or the other was less soothing.
Angela, my driver on the way to the City was a fifty-something sweet of a woman who’s a San Francisco native. We clicked right away, I always ask when I come inside the car how long they’re ubering for, and for a short time of 3 weeks, she has 5 stars already. She handed me a see’s candy and her car was equipped with the essentials! even offered mirrors and a birthday card!
I always ask the uber drivers whats the worst passenger they’ve had. For the most of her stint in uber, she just had one. She shared how one rich passenger gave her an awful comment on despite her 35minute effort to bring the passenger to the airport, she got a report that she was speeding. WTF right. But wisdom comes with age I guess as she just shrugged it off, and says that the positives definitely outnumbers the negatives.
Angela told me also about a note from a mother’s passenger about how she changed the passenger’s life by offering advice on taking college right after graduation, as opposed to the kid’s initial decision on “taking a year off to discover myself”which is basically a millenial’s templated way of thinking from kids.
She shared about her Italian roots and how her 5 year age difference from her Sicilian husband didn’t matter, and that Italians are prejudiced against each other, her thoughts as well about the story on about how a lot of immigrants are taking away the jobs was eye-opening. she said, when you think about it, all of us are immigrants, she said, despite being born and raised in the Bay Area she said, we all came from another part of the world or the other.
Her motherly ways is amazing, and her navigation was awesome, not to mention her cute way of trying to relate in my Filipino roots by speaking a little tagalog, which I found endearing. For that over 30 minute ride, it didn’t seem like it, and when she dropped me off at my destination I said I sincerely hope to meet hera gain, and for a moment there I got teary eyed, cos conversations were that good.
In Japantown, I got a ride from John, a teacher for over 2 decades living in Japan, but now back in his native San Francisco. Ubering for 2 years, He said it’s a coincidence to drive by Japantown.
He compared the way Japananese kids treat their teachers, which is an entirely opposite way of how kids in the US teach theirs, and yes, I have to agree, coming from the Philippines as well, we treat teachers like rock stars. It’s funny how when I said “how come most of the kids here don’t respect the elders?” and he said “well you have to stop at respect.. they dont’t respect everyone!” and we both laughed. the education system he said is flawed, well whose system is perfect, anyway although I would understand since he taught at one of the best schools in Japan, which I fuckin forgot.
If there’s anything Uber has done apart from revolutionizing the way people take public transportation, it’s that connection between logical people-person humans who like to converse and get to know others.
There might be some negative experiences, about Uber, sure but as Angela’s story about her one bad uber passenger resonated with me, she said that it’s one negative out of a hundred positives.
