Taxi Lives

The day before my first day as an Uber driver, I received an email and an in-app notification that my Uber account is active. My original plan was to start the new job on Friday or Saturday, but ever since I got the notification, the need to test it out was the only thing in my mind. "Well, I will check it out this just for today" I thought. There weren't any meetings set for that day for me on my regular job. "If I started an hour earlier than usual, I probably would be able to make to work on time as well". Besides, I knew that Uber does allow the drivers to set up two destinations each day. These were supposed to allow the driver to pick up riders who are going towards the same direction as their destination, at least that was the theory.  At the time, I wasn't familiar with the saying "Best laid plans of mice and men, oft go awry", but that's exactly how it went. I was an hour late than an hour early and decided to pick up whoever th...

"And what would you do after you retire?" This was the question asked from me most often when I told people I wanted to retire early. "I don't know, I could run an Uber." was my response. While I was never serious when I gave that answer, I think I always had it at the back of my mind that this was something that I could at least try out, and could in an odd way, be fun. While I had many taxis during the period of 2011 - 2015, the time taxi services became affordable and accessible to many Sri Lankans and had at length spoken to the drivers, I had no personal experience being a taxi driver. Besides, after I bought my car, I had used taxi services very sparingly. It is then that I read on Sanjiva Weerawarna's blog that he was trying out being an Uber driver . Him being the founder CEO of one of the biggest tech companies in Sri Lanka, it was quite fascinating to read about it and I think I wouldn't have been the only one who would have wanted to re...