The Crazy Uber

[Dodgy69]

I did a bit of delivery driving for tesco. It's the shifts they give you that spoil the job. I think most retail will involve shitshifts.

If you've got enough money, you don't need a job, you just need to keep busy.

[Pirahna]

The problem with shelf stacking etc is that you're working for someone, when they tell you to be there, with 4 weeks annual leave.

When I'd packed in office life I got chatting to a bloke from village one lunchtime in the pub, he said he had too many customers and was having to turn down a fair bit of work, my garden maintenance career was born. Initially I took on his clients, a few ads in parish newsletters and I was up and running. I took the jobs I wanted, turned down work I didn't fancy. Until covid, then nobody needed me, so I got a job delivering shopping for Tesco. Crap shifts but it didn't really matter as nobody was going out or doing anything. At the end of 2021 the house was sold and we were off.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I used to deliver Pizzas for Domino's (on a real C90 too! You just don't see that any more), I had a whale of a time doing that when I was 17/18. I sometimes think that'd be a laugh to do as an easy job, but I bet it's well shit now. Just not the same now there's an app for it I bet.

Plus it's pretty much only weekends and evenings

[KungFooBob]

I used to deliver Pizzas for Domino's (on a real C90 too! You just don't see that any more), I had a whale of a time doing that when I was 17/18. I sometimes think that'd be a laugh to do as an easy job, but I bet it's well shit now. Just not the same now there's an app for it I bet.

Plus it's pretty much only weekends and evenings

I know a bloke who worked in the city, but had a side hustle doing pizza delivery back in the day. Back then he'd have been in his 30's, was a proper full sized geeza and had a full motorcycle license. They loved him, cos his insurance was buttons and they never had anyone try and rip him off.

I can see it being a bit of fun on a warm summer evening, but fuck doing it for buttons in the cold and rain.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Pfft, I've done it in the cold and rain and had my C90 break down 5 miles from the shop and then have to push it back

They sent someone out to rescue.....the pizza

[Horse]

I used to deliver Pizzas for Domino's (on a real C90 too! You just don't see that any more)

Heading to a CBT session one morning, I passed a bus stop. There was a pick up truck with the three trainees' bikes in the back.

Driver must have hooned around the nearby roundabout and all three bikes had fallen over. They arrived pre-crashed

[Mr. Dazzle]

They loved him, cos his insurance was buttons and they never had anyone try and rip him off.

Actually...on this point...I was mugged in the street for my Pizza twice (official Domino's Pizza policy is just give 'em it, like I'm gonna fight back to protect someone's Pizza ) but never once for my pouch full of cash

Someone also tried to do a proper Chuck Norris flying kick at me once, as I rode past at 30mph. He just got pivoted around by the impact, which did look quite a lot like the Texas Ranger, but didn't end well for him.

[Mr Moofo]

They loved him, cos his insurance was buttons and they never had anyone try and rip him off.

Actually...on this point...I was mugged in the street for my Pizza twice (official Domino's Pizza policy is just give 'em it, like I'm gonna fight back to protect someone's Pizza ) but never once for my pouch full of cash

Someone also tried to do a proper Chuck Norris flying kick at me once, as I rode past at 30mph. He just got pivoted around by the impact, which did look quite a lot like the Texas Ranger, but didn't end well for him.

Sounds like Conniburrow ... or the Lakes Estate

[MyLittleStudPony]

The other day I nearly killed a sex worked in the car.

Not in the classic taxi driver way. I was giving a woman a lift. Another driver misindicated on a roundabout, I was about to pull onto it but had to brake hard to avoid the other car.

The ABS kicked in and we juddered to a startling halt. She shouted 'Shit!' and dropped her phone in the passenger footwell. Otherwise all was well and we continued to the destination.

Maybe she wasn't a sex worker, she could have been just an attractive young lady, all glammed up but nervous and going to fancy bar she didn't know the location of, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. You never know with The Crazy Uber.

[Buckaroo]

The old "oops I have dropped my mobile" routine eh?

Obviously wanted to have rampant sex with you.

Oldest trick in the book. Page 10 of the Uber driver's training manual: Things to watch out for.

[MyLittleStudPony]

The £200 a day after HMRC have had their cut and you’ve covered fuel and car related expenses, including capital depreciation, is probably 30-40% less?

If Uber pay you then are you PAYE and you lose the tax free advantage of actual cash changing hands that you might not declare?

Yes, it's before expenses. I reckon if you did evenings and weekends rather than weekday daytimes, you could make that money after expenses. Maybe, I've never tried. I only worked three days last week.

It does seem to vary significantly depending on where you are.

And yes, there is tax to pay. You do a tax return, I imagine you can't hide any of the income.

[KungFooBob]

Three pages in and he's still not told us that he's had a blowie as payment yet!

[Couchy]

Started using Uber locally, a 20 min trip costs less than a £10, for that the car has to get here and then fuel comes out of it too. Talking to the drivers they are using hybrid Toyotas doing 70mpg, so for my trip they’d used £1 of fuel leaving £9 which has to pay the cost of the car and the cost of getting to me. Last one when he left me had a job come up, job was 20 miles away and paying £7 when he got there, an hour round trip for £7 ?
Same driver was in a hire car, £400 a week all inclusive of insurance and servicing. I don’t see how they make minimum wage tbh

[DefTrap]

I know a guy who has cabbied as his primary income for at least 20 years - sleepy market town in Dorset, his clientele seem to be mainly old biddies wanting to pop into town 5 minutes away for shopping and a natter. It takes him forever to get them out of the house and into the cab - I hope he's on the clock from the moment he arrives.

No idea how he makes ends meet. I strongly suspect he only does it to keep himself busy (and not have to be given jobs around the house) and that he has a shedload of inherited income, so it doesn't really matter if his income barely exceeds his costs

[Cousin Jack]

Started using Uber locally, a 20 min trip costs less than a £10, for that the car has to get here and then fuel comes out of it too. Talking to the drivers they are using hybrid Toyotas doing 70mpg, so for my trip they’d used £1 of fuel leaving £9 which has to pay the cost of the car and the cost of getting to me. Last one when he left me had a job come up, job was 20 miles away and paying £7 when he got there, an hour round trip for £7 ?
Same driver was in a hire car, £400 a week all inclusive of insurance and servicing. I don’t see how they make minimum wage tbh

They probably don't, but the attraction is that you can make what appears to be a fair wedge if you work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. They probably don't really factor in all the costs either, like tax and NI, and depreciation. All they see is the cash in their hand.

One of the problems of the gig economy, it feeds on the poor and foolish.

[MyLittleStudPony]

Uber uses 'surge pricing'. When demand goes up, so do the fares and driver payments (not the same thing). To make any money you really need to find an area which surges a lot.

And renting a car to do it in is incredibly expensive. I think the best way to make money from it is to buy more cars and rent them out. There's a guy not a million miles from me who has about 150. Although by that point, it's no longer a simple thing.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I was taken a back a little when I was talking to the receptionist at where I worked, and she was telling me she had had a big night out - but had to shag the taxi driver as she didn't have enough money for the fair.
And she wasn't kidding!!

That's pretty common. It happened to me once.

Did the taxi driver wear the bumming hat?

[DefTrap]

My nieces family are proper grifters. Half the stuff they own is from moody deals in pub car parks, he has weed growing in the loft, they have all sorts of iffy deals going on, all of it is cash.

They live quite nicely (albeit in a reasonably shifty part of Manchester - I assume there aren't the same opportunities in sleepy rural French villages like mine, but then I've never enquired). The tax man has no chance of following up this low level thievery, but by all accounts they're all at it ...

[Mussels]

And yes, there is tax to pay. You do a tax return, I imagine you can't hide any of the income.

You say that but I was part of a discussion in a pub at Christmas and people were talking about tax, two of them rent houses, cash payments for rent and they don't declare t to HMRC, then there were tradesmen that were saying the same and a bloke had just sold a house and didn't declare significant capital gains,
I was quite taken aback at the blatancy of it.

I'd be too frit to do it but I suppose HMRC only has limited resources and they can't catch everyone.

HMRC don't seem interested even when they are handed Angela Rayner on a plate, probably because it would cost them more to investigate than they would get back.

[MyLittleStudPony]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life ... e-33335257


10k a month. For essentially just driving round town in a fancy Toyota loaded up with PAWGs.