Taxi Lives

(The term "junior" is used by graduates and undergraduates to refer to someone in a academic batch below/behind them.) It was a bit of a rainy day. I had decided to turn on my Uber app as usually on days like this, the price of an Uber ride goes up. This is called surge pricing. Some customers have later asked me if Uber increases the prices during rainy times. But there is no such thing, it's a simple matter of demand and supply. Although there should be an algorithm that defines how far the rate per km goes up by, what happens on a rainy/busy day is that every one ends up getting taxis, creating a demand more than the usual. I got my first hire soon after I turned on the app. The customer was on the other side of the road and unfortunately for me, this meant I had to drive about a kilometer further down to turn around. I tried calling the customer and he did answer my call. Fortunately given the circumstance and unfortunately for me, this meant that I had to go arou...

It was quite a rainy morning. We were going through the monsoon season, so this wasn't much of a surprise. I decided to start my day early. My first customer happened to be someone who was travelling to the domestic airport nearby. This was bit of a surprise because while it was technically a civilian airport as well, hardly anyone travels from there. The mystery was solved as soon as the customer got in to the car. He was an aircraft engineer and was reporting to work. I hope his work place was dry enough because there was no way he could last through the day with those soggy clothes otherwise. My second hire came in way before the first trip ended. This happens as Uber looks at proximity to the end of the trip when alerting of new hires as opposed to the end time. I was still new to the whole process and accepted the hire without thinking twice. Even before I finished the ongoing hire, I got a call from the new customer, "What exactly is the route shown to you? You ha...