First, let me state that the irony of the name of this blog is interesting. Maybe "irony" isn't the right word. Prescience might be a better word. I started it several years ago when I was having to drive up and down the great state of California, peddling the wares of my father's advertising specialties business. Shortly after starting the blog, I quit the business and more-or-less quit my father for reasons that don't need to be detailed here. As I was no longer "in the Driver's Seat", I didn't feel I should continue the blog.
Since that time, I had a fairly successful stint as an in-home daycare provider wherein I did very little driving, a very unsuccessful stint as an accounts payable clerk (I hated the job and the job hated me, mostly in equal measure) where did drive a ways to and from but it wasn't fun, and a marginally successful, but woefully short turn as the one and only customer service manager at a dance studio (I LOVED the job, and most at the job loved me, but sacrifices need to be made sometimes) where the driving was also not fun.
During all of that, I've also been going to school, first at Willow-International Community College, as I will always think of it in spite of its name change to Clovis Community College, and then at Fresno State. I started off as a psychology major, then I went to a double major of psych and geography, then I completely dropped the psych, so I'm a full on geography major. My intention is to eventually teach the Social Sciences to high schoolers, who, I've heard, absolutely LOVE the Social Sciences.
The thing is, I'm in my senior year. Upper level geography classes are pretty thin on the ground at this point, so I take them when they're offered because there's no other time they're offered; they're offered at inconvenient times. Which means, I can't go to school AND have a job. Getting to this point in my schooling has been a particularly difficult road, being a single mother and all, and I'm not really willing to give up all that I've put into this ride. How does a single, middle-aged student with a 10-year-old navigate such waters?
Why, UBER, of course! (And her mother's incredible generosity, but more on that another time.) I had heard about UBER about a year ago when I saw an ad looking for UBER drivers. At the time I thought that nobody in their right mind would ever want to do that, ever. Over the course of that year I've had cause to rethink my reticence. I mean, UBER is all over social media, it's talked about on talk shows, and just recently I got an email from a friend who said they had traveled around a city using the service and loved it! So, I looked into it. Long story a wee bit shorter, now I'm an UBER driver!
Fresno isn't a huge market yet, but from what I can tell in the 3.5 days I've been an UBER driver, it's growing. I'm pretty busy for a couple of hours in the morning, taking people here and there, then once it starts getting hot, business starts to taper off, so I go home. I'm not getting rich, by any means, but I'm definitely helping out the budget.
The one thing that I realized right off the bat, though, was that I definitely need to be documenting my rides. I've had fewer than twenty fares, so far, but they've already been a wealth of giggles for me. From the mother and daughter who got into an argument about a guy that is keeping money from the daughter whilst the mom was jamming hard to Uptown Funk in the back seat, to the Saudi Arabian graduate student who is going to Fresno State because he thought that all of California was as beautiful as UC Davis where he studied English (sorry, dude), to the drunk guy and his two wives (his story, and he stuck to it) who tipped me $20 because I know what taiga is, I'm thinking that if this is what I've got in 3.5 days of working, I'm gonna have some fun!
So, after a long journey with many turns, I'm back in the Driver's Seat. At least for a little while.
Here's how Jimmy does it!
