I decided it was finally time to start driving rideshare again. It was something I enjoyed before the pandemic. I was able to make decent money doing it, even in the day time. I started driving again this past Tuesday.
The entire rideshare experience has changed a lot. Not only is the demand is much higher, I’m also doing food delivery. I signed up for Doordash and added Uber Eats to my Uber driver account.
To illustrate just how much the demand in Hagerstown has gotten, this was the surge I discovered after dropping off a passenger:
The way a surge works is upon driving into a surge are, the surge amount is added to your next request. I messed up with this surge. Notice how I’m online? I should have gone offline and drove to the $28 surge area, and then went online. Instead, I stayed online and as soon as I drove into the red area, I got a food delivery request with a $15 surge. It was a rookie mistake. It will not happen again.
When I drove for Uber and Lyft before, I usually had to wait between requests for rides. Not anymore. This past week, I would drop someone off, and before I could find a place to park, a new request would come in. The apps also tell you before you accept a ride or a delivery how much you will earn before you accept a request. They also tell you how long it will take and how many miles you will drive. Uber, Lyft, and Doordash seem to be committing fully to the concept of drivers being independent contractors. Good.
In four days driving less than seven hours a day, I made $438.63. That works out to about $15.64 an hour.
I plan on driving more this week than I did last week. Last week I was just trying to get reacclimated to everything. So far, so good.
It occured to me that what I did last week was not actually “rideshare.” I was delivering food as well. Delivering food is not rideshare. It needs to be called something else. I’ve heard people refer to it as “gig work.” That’s a more accurate term.