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verykimmy · 6 years ago

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My First 4 Months Doing Uber

So I mostly created this tonight because I've seen all of the horrible things being said about Uber drivers during the strike yesterday and wanted to say my piece. I started doing Ubereats 4 months ago. I was excited to have a job, I still am. 7 years ago I was hit hard with chronic illness that stripped everything from me. I worked in music for 15 long years, eventually starting a record label, and up until 3 years ago was content in my field of choice. My health got terrible along with doctors putting me on a host of meds, and I had to leave the business. The stress was swinging me into pain flare ups. My engagement also ended around the same time. My heart broken, I was out on my own, in bad health with no one to turn to and no one would give me a job because of my health and I couldn't get disability as sick as I am because I live in the state of Georgia and they didnt expand Medicaid.

I was super excited when I found Ubereats. I qualified barely with my 1999 car and it would allow me to make my own schedule so if i had a flare up and had to be home in pain, no one would fire me. It also made enough money to pull me out of the hole that my engagement ending and medical bills had put me in. I started driving, very happy to get to meet people and make money in the city i loved and lived in 25 years, Atlanta. So, every day i would get up, drive the hour and a half there because there are no jobs in my country town and no one would give me one anyway with my health.

At first it was awesome. I was like "Wow, I can make great money driving and picking up and dropping off food", and I couldn't be happier. I was having to pull overnight 12 hour shifts after I realized there was no money like I needed on day shifts, which was fine, I adjusted. The overnight helped me because pain is bad for me at night and gives me insomnia, so early mornings are hard for me. Then, after about 3 weeks I started realizing the bad to the job.

Late nights customers are requested to come down in bad areas, and you cant avoid those areas, because if you turn down too many orders you get messages saying you've cancelled too much. You get order after order way across Atlanta on the bad sides of town and you either have to take them or not make money. It ended up being not so bad until I had to deliver to an area known for drug dealing and violence. I was scared to death. I messaged the customer to please come down for her food (she only had a few steps), and she came charging out to my car, ripped the food from my hand and twisted my hand screaming for me to get out of my car so she could kick my white cunt ass. I booked it away from there, called support and they just said call the police. That was it....just call the police. Where was my company I was working long painful hours for?

After that the area scared me, but I had to do my job. I started noticing on late late weekend nights, customers would order and not put gate codes, apartment numbers and not answer us or just not answer in general. I couldn't tell if they were passing out, falling asleep or if it was some scam to get money or food somehow the next day. I strongly feel that they place big expensive orders, dont answer, we have to cancel after calls, texts, putting the timer on, knocking and even calling support, and they call back the next day getting free food or money they never spent. I still feel that way.

The problem? When that happens, we get an email the next business day saying we committed fraud. If you cover yourself calling support etc, the customer gets mad and submits fake reviews. One late Sunday night I was working and it happened a few times, and I received an alert that my account was frozen and could get no more orders. Someone reported I was in a wreck I was never in and they wanted pictures. It was a busy night and was costing me, but I complied. I pulled to a lit gas station, took pics of my car and sent them over with an explanation that I'd had a few bad customers in a bad area. Instead of letting me go back to work, I had to drive the long ride home having only made gas money and lost $250 in pay after it took 2 days to straighten out. The same thing happened a month later when someone reported I was drinking and driving although I dont drink. Another $250 loss. I started to realize that the company I was so excited about didnt care about me.

Over and over these things would happen. Crazy things. 2 months ago my little sister went into the ICU dying and I missed a month of work, the weekend back, I was struggling to make enough to catch up bills I got behind on. That Monday, I received an alert my fast pay was taken away, that I had committed fraud stealing food. It was after a long weekend of overnight driving and I had so many people not bother to answer the door. For us, no fast pay means no gas money through the night. With gas at $3.19 a gallon in Atlanta, me doing 12 hour shifts and living so far away, it rendered me jobless. I had to spend 2 weeks begging for my job, sending over screen shot after screen shot of it happening to hundreds of drivers. Obviously something isnt right. Obviously if its happening so much to so many drivers something is going on. I lost $2000, the money to fix my car that 4 months of driving put 34,000 miles on. An old 1999 Mercedes, an expensive fix.

After 2 weeks they finally let me go back to work only to find out that pay was reduced, promotions taken away and gas went higher. I was in debt, had lost money and my car was now breaking down. It finally stopped running this week. I'm penniless, carless and Uber just says tough, not our problem. I'm back stuck in the country with health issues, no doctors, cant go do my job and will only make barely over gas if I could. Theres so much more....illegal restaurants in people's homes, guns in our faces, being called names, no help from support that barely understands us, but that's been my last 4 months so far.

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