Taxi Lives

 Ever had that need when you are going somewhere?

Trip distance: 8.90 km Earnings: 622 LKR It was another Saturday evening. The last customer I dropped off was a perfect example for a "useless" deal. The customer was waiting outside a popular cinema hall in Colombo and I received the hire nearly 1km away from him. As I got close to the location, I called the customer to check the exact location. This area is a network of one-way roads. If I mixed up the location with a mistake as simple as going to the other side of the road, I would have to drive around. The customer confirmed the location he was in and I continued to ask if they wanted to crossover to the other side of the road because they were travelling to that side. The answer was a curt "No". It was fascinating to see that they actually wanted to travel only 1.5km. Had they decided to cross the road over, it would have taken me a 500m less to pick them up. 1.5km to pick them up for a 1.5km travel. Great. My last hire for the day came from a famous hospital a

Trip distance: 41.54 km Earnings: 2301 LKR The weekend was good. We were on our office outing, and after two nights ready to head back home. After bidding farewell to my teammates, I got in to my car. There was a good 50+km drive back home and I wondered, "Why not make something out of it?"

Trip distance: 13.35km Earnings:666 LKR It was a weekday and I had taken the day off as I had to attend to some personal matter in the early afternoon and had to run some errands in the morning. I decided to take a few rides in between. This was the second passenger for the day. I looked at the distance I had to drive to pick the person up. It showed slightly over 1km. "This better be good," I told my self. As I approached the pick up location, I realised that it is a pretty narrow alleyway that I can't stay parked for long. I called the passenger. "Good morning, I am your Uber driver." "Ah, good morning, you are here?" it was a female who answered. "Yes Madam" "Ah ok I will comedown in a few minutes, can you go forward and park? There may not be much space" "Sure Madam," I replied. At least this was a sensible customer. I waited for a few mins to pick up. It was already few minutes on the waiting charges w

Trip distance:8.80km  Earnings:405 LKR Customer location indicated that they were at a diner. The time was around 2.30 PM and this was a weekday. I automatically thought that this should be some kids after their school. As I suspected, three teenagers got in to the car. I checked their destination, it was about 30 mins. I reconfirmed the location as I usually do with the passengers and started driving off. I could hear their idle chit chat at the back. And then a few loud whispers. The catch of being in a small hybrid hatchback is that almost all whispers are loud.

Trip distance:33.65km  Earnings:1425 LKR As I dropped off my first airport customer, I looked at my Uber app. After paying for the toll and the fine I had to pay, I was at a net loss. I was determined to run this "as a business", so I decided that I should wait for a trip back from the airport instead of driving back without a hire. When an Uber driver approaches an airport area, he or she is given an option to join a "queue". If you opt-out of the queue, you have to drive out of the designated areas to get more trips. When I did my first airport drop off, I didn't know any of these details, there was an option to join a queue, so I joined it.

Trip distance: 36.79km Earnings: 1724.25 LKR It was another Saturday. The first two hires for the day was just taking me around my residential area itself. I expected this to be a regular, or even possibly more boring, day. The fourth hire for the day directed me to pick someone from a new hotel that came up in Colombo. The name indicated someone from our neighbouring country. While I was on the way to pick him up, I got a call from him.

The week had been quite good so far. I had kind of figured out how the drive patterns work and what time of the day and what places in the city have reasonably profitable customers. When I got this booking from one of those areas somewhat quite early in to the night, I thought this was going to be just another routine hire like that. The gentleman I picked up was quite elderly. However having said that, I am sure that my father is at least two decades older than him, but this one gave off the vibe of being working for a very long time. Unlike many solo male riders, he chose to take the backseat. The trip was about 20km away. A good hire for some Uber drivers because it is a long hire. It was a better hire for me because it went somewhere close to my home. After a short inquiry of which route to take, we started chatting. "You know son, I work for the embassy", that's how the conversation started. I managed to contain my groan to one just inside my head. "Ah t