Ep. 176 Minneapolis(Twin Cities) guarantees 5.00 per ride, Uber shuts down Drizzly.

Ever wondered what it's like to hit the road as a gig worker, navigating the twists and turns of minimum fares and tips during a blizzard? Buckle up for Episode 176 of the Gig Economy Podcast where we zoom into the heart of the gig economy, starting with Lyft's new minimum fare policy in the Twin Cities and the crucial lifeline apps like Telegram offer drivers during snowstorms. We'll also share tales from the trenches about the notorious complexities of 10-99 classification, tipping etiquette, and the customer service conundrums that come with delivering pizzas in the pouring rain.

Shift gears with us as we tackle the future of electric vehicles, with special mention of Hertz's decision that's sparking debates, and the advancements we're all anticipating in EV technology. But it's not all about the cars; we cap off this journey with a heart-tugging tale involving a missing dog and a DoorDash driver and pivot to an inspiring story about how one man's mission to save discarded scooters is turning trash into treasure. This episode is a rollercoaster ride through the ups and downs of gig life that guarantees both laughter and a deeper understanding of the increasingly popular world of freelance work.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:32

Ground Music. Say it Ugh börk terg.

Speaker 3 0:55

What happened?

Speaker 2 0:57

All the preparation that happens for this show and I forgot to move my stream deck over to the streaming platform.

Speaker 5 1:06

So, editing Hi guys.

Speaker 2 1:07

Hello, welcome to the gig economy podcast episode 100 and I don't know, because I was, you know. It's like I'd rather go in and not prepare, because I think I would be more ready than if I had all this time.

Speaker 3 1:22

Episode 176. I thought. I actually thought it was intentionally, because I always like speak over you and you always get mad. I thought your intentions to the break.

Speaker 2 1:32

No, no, I didn't, I didn't, so thanks, thanks, yeah, I'm not going to blame anything, except I'm an idiot. Yes, burr, where can these people go to find more information about the show?

Speaker 3 1:46

I got to talk about my nice office though. Huh, it looks really nice to have behind my back tonight. Wow, nice, yeah, go to gigeconomyshowcom to look and see all the cool stuff about the show. Yeah, is that?

Speaker 2 1:59

what you mean. You can get everything there for news, you can download the show there, you can reach out to us there. Everything at gigeconomyshowcom. That's how you do a promo. Yes, burr, I'd like to thank our Patreon members Larry Samson, steve Bud, omar DeliverCats, jamie Frank, joe Nate, john Tom. Thank you guys so much for doing that. Yes, burr, how can they become a Patreon member? Let's see if you can redeem yourself.

Speaker 3 2:24

They go to patreoncom last giga-com podcast and then they can sign up and help support the show. There's two levels, actually there's three. There's also a free level and the free is free for two weeks, I believe, right.

Speaker 2 2:41

Nope, you become a free member as long as you want. If you want to try the Patreon, you can sign up for either tier and you get a seven-day free trial. After that it will charge your card. So if you do not like it, make sure you quit before, though, seven days expires. But yes, you can get on there for free and be a free member as long as you want. You're not going to get much content. I'll be honest with you. I might drop something here and there off, but there are two tiers the $5 tier and the $10 tier and it helps support us to keep us going and pay for all our bills.

Speaker 3 3:14

And at the $10 tier you do get merch.

Speaker 2 3:16

You do get merch. Yes, at the third month.

Speaker 7 3:20

You get a merch.

Speaker 2 3:21

So we don't use any of this money to spend anything. We pay the bills with it. Maybe we'll buy a six-pack every once in a while, but we appreciate that it's pretty expensive to keep this show running.

Speaker 2 3:30

so thank you guys for your support, if you want to connect with us and other gig workers, go down to your App Store and download the Telegram app and then link in the description. You can connect with us and other gig workers around the country. A little slow during the week, but on the weekends it does get busy. So, yeah, I would love for you to do that.

Speaker 3 3:52

Has that been more active right now, with all the snow going on right now? Do you know?

Speaker 2 3:56

Not really, you know. Speaking of the snow most of the snow stuff it used to be back in the day, as you remember, when it would snow a lot or storm, there would be a lot of surge amounts and it would just be great. I didn't see any positive about people making bank.

Speaker 3 4:13

That's so crazy. I still remember back in the days when I was it must have been the first or the second year I was Ubering in my black and master three hatchback and I was just there was one Friday night, there was like nobody else and I was just making bank that night, yeah, and I didn't have very many rides and I had. I mean, I was going, I was just, I think probably at one point, I think I had five or six lined up.

Speaker 2 4:44

Yeah, oh, in the queue.

Speaker 3 4:46

In queue which never happened, right Never. And I made I don't know that night I just made bank. I don't know how much I did, but I made so much bank it was crazy.

Speaker 2 4:57

I'm sure people maybe got tipped well, but like, as far as the company's creating the surge or whatever, that just isn't there anymore. It's just kind of not a thing. And I remember you, jesper. You didn't care about the weather. You'd be like I don't give a shit, I'm going out driving. I'm like I don't like driving in that stuff. I'm not afraid to drive in it, but it's just like to me it's too much risk.

Speaker 3 5:20

At the time I had really good all all, all around, all year tires and I just drove nice, I mean drove according to the conditions, and yeah.

Speaker 2 5:29

Which is shocking because you are kind of have a lead foot.

Speaker 3 5:35

Over the years, I think I've developed a condition called lead foot. Yes, but I do remember making bank that winter.

Speaker 2 5:44

Yeah, for sure, that's right. Yeah, I mean, those are the good old days for sure, right? All right, gig economy in the news. Um, so, basically in this story, uh lifted. Now it's a plan to give the Twin City drivers a minimum fare. Lift drivers will now receive at least $5 for rides in the Twin City. Uh, they have to begin or end in the Twin City. Uh lift also announced it'll partner with Minnesota Uber and Lift Drivers Association to provide support services to the region's diverse, diverse driver population population, including the Eastern African community. First of all, $5 for rides. That be like a minimum $5. Like that's amazing, right, don't you think? I mean all those, what was our, what was our base thing? It was like 360.

Speaker 3 6:32

260, I think is the base. No, it was 3, wasn't it? No, no, no, and UberX is 260. Pay.

Speaker 2 6:39

Damn, I thought it was 3. Uh-oh, Um so $5. I mean, that's a great start. They also talked about there was a. He secured a, or the mayor secured a commitment for an Uber to pay drivers at least the Minneapolis minimum wage for fares that actively transport a passenger within the Minneapolis city limits. Uh, they confirmed that drivers in Minneapolis would make at least 15, 19 per hour. Weirdly though, it says in response to the list of citizen on Tuesday, Uber said it had a $5 minimum pay for drivers in the Twin Cities since last summer, but no one really talked about that.

Speaker 3 7:13

So I mean, I know we keep going back about this, right, We've talked about it a hundred times.

Speaker 8 7:19

Yeah.

Speaker 3 7:23

I can't help but think that it is the driver's own responsibility to drive. When you make that, I mean I. There's no way I would drive if I didn't make at least $16 an hour.

Speaker 2 7:36

No way Go home. $60. $16. Okay, Well, in Minneapolis the minimum wage is 15. So you're almost there. No, I know.

Speaker 3 7:46

But that's from saying if same with you. If you don't, if you don't make $16 an hour, go home, right. I mean, yeah, why, why would you drive?

Speaker 2 7:53

I don't even know. I mean honestly, $16 an hour is pretty easy to get.

Speaker 3 7:58

That's a pretty slow day. That's my, that's my point is if you're not making $16 an hour, you shouldn't be driving.

Speaker 2 8:05

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 8:07

I mean I? I remember when I drove regularly, if I didn't make $25, $30 an hour I would go home. Right, it wasn't worth my time.

Speaker 2 8:15

Well, I actually, for me, if I'm just busy, if I'm just getting ride to ride, I don't really look at the hourly. If I'm, I'm out to work six hours. If I'm back to back, then great, I'm back to back, I'm not going to worry about it. But I just think it's a good step to get getting these fares up. I just wish it wasn't with the government involved. I just think Uber should just do that across the board. But we know that's probably not going to happen. But yeah, I think it's a good step. I like that they have protection in that area. For you know, just like we've talked about, I don't, I don't want the government involved, but I think we do need a little bit of protection of like false deactivations and those kinds of things.

Speaker 3 8:56

So but how okay. So how do we, how do we get all that if we don't get the government involved against?

Speaker 2 9:02

Because I know.

Speaker 3 9:03

I don't want the government involved.

Speaker 2 9:05

I mean you. How do we? Well, you can get them involved. It's just, people are so focused on the money thing, like we want benefits, we want sick time, we want all this stuff, that I think that you know that part comes with everything else. I don't know how beneficial it would be or how, how, how much support you would have from drivers If you just walked into the.

Speaker 2 9:25

You know the government, you know I'm saying that in quotes just because, like I don't know where you would go I'm not really smart when it comes to this stuff but go in there and say, oh, we just want these rights. The government's probably like, eh, I don't know, because they need some, some money from whatever changes are going to happen to. You know what I mean. We got to know that there's some sort of trickle down from all of this.

Speaker 3 9:44

I mean, we all know the only other way that it would happen would be unionized, right, yeah, if we don't, if we don't always just get together and say just stop using the platform.

Speaker 2 9:55

That's the problem. I love all the the strikes that are happening. I'm not against them. I just don't think they're really going to work in these small little pockets of cities and it and it will never happen where we will all get together. Unfortunately, these apps, I think, have created desperate people or not desperate people, but put people in positions that they have to work or they're not going to survive.

Speaker 3 10:17

That's the problem. Right there, they created situations where people absolutely have to work yeah, so they don't have a choice.

Speaker 2 10:26

Like one day would put them way behind you know, what.

Speaker 4 10:30

I mean.

Speaker 2 10:31

I say I mean it's possible, Go download all the other apps, go do food delivery, not on Uber but on DoorDash or whatever and then just don't drive for a couple of days. I mean it could work, but I just it's hard enough to get people together to do anything. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 10:48

It definitely is, and the problem is there's always going to be enough. We know this with both Uber and Lyft. The problem is there's so many. There's such a big change in drivers that there's always going to be another driver signing up for it that it's just not enough.

Speaker 2 11:05

Right.

Speaker 3 11:06

I mean they get to set the rules and the story.

Speaker 2 11:09

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 11:11

So let's talk about Unless the government steps in.

Speaker 2 11:13

Yeah, exactly, but then again. Then things change.

Speaker 3 11:18

On that note, let's talk about a possibility of the government stepping in and doing this, the declassification of 1099, which, in this case here, this is a story from January 9th, where Uber and Lyft say that the drivers won't be affected by the new federal rule on worker classification standards, and I think that they're right, because they're still again, I don't even know. I kind of skimmed the article because I got to say I got bored halfway through it because it's so boring.

Speaker 2 11:53

I mean it's from MarketWatch.

Debating 1099 Classification and Tipping Etiquette

Speaker 3 11:56

Right from MarketWatch, but from what I could tell, they really didn't change the rules that much. But basically the rule will take effect March 11th. Directs employers to consider six criteria for determining whether a worker is an employer or a contractor, without predetermining whether one outweighs the other. That's a change from Trump era rule, which prioritized two criteria how much control the company has over its workers and how much entrepreneurial opportunity the work provides. So I guess they go from two to six, but essentially it's still kind of yeah, it's up to the company to determine whether they are an entrepreneur or whatever, and they're still pretty open to classify them that way.

Speaker 3 12:42

I still don't think that the 1099. Classification is not the way to go about it. It's just that we gotta stop looking at it that way. We gotta come up with a brand new way of doing it if we wanna do something somehow this way. I don't know.

Speaker 2 13:02

Well, honestly, I feel bad for all the other 1099 workers currently because this gig companies come in Because 1099 was working just fine until gig work came in. Oh yeah, absolutely. And now everyone you know you got so many more people driving who are classified as 1099, but aren't truly independent contractors and they totally just kind of fucked them. Honestly, I feel bad for the local drywall or and stuff like that, but I mean the biggest, the big, I think the biggest.

Speaker 3 13:32

I've always learned that the biggest thing about our individual contractor is that you can't All your job can't come from the same boss.

Speaker 2 13:41

Yeah.

Speaker 3 13:42

I mean, and it kind of is if you just drive for Uber. Right and you have to be able to set your own rate. Those are kind of the two big ones.

Speaker 2 13:50

Yeah, and we can't do that Right, unless you're in India, which we talked about on last episode. All right, if you want to know more, if you want to get down and dirty with all these rules and stuff, check out Ride Share Rodeo, his podcast man. He dives deep in that. You just go to ridechairrodeocom. He's got a lot of information on that.

Speaker 3 14:12

Got to say Steve is the guy. Steve is definitely the man to follow when it comes to that.

Speaker 2 14:16

Yeah, don't come to us for it, because we're an infotainment podcast, I mean the next we're going to talk about we get bored about that stuff, yeah.

Speaker 2 14:23

We're going to talk about a bad tipper next. So, yeah, don't, don't go to us, go to Steve, all right. So this is a bad tipper video. This is not gig related, but I mean it's tipping so it ends up being a pizza place. I think it's Domino's. So it's not not a gig, but it's still something to talk about. We'll play. That's about a minute five and then we'll come back.

Speaker 1 14:48

Hey, thanks for time, yeah, whatever. For a shitty two dollar tip for a shit. You know I should have you guys come to the fucking store. Yeah, good thing I got this on film. Good job, losing your job. Domino's driver right here Pissed about it's about 20. 20%, 20% tip. And he's pissed. And this weather, 20% will straight the down. And I was like I got a delivery person show up and start cursing us out because we gave him a 20% tip instead of more. And since when is a 20% tip not good? I don't know he's always complaining about this.

Speaker 1 16:15

OK.

Speaker 6 16:16

He's already had a couple of reds, so he's probably going to get fired, or?

Speaker 1 16:22

I need to worry about my food being spat in or something.

Speaker 8 16:25

Oh, fuck off.

Speaker 1 16:27

No, no, no, I'll see if it's worth my time to do anything about it, but just want to make sure you guys know, all right, you're not worried about that yet, that's all right, thanks.

Speaker 2 16:40

All right, see you. Now he is. I don't know if this is on yes tiktok. He is getting eaten alive in the comments because, yeah, 20% tip is great. Did you see the fucking weather? A $2 tip in that weather. People are just going in on him.

Speaker 3 16:58

Well, ok. So here's my one thing. You know what? What I first see is here, 20%. So there's two boxes there. There's two boxes, ok, which means there's pizza and there's and there's breadsticks, at least Mm, hmm, or there's pizza and there's wings. There's no way. That was only $10, which means he based his tip off after a discount. Maybe he shouldn't do that. Yeah, your tip should always be based off before discount. Yes for sure, right. So there's no way at $2 tip. Is that what? That's not 20%.

Speaker 2 17:44

Oh, so you're no way. So you're saying that the that the food price was a lot more?

Speaker 3 17:50

It must have been. There's two boxes.

Speaker 2 17:52

Yeah, I mean it is Domino's. Maybe there was some coupons or something.

Speaker 3 17:56

Well, absolutely. But what I'm saying is I don't think he was telling the true, the full story.

Speaker 2 18:02

Yeah Well, either way, going back to it, even a 20% tip, what's? Let's say, let's say it's even $5 he gets. I think that's too low. I told my wife what did she need? Oh, she needs during the storm, she needed tampons. And I said let's just door dash it, I'll give him 20 bucks. It's a mile from the store, we don't have to drive. See, that would be an appropriate tip for a winter driving. I mean, that would be way, way more than 20% for one box of that. But I just think. I think that that homeowner is kind of a dick.

Speaker 3 18:36

He was a dick. But but no, I mean. But in any situation, no, no matter what. 20% is not a bad tip If you look at it as 20% by itself, isolated. But you're right, you got to take the storm into the consideration. Yeah, you got to take. As I said, there's no way it was 20% of the food price. There's no way. No.

Speaker 2 18:58

Mark says why does it have to be a percent of the order amount? Yeah, I like, when I go to a regular restaurant, like a sit down restaurant, I typically do 20%, unless the service is great, then I still, then I and then I go higher. But yeah, when it's outside and someone's driving, like you kind of got to look at the the the totality of what is going on. If it's a beautiful sunny day, even so, like, if it's such a low order amount, I still would at least do five bucks right, instead of $2, but the guy shouldn't. I mean the guy probably is going to get fired. No, you won't. People are desperate for workers. You won't get fired. But the guy shouldn't have said anything. You know he should have just went on. But yeah, I think that's a shitty tip.

Speaker 3 19:44

The problem is he can't say no to it, right, cause he's a domino's worker. Yeah, he got to do it, no matter what. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 19:51

He's. He's kind of on the hook to do it regardless of it.

Speaker 3 19:53

So but he shouldn't he shouldn't have made any comments about it. No, no, absolutely not I mean, that's you know, but I also do think that the home owner was a dick about it.

Speaker 2 20:07

Yeah, I mean he's recording himself in in his house like hey he was, I think he was.

Speaker 3 20:13

He was trying to create a situation. I think he was too, because he are, he had his ring camera recording and then he had his phone already in his hand.

Speaker 2 20:21

So it's like were you, I don't know. He seemed nice though when he started, so maybe, maybe he thought, maybe he got a text from the guy, I don't know, maybe, who knows, but he seemed nice at the beginning but then definitely turned real quick. But I mean, let's talk about that.

Speaker 3 20:37

The two dolls in the snowstorm. I mean, there's no way, that's enough. Yeah, I feel bad for him, though being yeah, you're right being a dominoes worker.

Speaker 2 20:45

You're trying to impress a girl that wasn't very impressive weight.

Speaker 3 20:48

There's no way. I mean I hope that girl like ordered, order an Uber to go pick her up and pay, paid the Uber $10 to drive her somewhere. No, he was probably. He was probably pressing a girl in his house.

Speaker 2 21:00

I think they were like oh, I'm sorry, I think that's what he's saying.

Expenses and Earnings for Rideshare Drivers

Speaker 3 21:03

No, I know, but I hope the girl left. Oh no, she probably likes assholes.

Speaker 2 21:08

There's women out there that like assholes. She's probably like Ooh, look at him talk down to the service worker.

Speaker 3 21:14

I'm so hardy. But on that note though. On that note though, have you? Have you started teaching your kids how to tip and that whole fucking yeah? Yeah, we have a healthy respect.

Speaker 2 21:23

I always tell. Avery. I'm like, cause she I think she's ordered food service a couple of times and I know her friend does all the time Like make sure you tip while like it doesn't have to be insane but just be respectful about it, like 20%, and I know you guys have limited funds, and then I just say if you don't have enough to tip respectfully, then you shouldn't order Correct. So All right. Moving on, I forgot what this is about. Well, I want to.

Speaker 3 21:48

I want to mention one more thing real quick. Remember you and I had a discussion about whether or not you should actually tip when you go just pick up, like Chinese or whatever. I don't, let's not start. No, but I actually started not doing that.

Speaker 2 21:59

You did.

Speaker 4 21:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3 22:00

I used to always do it. Oh, and I have not been doing it. Do you remember?

Speaker 2 22:04

I browbeat you so bad on that, absolutely.

Speaker 3 22:07

No, but I want to. I want you to know that. No, I, the last couple of times I have gotten and picked up my own food and everything I've, I've stopped tipping because it's not no.

Speaker 2 22:16

Yeah, they should get a fair ways. They're not using their own car, they're not, they have no expenses, they just are there working. It's so funny. Uh, the other night Megan ordered pizza and uh, she's like do I tip here On the? On the app? I was like, no, you don't tip, they're not doing. I mean you can if you want. I'm not, I'm not mad at you if you do as much as.

Speaker 2 22:36

I gave yes for a hard time, but I mean that it does exploit the tipping culture of if we're tipping everybody, it's just going to and it's going to affect us, right Cause people are going to get sick of tipping. But it's like basically, if you're using your own vehicle, you deserve a tip. If you're not using your own vehicle and you just want to tip, I guess it's okay, but like I'm probably.

Speaker 3 22:59

The other side of the tipping is, if you're in a restaurant and somebody you know gave you your food, brought you your food and attended to your needs while you're at the table, then you tip them.

Speaker 2 23:11

Oh, that's a good question. That's actually not Cause there's no expenses there. I think their only reason there is that start they get paid $2.50 an hour. That's why you but.

Speaker 3 23:21

But they are attending to your needs.

Speaker 2 23:24

They are, but so is serving you. So is the barista.

Speaker 3 23:34

True.

Speaker 2 23:35

Maybe not the same level as a server, because they're coming back a couple of times, but again, I said it's based on if you use your own vehicle, your own that servers don't do that. I think that just because they only make $250 an hour, which I think servers should make a regular wage too, like it should be a little bit.

Speaker 3 23:59

Maybe America is where servers are not making a livable wage. Yeah, Every other country in the world servers are making real job wage.

Speaker 2 24:09

Yeah, mark says what about dominoes, drivers that aren't driving their personal vehicles? Some all-dominoes? Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 3 24:18

But the same thing, though, are they getting paid an hourly rate that makes sense?

Speaker 2 24:23

Well, I know I mentioned this before. I worked for Jets for many years. They would pay me minimum wage, which was like I don't know seven and some change, and I got to keep the tips. But a couple of years later, when you go out on a delivery, you make $250 an hour. When you come back in the store and you're like folding boxes, you make minimum wage. So yeah, that is interesting. If dominoes does have all their own cars.

Speaker 3 24:47

It's interesting though, yeah, so anyways.

Speaker 2 24:50

Anyways who?

Speaker 3 24:51

cares Big discussion how far did we get what? Do we Well this yeah, bring up this interesting trip, because that actually is a. It's speaking of minimum wage. I was thinking about this trip. Oh yeah, wouldn't we take it, or not?

Speaker 2 25:04

No, this isn't why I took the picture. Look at the picture. Tell me something that you see on there that's different.

Speaker 3 25:14

Well, it's a duration 25 minutes, 15 mile ride. So far 17 dollars.

Speaker 2 25:27

What's the next thing?

Speaker 3 25:28

A front fair is oh, there's a taxes on it. Yeah, what the fuck is that Interesting, I have to pay taxes on it.

Speaker 2 25:38

When do they? This is in. This is in Detroit too. What is this tax line? When do they start taking taxes out?

Speaker 3 25:46

And don't pay my no, I don't want to pay taxes. I know, I don't know, I didn't, I did not even see that. What's up with that? I?

Speaker 2 25:54

know, I know it's not it's. I mean, yeah, the rides horseshit too, but like why are they taking taxes out? I never saw any I never saw any follow up from this. Again, we're the worst at following up, but like that seems odd that the little glitch there, but.

Speaker 3 26:12

So I mean, is the ride horseshit though? I mean it's? I mean it's $17 for half an hour.

Speaker 2 26:19

I mean it's, it's over a dollar a mile. I mean take, take the tax part out of it If you're getting.

Speaker 3 26:25

Well, yeah, exactly, I'm not paying taxes, yeah.

Speaker 2 26:29

Hey, jason does not condone yes for a statement that he's not paying taxes. I do not condone that. No, I mean, it's not a bad ride.

Speaker 3 26:37

I'm an immigrant, I don't have to pay taxes. Oh gosh.

Speaker 2 26:41

I'm going to get your green card revoked. No I think it's a good ride. I mean it's over a dollar a mile, so no, it's funny.

Speaker 4 26:50

It's not a horrible ride.

Speaker 2 26:51

It's funny you didn't see that. Yeah, that's the whole reason I wanted to talk about it?

Speaker 3 26:55

I did not. I thought it was like it was one of those riders to wait. When I see that, it's like I might take it on me.

Speaker 2 27:03

Yeah, anyways, yeah, okay, okay. This story is fucking stupid, yeah, yeah. So the title of the article is how a? I've seen it. A lot People post about a driver made over 110,000 from Uber and Lyft in 2022, but all but took home only 14 K after six years on the job. He's working toward a degree in new career. Good click bait, business insider. Good click bait Cause I've seen this everywhere. So Michael ride hailing driver is like 30s, made more than 110 gross. All the while we just said that, but after commissions paid to the ride hailing companies taxes and other expenses, he ended up with net earnings of 14,000. I mean, right off the bat on common bullshit, right? Absolutely, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were drinking. I have the article up. Yeah, it's complete crap. So he says at the end of the year, we incur every single cost from wear and tear, mechanical cell phones, oil changes, which is our biggest suspense.

Speaker 3 28:03

We're navigating less pay, I mean do you remember back back when I did the calculation on after I had done my first trip to Chicago and I used the Google's calculator to determine whether or not it was worth of me to drive to Chicago and back?

Speaker 2 28:20

Did. Google has an expense calculator.

Speaker 3 28:23

Well, it kind of it kind of they have a way on track. Oh, okay, right, and so I kind of did that and according to them, it's absolutely not worth it, right, yeah, because I made like $2,050 and I'm sure that's exactly what that is was. It's like.

Speaker 2 28:40

So you think they're, they're doing that and that's how they're getting these numbers oh?

Speaker 3 28:44

yeah, the wear and tear is just horrific.

Speaker 2 28:48

I mean, I'm sure it depends on each car, but I just don't think how you make a hundred grand and you, you clear 14. Like that doesn't make any sense to me. But so he drove full time. He got in a bunch of car accidents. I'm just going to skip through that. He's not a great driver, clearly.

Speaker 3 29:06

Maybe he had to get the car fixed a couple of times. Yeah, that's yeah.

Speaker 2 29:11

If you're counting that as expenses, that that is not kind of. I mean, that's, that's an act of God, like you know maybe you should not be a driver in the first place. Maybe you should try another career.

Speaker 8 29:22

That's why he's going to school and have an Uber pay for it.

Speaker 2 29:25

So he says, living on a little screenshot shared with Ben's in Sarasota, he received only $167 from a from a ride which a passenger paid $350. Another ride that cost the passenger almost 500 gave him only about 220.

Speaker 3 29:42

And sometimes we well, we know that.

Speaker 2 29:45

Yeah, I know, I don't know why they had to put that in there, but and sometimes he offered rides where he needs to drive 10 to 20 miles to pick up a custer, only for them to travel mile to Well, you don't have to take those Right.

Speaker 3 29:57

Well, and then, as but Soto, here he says you get to ride of all those miles too.

Speaker 1 30:01

Yeah.

Speaker 3 30:02

And I wonder sorry. I interrupted you. I feel sorry. I wonder if this, if they take off this, the ride off into you know consideration they don't see when I used to, when I worked full time and I drove almost full time too, my, my, there was one year I made, I don't know I drove I want to say I'm I twit, I might my tax taxable my. My tax being gone uber was 20,000 miles. I'm like one year. It was crazy, but Huh doing it part time.

Speaker 3 30:37

I know it was a lot of money, right, but my, because I drove so many miles, my, it actually affected my, my day job. So my expert, my tax burden I'm more than made up for the 20, my 20,000 dollars. And then it affected my, my, my Tax burden for my day job went down to yeah so it was like I.

Speaker 2 31:00

Think one thing we have to remember when you're a part-time worker, the tax Right off is so awesome. It's almost like you working and you're not paying any taxes. Now If you're driving full-time you're gonna have to pay quarterly taxes, like you're gonna put so many miles on your car. It's it's not gonna be helpful, but as a part-time driver you're almost like getting tax-free money. That's why I tell people I mean, I don't know exactly, I'm just saying I rarely pay any taxes on my uber, work, my gig.

Speaker 3 31:34

I can only say one thing get yourself an account, that's it.

Speaker 2 31:37

Yeah, don't, don't go to H&R block either.

Speaker 3 31:40

It's worth the investment.

Issues With Delivery and Customer Communication

Speaker 2 31:42

Yeah, steve, I gave you a plug early in the show we were talking about. Oh, what article were you talking about? Oh, uber and lifts. A driver is not affected by new federal on worker classification. We did a terrible job about talking about it and and then we said, go to Steve's show, ride share rodeocom if you want in depth, because we Believe drivers like on. Yeah, because we get bored. So there's a plug for you. So, anyways, I think that guy is full of shit. I definitely think it's a little bit of a clickbait article. But why would you continue to drive if you were only actually profiting $14,000? I don't know.

Speaker 3 32:18

No no way, so this next one here.

Speaker 2 32:26

Go to the link in our description. This is Gary's wonderful apps, middleton technologies. You got Maximo, which is the light blue flex, alert, the orange in the middle and drive your utility helper All those help you do better gig work, keep you safe around the road, those kind of things. Maximo, you can Auto decline, you can auto accept, you can set all these settings. The settings are endless on this. I would really recommend this if you want to make more money I know Gary likes to focus on being safe on the road, which it is you don't touch your phone like it for door dash Drive, utility helper, for example.

Speaker 2 33:04

You literally they want you. You have to click decline and then you have to click why, and there's like four or five buttons you have to tap while you're driving on the road. Fuck that shit. Put on auto decline and it, gary's apps, does all that for you. You don't even have to do anything. It's great. You can even set a delay if it's a little slow and you're like Maybe I'll take that. You know what I mean it. Or you can have it decline right away, just like boom, I put a little delay on it because sometimes we get slow and we might not want it.

Speaker 3 33:31

We might want to take that order, so and one more states are putting in Rules now that they want to limit how much you touch your phone.

Speaker 2 33:39

Yeah, that helps there too. Yeah, for sure, all right. Yes, sir, why explain the next video?

Speaker 3 33:45

I definitely will. Let me stop by saying that I think the whole video seems a little bit clickbaity, because I hate how the bottom part of it is a little bit of a duo Almost I don't know what kind of a stupid video game or whatever, I hate that.

Speaker 2 33:58

I don't think it's clickbaity. I see a lot of creators do that because it like I. Think they probably get paid for I think it's just something, and I bet there's something psych, psychological, like when you're watching the video and you have other. It's like when women Do videos and they're putting their makeup on. I think it's something to do with something, I don't know. Let's, we're gonna choose me.

Speaker 3 34:20

You just want to see Boop about him.

Speaker 2 34:21

Does that what you want?

Speaker 3 34:22

to do. I didn't say that, megan, it wasn't me.

Speaker 8 34:29

You want me to turn it off. I can't do that because that's for your security in mind as well. Well then I have to let you out. You can call for another ride. We have to call for another ride because we're supposed to cancel the ride. If you have a problem with the rate of the camera I was just asking, have a simple conversation. Well, we were told if we have there's any problems with them asking about the camera turned off, we will cancel the ride. So our authority cancelled it. You didn't get charged. People have places to go from pointy to pointy and you think that you're not gonna get a call from corporate about this one going? I mean that's it's your Do back and forth.

Speaker 8 35:19

No, this is what. This is your prerogative. You can do what you need to do. The power is in the hands of the consumer. Well, this camera supposed to protect us both, not just one person.

Speaker 3 35:43

So, apart from the fact that he was pretty quick to let him out, yeah, he didn't want to have a conversation. No, he didn't. I. I mean, I thought he was fine about it.

Speaker 7 35:55

Yeah.

Speaker 3 35:57

And yeah, you're right, mark power is in the hands of the consumer. What a Karen statement.

Speaker 2 36:01

You're correct, I mean yeah, and he's gonna call corporate, okay, I.

Speaker 3 36:06

Can see myself definitely do the same. No, I'm not turning off the camera, you can get the hell out. Yeah, I had.

Speaker 2 36:12

I've had to do that one time as someone did not like the camera. I said I'm sorry, I'm not turning off. He's like alright, I'm not gonna ride with you. I'm like that's cool.

Speaker 1 36:19

No offense.

Speaker 2 36:21

Yeah like I'm mad, but I'm just.

Speaker 4 36:23

Yeah, fine another ride.

Speaker 2 36:25

I mean, like what it? What are you worried about? It's not like people upload that stuff to YouTube.

Speaker 3 36:34

And what he was saying is he was, you know, he's worried about the whole, you know, security part. People don't understand the whole one party, two-party consent thing.

Speaker 2 36:43

Nobody understands that. Well, it's different for each day, right.

Speaker 3 36:46

Right.

Speaker 2 36:47

So you do have to be careful a little bit, like some states require you having a little note or stick around the window that says video and auto recording. The guy was just kind of a dick about it like he expected that driver to be like, okay, I'll turn it off. So then he stared at him.

Speaker 8 37:04

I would.

Speaker 2 37:05

I would have stared him right back down. I definitely Wouldn't have just that guy would have. As soon as I heard that tone change, I want to keep my eyeballs on him like after I cancel it. I would just turn back and look at him. Obviously, if I was driving I wouldn't do that, but I'd be like All right.

Speaker 8 37:24

What are we doing here?

Speaker 2 37:25

Right, yep, yeah, it's my car. What are you gonna do? Just not get out which we've seen before too.

Speaker 3 37:30

So the driven dad says in Colorado it's one party and it is in Michigan too, and so anybody who don't know what it means, and one party state means that no matter what, as long as one of the parties in the car agrees to the recording, it's fine. And you as the driver, if you agree, agree to the recording of the Conversation, of what's going on, then you are the party and then it's totally fine.

Speaker 2 37:57

Which is such a scam, by the way? Yeah because it's the driver that's doing it. You know right.

Speaker 3 38:04

The only thing where it can never become a problem is if, if your passenger is on the phone with somebody else and there's a chance that Party on the other side of the phone can be recorded too. Then you should technically shut it off. Yeah, but it's never gonna happen. No right, no so.

Speaker 1 38:21

Oh.

Speaker 3 38:23

Yeah, I think he handled it pretty well.

Speaker 2 38:26

So, moving on, this says I tip $5 for delivery from a store a mile away. That's, of course, from our lovely reddit. So this is the message for that delivery. Hi, it's me. I just picked up your door dash order and I'm on on the way. If you have liquor, bring your ID. With gas climbing to $5 a gallon, the best. Thank you as a tip. Keep in mind I'm driving 14 miles around trip to make your delivery today. See you soon. Customer, please do not do this. This is recycled message you sent to me before. Also, gases $3, and it wasn't a 14 mile round trip. What if tip more, if you didn't put guilt trip. Thanks, though.

Speaker 2 39:03

Next, next conversation. What is wrong this thing is? Oh, here we go. Hey, mr Sourpus, you can always go get your own stuff. Do not text me again. You're harassing me. That's what the driver said. You're right, I could, but you're being paid for it. So what's the problem? You texted me. How am I harassing you? All right? Well, you can deal with support. Thanks, I'm like that is so strange. Like why would you? Yeah, and he's I. What a scam I.

Speaker 3 39:33

Hate the guilt trip yes.

Speaker 2 39:34

I, I do too. It's like, especially if you tipped, well, fuck my bullshit, but so do I hate. I hate the guilt trip BS. I've never had none of the shit's ever happened to me. Like, I guess I don't order a lot of food from food delivery, but, gal, I want that to happen to me.

Speaker 3 39:53

I Always. I always feel weird, even when I asked for more for long, long run.

Speaker 2 39:59

It's awkward, I mean you kind of got to get up the courage to do it. You know what I mean? You're kind of like you got to be like well, whatever you know, Just fucking do it, like ripping a band-aid off but the one time I did it and see, last time I wrote this guy I'm happy I did it.

Speaker 3 40:14

I mean, yeah, honestly I should. I ask for 300 because I think we did done it yeah.

Speaker 2 40:18

I mean you. Some people are like money isn't an object, they're just like, or they understand the value of what you're doing.

Speaker 3 40:26

You know and then this in this time, here it actually I think it was the latter he understood the value of me driving him to Chicago. Yeah, hey, my name is family.

Speaker 2 40:35

Well, yeah, I mean you, you get a personal driver, you don't have to take, you know, you don't have to get on a plane or train or a bus, but so oh, I mean, it didn't help that I dropped him off at one of the nicer hotels downtown Chicago, right, right, I mean, he didn't, he didn't care. Okay, moving on this one that's yours, Jesper.

Speaker 3 41:01

So yeah, I was just pulling up. So, James, this is Dordache. I'm just letting you know that there's a train block in the road and it stopped. It's not moving so I cannot deliver your food directly to your home. I will leave it next to the train tracks. That's the best I can do. If you have any questions, give it to you on our national call center. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Speaker 2 41:24

Yeah, so there's a he left it next to the train tracks. I don't even know, I don't even think I could do that.

Speaker 3 41:32

I don't know what I would do. Why not figure out how to go around it?

Speaker 2 41:35

No, why don't you just wait Like it can't be? There's a legal length. A train can be, and I don't know what it is but it can't be more than 10 or 15 minutes.

Speaker 3 41:46

Well, that's the thing, that there has been some downtown growing up. It's just been about 10, 15 minutes, absolutely.

Speaker 2 41:53

He just wanted to move on to another delivery. He didn't-.

Speaker 5 41:56

Oh, absolutely he didn't want to wait.

Speaker 2 41:57

I would have just waited. I would have let them know like, hey, I'm stuck by a train. It gonna be 15 minutes, Like just so they know it's in McDonald's order.

Speaker 3 42:07

Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 42:10

Yeah, that's so crazy, I don't know I think. I would. Just I think I don't think I would have tried to find a way across because the train's long it's. You're gonna have to go 10 miles one way to freaking get across.

Speaker 3 42:20

You're right, that is true as well.

Speaker 2 42:23

Dang it Moving on, let's see what we have.

Speaker 3 42:26

It's the story about Drizly.

Speaker 2 42:28

Oh yes, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious why Uber bought Drizly, right.

Speaker 3 42:36

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 42:37

So they bought them for 1.1 billion, which is fucking insane. By the way, the people that own Drizly like how great for them, but they're closing it down. After three years, the Drizly business and brand will shut down at the end. Okay, this was at the end of March, according to the Uber email, Uber will apply what it has learned from Drizly's experience to Uber Eats efforts in the alcoholic beverage delivery category.

Speaker 3 43:00

Read Uber took all the sellers on Drizly, added them to Uber Eats, and that's what they did.

Speaker 2 43:07

Well, yeah, I mean, everyone's so upset about it, but why do you think they bought it? They just wanted their customers.

Speaker 3 43:14

They wanted the platform.

Speaker 2 43:16

And that too, and they probably studied it and learned things about it Well yeah. But yeah, they're not there to do anything else but that. You know what I mean. It's not a big shock to me.

Speaker 3 43:29

And then I mean they really like it. I mean it sounds like an astronomical number, right, but I'm sure they've bought other things and they just waste. Well, that's the problem.

Speaker 2 43:37

The problem is with this monopoly. That's why even the lift sucks, dick. I'm glad they're still around, because a monopoly is a scary thing, you know. Oh yeah. The government tries to prevent that from happening, which is weird, though, because I only can get consumers energy, I can't get anyone else, or I only can get DTE for gas, but anyways.

Speaker 3 44:00

So technically, I think you can get others, but they just have to use DTE's wires. Yeah, yeah, that's true, but they're all usually more expensive.

Speaker 2 44:09

So it's kind of a monopoly because yeah, also known as a bullshit. Yeah, but it's just when Uber has unlimited cash, you just worry a little bit. But no, I mean I'm glad Drizly got paid. Good, I hope they build something else, but so is as weirdly. Drizly as the consumer app. Yeah, they just wanted the data, they wanted the customers. That's all they did. So now, if you want to use Drizly, you got to go to Uber Eats. That's as simple as that.

Speaker 3 44:44

Well, it's not shut down yet. April 1st, yeah, april 31st, what?

Speaker 2 44:48

do you think the amount of customers they will lose? 40%.

Speaker 3 44:53

No, not even they're gonna jump over to Uber Eats.

Speaker 2 44:55

You think I mean they're gonna take some loss, right? 20%?

Speaker 3 44:59

Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit yeah it's still worth it for them. I mean the people who are gonna buy alcohol after hours. They're gonna buy alcohol after hours.

Speaker 2 45:08

I often wonder, though. I feel like all these services were better before they went to Uber Eats, which you can probably agree with, and the service is gonna decline. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 45:18

You're just not gonna have the.

Tesla, Hertz, and Dead Teslas

Speaker 2 45:22

Well, I mean, if someone's just driving for Drizly, right, you're just picking up the beer and you're just going. But Uber Eats you got all this other shit you got You're gonna end up getting a food delivery with the Drizly, so you're gonna drop the food. You know? I don't know, it's fucking stupid.

Speaker 3 45:36

Yeah, maybe, maybe, I don't know. Have you ever been to Total Wine yet?

Speaker 2 45:41

I have for I think it was Uber Eats.

Speaker 3 45:45

It's insane. That's a crazy store.

Speaker 2 45:47

It is crazy. It's very cool in there, though I don't know Like I'm not a big drinker but I wouldn't live for myself.

Speaker 3 45:53

It was bad for me.

Speaker 2 45:55

Yeah, did you pick up some booze? Oh man, lots of booze you can pretty much get anything you want in there, right?

Speaker 3 46:01

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 46:03

Yeah, even stuff from other countries, right.

Speaker 3 46:05

Oh yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, they have all kinds of stuff. It was great.

Speaker 2 46:10

Speaking of Uber Eats Octopus Tablet. If you do not have this tablet, you need to get it if you're a rideshow driver.

Speaker 2 46:17

If you're gonna, if you just do food delivery, this message is not for you. Yeah, the tablet you get from Octopus, they send it to you. A charger, all that stuff. You can earn up to about $100 a month. They give away money all the time. They play a game. It's a great driver-focused company. I know a lot of companies out there you know, like Moose Financial, and they're shutting down. They were great too.

Speaker 2 46:42

Yes, we're doing that that Stevie Wonder, because he thought the logo was up, but anyways, check it out. The link is in the description. If you wanna make extra money, it's easy. Your passengers love it. They get to play trivia, all that stuff, and then Octopus shares some of the revenue from the ads in there. So check it out.

Speaker 3 47:02

What is it?

Speaker 2 47:05

Postmates sponsored an ad in both Google and Apple servers. When you typed in food, fetched. That's a weird thing to search. Traveler. People play enough games in my car, yeah, but you might as well get paid extra for it, traveler.

Speaker 3 47:20

Yeah, they loved it when I had it.

Speaker 2 47:22

Yeah, download that shit or download it.

Speaker 3 47:24

Order that shit. It's worth it. It's worth it, so yeah.

Speaker 2 47:28

Next did we talk about this before?

Speaker 3 47:31

Well, so we kinda did. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on it. We were kinda last week we were talking about the matching. We kind of were touching on this article a little bit because we were talking about the other part of it, where Tesla was selling a bunch of cars because Hertz had kinda selling all these out. Tesla was trying to get rid of a bunch of cars because Hertz wasn't buying all the cars they promised they were buying, something like that. So anyways, long story short, hertz is selling all these 20,000 EVs. They promised to buy 100,000 EVs and now they're not and they're replacing them with gas cars Again, which we talked about last week, because they are too expensive to fix.

Speaker 2 48:20

Yeah, you got all this super technology in there.

Speaker 3 48:23

Yes, and I saw somebody who bought a Tesla and threw a gas engine in it and it's pretty sweet.

Speaker 2 48:31

Yeah, we just talked about. I swear, we talked about it last week.

Speaker 3 48:35

We did.

Speaker 2 48:36

Why is this the same article? If I go back, is this the same article. No, it's not the same article. It's kind of a matching article, Okay well, on that note, everyone's been shitting Like did you see that? Did you watch the news article in Chicago? Everyone like having dead Teslas. Have you seen that?

Speaker 3 48:52

Yeah, cause they're too cold.

Speaker 2 48:53

I don't understand that. How can they be too cold? I?

Speaker 4 48:57

guess I don't understand.

Speaker 2 48:58

My car is fine. Did I reduce a lot of range? Oh heavens. Yes, it's half of what it normally is but, they were saying they had a bunch of dead Teslas, unless they were waiting to charge. I didn't even watch it because it was just. It seems like close.

Speaker 3 49:11

Well, you gotta keep them a little bit warm, right, you gotta keep them a little bit.

Speaker 2 49:15

But they'll still run.

Speaker 3 49:16

Well, yeah, but yes.

Speaker 2 49:18

I mean mine will be in that garage tonight, not plugged in. It'll still start in the morning, I don't know, I guess.

Speaker 3 49:23

I don't. What if it's the outside?

Speaker 2 49:26

It would still start. I mean, I don't know, I don't know why it wouldn't.

Speaker 3 49:29

I don't either. I mean, I know that Norway has predominant Teslas because Teslas doing the best in cold weather.

Speaker 2 49:38

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 49:38

So I don't know why.

Speaker 2 49:39

I don't know why I think the whole story I'm driven to it because they're dumb drivers. I'm thinking they are dumb drivers. Thank you, I don't understand that.

Speaker 3 49:50

Yeah, like it's because they're dumb drivers.

Speaker 2 49:53

They are dumb. Like what is going on, that you, there's a bunch of dead Teslas and why is Tesla getting this shit? I just don't understand it.

Speaker 3 50:01

All I want is for them to actually come over the battery that lasts months longer and they can charge in 10 seconds. Is that such a big problem? I mean, why can't I just have that?

Speaker 2 50:12

You're not gonna get. You're gonna get a longer range one in the next couple of years, but it ain't gonna charge in 10 seconds.

Speaker 3 50:18

It's longer. All right, I'll tell you it's longer.

Speaker 7 50:23

Yeah, you can't find the button.

Speaker 2 50:25

I couldn't find it. I don't know. I have had no problem. I mean, is my EV eating the battery when I'm driving? Yeah, it is Like when it's when I get down my bus route and I go to start it up, like it's using like 17 kilowatts cause I got the heat cranked you know what I mean. And then once it gets warm, it slows down. But, oh man, 400 range. Yeah, toyota's making one that's supposed to have 750, 750 miles. So that's pretty incredible.

Speaker 3 50:56

That is they. Just they need to solve that battery to fuel cell. That's what I need to solve.

Speaker 2 51:01

Yeah, for sure. All right, so this quick video on a Charlotte couple believes DoorDash drivers sell their dog, which doesn't surprise me, cause most DoorDash drivers are fucking assholes.

Speaker 3 51:14

Stealing dog left and right.

Speaker 5 51:17

Answers. After they say a DoorDash driver stole their dog right out of their front yard. They've tried contacting police and the company, but so far no luck. Our Jason Puckett is live at the house where this has been with more on the story, jason.

Speaker 5 51:32

When Sean and Cherise first came out Friday night and noticed that the severe storms had knocked over this portion of their fence and that their dog was loose, they did what anyone might in that circumstance. They started searching the neighborhood and printing up flyers to put out. But when they searched their security camera, they saw something terrifying.

Speaker 4 51:50

Our backyard is normally enclosed, but with the storm on Friday we just had no idea that our fence had fallen.

Speaker 5 51:57

Around 1130 PM, friday night, cherise Thomas' husband, sean, had let their dog blew out before bed, but he didn't come back when called.

Speaker 6 52:05

I went outside to walk the whole yard and saw the fence was down. Oh, he's got a nice voice and the door just started crying.

Speaker 5 52:13

Sean immediately hopped in his car and drove the whole neighborhood calling for blue. Meanwhile his wife looked at their security footage and saw this there's blue in the front yard. Then this car pulls up next to him. You can see from a neighbor's camera the lights inside the car turn on. When that car left, blue wasn't in the yard anymore. Their neighbors didn't want to speak on camera, but they told us that they ordered DoorDash and that the driver had asked them if the dog was theirs. They said no, that it belonged to Cherise and Sean. Then that video happened. It's rough.

Speaker 6 52:45

It's hard to you know. How do you hold that in? And my daughter's crying every day, all day, every day, since Friday night.

Speaker 5 52:52

Saturday morning they reached out to DoorDash and CMPD. I've had everything on camera called DoorDash. They happened Friday. It's now Monday. Cmpd did come gather the footage, but so far no leads. Right now the family just wants one thing oh, I want my dog back.

Speaker 6 53:10

I mean, getting another dog is not the answer. Everybody says, oh, just get another dog.

Speaker 2 53:15

Okay, enough of that. First of all, did you watch that? Did you see that video when the fuck was the dog? That's the grainiest shit. You ain't proven shit off that video.

Speaker 3 53:25

It's a good looking dog though.

Speaker 2 53:27

I mean, it's a great looking dog. I'm not blaming the DoorDash driver.

Speaker 3 53:32

You don't think he did.

Speaker 2 53:33

I don't think he did it. I mean, you can't prove that he did it.

Speaker 3 53:38

I don't know. I mean, I couldn't see enough of that camera. It was too distorted.

Speaker 2 53:43

Yeah, and maybe he did do it. I don't know, I'm not saying, I'm just kind of joking around too, but I just think that is terrible if he did do it, oh yeah. And that video is terrible and he's never gonna get prosecuted because I don't see shit. But I don't understand why people are like that.

Speaker 1 54:02

No all right last video.

Speaker 2 54:03

I'm against the wall and shoot him if he did do it. Oh, wow, wow, well, that's, I don't think he needs to be shot. Yes, sir, that's a little dog. I know, but geez.

Speaker 3 54:15

Yes, this last one here is kind of interesting. This is Well, you can play the video if you have the video. Do you have the video?

Speaker 2 54:23

Yeah, I don't know if I'll play the whole thing, but okay.

Speaker 3 54:25

So it's about one of the many, many. Well, I guess maybe not so many yet, but it's one of the Companies with some of the city scooters and one of the city scooter companies has stopped operating in Acron Ohio. That then got rid of all the scooters to a local company and local company is Refurbishing them and now selling all those scooters. They got 8,000 scooters donated and and is now doing the best they can to get those back in the hands of people.

Speaker 4 55:01

This pile of broken electric scooters seems never-ending sometimes I just Think what did I get myself into?

Speaker 7 55:09

Ben Baker took on the slew of spin scooters in August. About 8,000 of them were headed straight for the landfill.

Speaker 4 55:17

We got these for recycling From a company called spin. They had upgraded their scooters and these were actually all gathering up in their Cleveland warehouse from all over the country.

Speaker 7 55:28

Mounds upon mounds sit outside Ben's electronic recycling company summit, e-waste.

Speaker 4 55:34

We look at the occasional person stopping by wondering what's going on with them.

Speaker 7 55:38

They're also stored in buses. But wait, there's more. I'm in the basement of summit e-waste and piles of hundreds of scooters are all around me. Ben says he actually checked with the fire inspector to make sure these piles were safe. The inspector said as long as these scooters weren't plugged in, it should be okay. Why keep these out of the landfill?

Speaker 4 56:00

Well, they have lithium batteries in them. Every one of them large lithium battery packs down here in the bottom, which you don't want that in the in the landfill seeping into the water.

Speaker 7 56:11

This warehouse on Lakeside Avenue in Cleveland is where those scooters were stored. According to spin, the company says it no longer operates in Cleveland. It expects summit e-waste will responsibly recycle the scooters, a Task summit e-waste thinks will take the team years to complete.

Speaker 8 56:31

It took a long time to figure out how they function and how to get them running. It took me hundreds of man hours.

Speaker 7 56:38

One by one, each defunct scooter gets rolling again. The tedious job includes replacing the circuit board and software system.

Speaker 4 56:47

Got a connect to it. There we go. They have a top speed of 22 miles an hour in there, controllable with a smartphone. So if you do have Younger teenagers who are riding them and you don't want them to go 22 miles an hour, you can limit the speed and they're unable to change it themselves. You can turn the headlight on and off operated right off your smartphone.

Speaker 7 57:08

Then says people are already buying the scooters from trash to travel. Ben's goal is to give all 8,000.

Speaker 2 57:18

So that's kind of cool, I mean he's doing. He's doing a good thing of recycling, but making a business out of it too.

Speaker 3 57:24

So I actually downloaded the folder, the, the brochure. Yeah and and I called and talked to him this morning. Why because I want to buy one no way. I do know it's the truth. It's the truth.

Speaker 2 57:38

Oh, you didn't tell me that for the show.

Speaker 3 57:41

I know cuz you know why not, so they? They he's selling for 200 dollars, which is a steal. That's a fair price. It's a very fair price.

Speaker 2 57:51

Wow.

Speaker 3 57:52

Yeah, I know, but he's not shipping them yet. Okay, because he's there's so few people doing it and and this article has gone viral like crazy. Of course interest in it has gotten so crazy, so he's so far only supporting the local area of a crown, so he doesn't know yet how to ship him, but he's hoping to start shipping in in in the spring.

Speaker 2 58:16

Okay, so I was interested in the app, the technology. Does he have like some software?

Speaker 3 58:22

Yeah, it's all it's all set up. He puts a new control board in all of them okay and so you have to download an app and everything like that. Yep, so, but you can't. There won't be any new battery and the extra batteries or anything, and it's all gonna be one battery, is all gonna be in it.

Speaker 2 58:36

Oh, yeah, you can't swap the battery out or anything, so once it's dead, it's dead.

Speaker 3 58:42

Well, you can put a new one in, but is he putting?

Speaker 2 58:44

new batteries in there.

Speaker 3 58:46

No, oh, it's the old in this. Come with yes.

Speaker 2 58:50

Okay, well, it's still good, though, that he's not, I mean for him, and he probably got them all for free.

Speaker 3 58:56

Absolutely. I mean it better than but he puts man hours into them and he puts them high because he has to, as, as you saw, he has to put a new motherboard. You know all of them, yeah every single one, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 59:06

No that's super cool. I'm glad I'm kind of a recycling nerd, especially with with that kind of stuff, and I actually, as you can see, I downloaded the the pamphlet.

Speaker 3 59:16

Oh, that's so cool, printed it out and there's. If anybody else interested, you can contact. Drew at 3, 3, 0, 4, 9, 5, 1, 5, 8, 9.

Speaker 2 59:28

We should get him on the show and it's a real.

Speaker 3 59:30

it's a real information, yeah that's cool he takes a cast credit card and Venmo.

Speaker 2 59:35

All right, he doesn't ship. Yet he doesn't ship. Yeah, that's gonna be. That's gonna be pricey to ship. I.

Speaker 3 59:41

Mean, but it's not. I mean it's, oh, it's a chrono, hi, oh. So it's not that far, it's.

Speaker 2 59:46

Akron, by the way, at run, whatever. No, I'm just. I'm just saying you said, you said it once and then I didn't say anything. You said it twice. I didn't say anything.

Speaker 3 59:53

I had to correct you how far is Akron or higher anyway it's not very far, a couple hundred miles. So maybe we take a day trip, we won't go pick up a couple.

Speaker 2 1:00:00

Well, there you go, we'll sell them. Uh, do you? I'm sure those things fold down right, the handles probably fold down. Yeah, so the shipping might not be horrible, then I mean I'll be a little heavy.

Speaker 3 1:00:10

But if we can probably pick up. I bet we can pay like 10, 15, 20 up and then just sell them locally here.

Speaker 2 1:00:15

Yeah, make a profit 50 to 100 also probably someone's gonna buy that for $250 a used scooter listen, listen.

Speaker 3 1:00:23

We paid 750 on for the one on Maxwell and that's not nearly as good as this one, really. Oh yeah, this is approved for 300, our payload. It's a 22 miles per hour scooter. This is a good quality scooter.

Speaker 2 1:00:35

Wow. Well, they have to be good to be to use, like lime and stuff they got to be able to be abused.

Speaker 3 1:00:41

Exactly, they have to be able to take a beating.

Speaker 2 1:00:44

Huh interesting.

Speaker 3 1:00:45

Obviously there's no, there's no warranty and no nothing.

Speaker 2 1:00:48

Well, yeah, yeah, it's you know, we'll just sell them on Facebook marketplace. Right to around $25 just 25 now, now to 50, so we each give 25 bucks.

Speaker 3 1:01:02

I mean we can probably put at least put, at least put 50 to 100 of those in the bag, our car.

Speaker 2 1:01:07

No, not my car. Maybe you're a van. No, no, no well, guys, we're gonna wrap her up. Thank you, guys, so much for listening and watching the show. Go to show economy, show comm, for all your gig economy needs and We'll see you next week. Have a good night.

Speaker 3 1:01:27

We'll see you on the road.

Speaker 2 1:01:28

Oh shit, we fucked up. God damn, oh you, you didn't say yeah you're right. You're right and, as always, guys don't put up with anyone's bullshit.

Speaker 3 1:01:39

See you on the road.

Speaker 2 1:01:41

Good night. Good night, this podcast is produced and edited by hey guys media group. Want to start a podcast? Check out hey guys media group comm.

Speaker 1 1:02:13

I'm not.

Speaker 2 1:02:30

Why do I randomly forget that? I don't know. It's so strange.

Speaker 3 1:02:36

You're like trying to say something.

Speaker 2 1:02:37

I'm waiting for you. You're the one that's got to lead.

Speaker 3 1:02:43

And I'm like, and we'll see you on the road.

Speaker 2 1:02:45

I know that's what triggered it. That's what triggered it, hey Vae.

Speaker 3 1:02:50

Bye Vae.