as you know, on the side i drive a little for Uber, the ride sharing company who continually claims they are not a transportation company but instead they are a technology company.

from time to time they have bonuses for the drivers if we hit certain goals.

the most common bonus they have is one that says if a driver picks up 30 trips over a three day period of time the driver will get a $150 bonus. there is also a fare guarantee that says if you pick up 1 1/2 rides (on average) a day during peak hours of that day then you will be guaranteed $30/hr gross,

which even for Uber Select drivers (those of us with luxury cars) is typically better than our regular hourly gross.

three weeks ago i participated in the bonus and achieved the goals. i have done this several times and each time i have received my bonuses. every now and then i will hit a snag with the customer service email person who says i didnt hit my goal, but after emailing them back and asking them to check their records again they admit they were wrong and i got my bonuses.

two weeks ago i hit my bonus but got an email saying i didn’t hit it. after a few back and forths they admitted they were wrong and gave me half of my bonus. i wrote back and said, dudes you admitted, properly, that you were wrong, wheres the other half. to that they did not respond AT ALL.

so i wrote back the next day, and the next day and the next day. this has now been going on for 11 days.

this technology company, valued at several tens of billions of dollars, seems hell bent on keeping the $135 that is owed to me. in a way they know they have me over a barrel because who sues for $135 and as a driver of a mercedes, i dont have any other ride sharing companies i can jump to very easily because Lyft doesnt offer the Select platform YET in LA.

but they will. and i will never forget how uber has treated me, someone who has driven for them for years, who has maintained a 4.9 rating out of (the impossible) 5.0 score, signed up passengers AND fellow drivers.

it makes me think if this is part of their profit plan: rip off 10,000 drivers on average of $150 and boom youve made $1.5 million dollars. and all you have to do is not answer their emails.

it couldnt be more frustrating and going into another weekend with an identical bonus dangling in front of my face it makes me wonder if im a jackass for going for it again. (yes i am a jackass if i go for it again).

yesterday i went to the LA office where they handle all sorts of Uber business. i dont know if they handle pay disputes. it was my lunch hour. i noticed how packed it was in there. when i signed in the machine told me the wait would be approximately one hour and twenty minutes. so obviously i didnt want to be late for my actual real job, so i stewed and wrote another letter to uber saying how unprofessional this is to freeze out a man who has driven for years for you.

and of course, received zero response.

today my real job is giving us a half day so i will venture into the HQ again. hopefully the line will be less than an hour’s wait.