The B-Side: How Things Are Going in L.A.
Part One: An Uber Eats Story
Preface
“Once I dreamt I was a butterfly… now I do not know whether I was a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am a man.” — Zhuangzi
I’ve been writing a lot lately about my life as a young man in New York City. And I haven’t been giving a lot of updates here about my current life in Los Angeles. The good news is, I’m not struggling. The bad news is, I’m not not struggling, either. Which is not to say I’m doing badly - the rent is paid, the utilities are up-to-date, the car-that old Alley Cat-still runs.
But I’m entering my final semester of my senior year at USC, at their film school, a very prestigious and very expensive institution. I recently had to leave a lucrative writing job, writing comedy videos for a trillion dollar corporation (their actual valuation - not a comical exaggeration). It saw me producing work I am proud of that is protected by an NDA I can’t afford to break, so you’ll never see any of it.
The job I liked, but the corporate world’s “drop everything and hold a thirty-minute meeting” mentality clashes with my school’s commitment to loose guidelines like “missing classes means you will fail them”.
So I’m currently driving for Uber Eats.
Introduction
“The more laws and restrictions there are, the poorer people become.” — Lao Tzu
It began as research for a screenplay I’m currently outlining about a struggling actor in L.A., and I needed a way to describe a man hitting rock bottom in one sad image. And boy did I nail it.
That would be this: Imagine walking up a flight of stairs to deliver a burrito to a man who lives a block-and-a-half from Chipotle. Imagine that you know in advance he didn’t tip, because you are only getting paid two bucks.
That’s not the worst of it.
Nor is it the fact that the man had me leave it outside his door, like an Elizabethan servant person. No, it was the fact that I didn’t mess with his food in any way, because if I flattened his burrito with my sneaker and he reported me… Uber would take my two dollars away.
I needed to protect my two dollars.
Rock. Bottom.
Then I continued driving for Uber Eats for the standup comedy bits. I started doing the above as part of a set and I was getting laughs. So I began to dig even deeper into my experiences driving in the new no-union gig economy.
And here’s the real secret to the success of the delivery app system: services like Uber Eats allow middle class people to finally be able to also afford slaves.
That’s right, I said it. And I said the “s word” which is verboten these days. And if you’re mad at me for saying it, then my question is: Why aren’t you mad at the corporations that are doing it?
Corporations that make the apps that allow-no, demand-drivers take bad deals (~$4.50 for 20 minutes driving, just above the state minimum wage in California if you get three of those in a row, which you won’t) or they won’t get good-paying deals.
The app that allows customers to promise a decent tip and then take it away after they’ve been served for arbitrary reasons, or even no reason at all. An app that will punish you with no recourse for appeal on the grounds of an accusation by the user of “being unprofessional”. An odd and nonspecific charge from someone who never met you face-to-face and never will.
Because here’s the truth. We were all of us in America taught in our schools about the evils of slavery. But there was that one kid, the one who sat in the second row, who when he talked to you would maintain eye contact with an object a thousand yards behind your eyeball. The kid who laughed a quarter second after everyone else did, and stopped abruptly a quarter second after everyone else did.
And that kid - he learned the wrong lesson. He heard phrases in that lesson like “slaveowners grew rich”, “unpaid labor”, “lived in big houses”, “ran the government.” And that kid said to themselves, “I’m hearing a lot of upsides.”
And that kid is now an MBA, a programmer, a tech bro, a venture capitalist.*
So I drive Uber Eats to get through the next, my final semester at school and then launch myself into whatever show business is in 2025, the year of our Lord.
When it comes to driving Uber Eats, I’m like a machine. By which I mean, I make just enough money for gas and groceries - essentially for fuel to keep working through the next shift.
Okay, I promised you a story. This is a true story, it happened a month ago.
Or as Bill Cosby put it, the reason I told you all of that is so I can tell you this.
A Story
“People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is available only in the present moment.” — Thích Nhất Hạnh
I was a block away from a restaurant, picking up an order when the customer canceled. Let’s call her Roxanne. Because that’s her real name. Not a huge deal, other than it probably cost me three dollars burning gas to not make the five the delivery would have paid. And there wasn’t much to the order - just two empanadas and a drink. An eight dollar order plus the $27 in fees and tip.
Here’s the thing I knew. I had about three minutes to make it to the restaurant before whoever was behind the counter saw that it was canceled, and I could pick it up and take those empanadas home.
This is one of those what smart people call “ethical grey areas.” The food is already made. The restaurant staff will most likely either dump it or give it away to the next customer. In fact, the app sent me a message telling that if I had already picked up the order I could now throw it away.
And I had plans to dump those empanadas into the garbage can that is my mouth.
So the restaurant doesn’t care, except for not getting paid. The app doesn’t care because I could die on the road and as long as I’d dropped off the three McFlurries that cost $48 first, I could log off forever.
So now I’m rushing. I get to the restaurant. I do the standard food delivery app parking job - right in the middle of the street to make it impossible for traffic to get around me, with my blinkers flashing just to let other drivers on the road know that I am fully aware, and that I’m being an asshole on purpose.
I run in to pick up the food. I get in line, I’m second in line.
And I hear the woman in line in front of me say, “I’m Roxanne, I’m picking up my order.”
She got there first. And what could I say? “Excuse me, miss, that woman is stealing the food I was going to steal.”
Two empanadas and a drink. Eight dollars worth of food.
I couldn’t be mad. I watched her walk off holding the paper bag, and I felt a kinship. Here we are, two broke people, living on the margin. One of us - one of our people and taken on the system at its own game and she had won.
I swear. I almost followed that woman out the door and called her my sister. But I didn’t for two reasons.
The first was, that would have been creepy. She might have pepper sprayed me and I might have deserved it.
The second is, I was still next in line. And the woman behind the counter asked for my order. And I realized I couldn’t just say, “Oh no I’m just here to steal. But the food I was going to steal is gone so I guess I’ll just go.”
No, I had to order my dinner. And it cost me $12 to not steal $8 worth of food. And it cost me $3 in gas to not make $5. So far I’d lost $28. But I wasn’t mad. I couldn’t be.
Roxanne wasn’t my enemy. She’s just another person playing a game that was rigged against her before she was born, and she won.
The restaurant wasn’t my enemy. They lost out on food and money.
The app isn’t my enemy. It just does what Uber programmed it to do.
And the CEO of Uber isn’t my enemy. He doesn’t know I exist.
So I have no enemies, and somehow I keep on losing.
Afterword
“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” - Confucius
I guess the moral of this story is, one more semester and then that’s the end of the delivery app life.
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