A rigidity to Uber’s stupidity

See update for July 25, 2021, at end of post.


To try to make a long story short, driving for Uber and Lyft on Pittsburgh roads destroyed my 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid; maintenance costs had become ludicrous. Uber and Lyft have arrangements with rental car companies such that I could, in theory, rent a car to drive, but rental cars have become hard to get and very expensive.[1] Another issue is that for this kind of work, I really need some options that make the car more resilient to the abuse it must endure, and I put a lot of mileage on, so I’m feeling like a used car (right now, even these are ludicrously expensive[2]) is really an inadequate solution. So I ordered a new car and waited and waited and waited, because a shortage of computer chips has slowed production.[3] That car has finally arrived and I have a temporary vehicle registration from the dealer, which I have submitted to Uber and Lyft so I can resume driving.

Only the companies aren’t taking the temporary registration. They claim the document is blurry but this is 1) a lie, and 2) their go-to line whenever they can’t figure out what to make of a document. (This is part of a pattern: Duquesne Light used the same bogus excuse for repeatedly rejecting my California driver’s license when I was trying to establish an account for electrical service in Pittsburgh. As soon as I was able to submit a Pennsylvania license, my application went right through.)

Thinking that perhaps I had erred in supplying the entire form—far too much information for the absolute imbeciles who make up Uber and Lyft driver “support” staff—I tried cropping the image to show just the temporary registration part for my new car. Uber promptly complained that I had not supplied the entire document; this after refusing the entire document because it requires a fourth grade education to look towards the bottom where the temporary registration is. (Lyft is still thinking about it, never a good sign.)

So I tried again with Uber’s “support.” If they won’t accept the entire document and they won’t accept a portion of the document, what am I to do? Thus I was returned to the hell I have previously and repeatedly experienced of imbeciles reduced to bots supplying answers to frequently asked questions that aren’t actually my question and that they refuse to deviate from.

I did manage to get a phone number out of them and I did, in desperation, eventually call it. There is a rigidity to their stupidity that left me convinced that this would be futile, as in the end, I would still have to submit the documentation through the very same process that insists on rejecting it, which when I called the number I indeed had to do. But the guy on the phone saw the document and promised approval within fifteen minutes. This worked, but getting to this point was infuriating.

As I reflect on this, I am thinking again of what I picked up along the way about management theory. The vast majority of boss-worker relationships are “Theory X” relationships in which the boss presumes s/he is the repository of all knowledge and expertise, that workers are lazy imbeciles who must be motivated with the metaphorical “carrot” and the “stick.”[4]

There is another approach, called “Theory Y,” which values workers’ experiences of their jobs and empowers them to optimize their processes according to that experience as well as that of other stakeholders, including customers and larger communities. Though profitability becomes one priority among many, it turns out this approach has, in a number of cases (the evidence is anecdotal), proven more profitable, not less. Which, for me, raises a huge glaring question: Why does “Theory Y” not take hold even in companies where it has proven successful?[5] Why are not more companies giving it a try?

It’s a startling difference from what I’ve seen of pedagogical theory, where anecdotal success has instead been over-generalized for widespread adoption. Here companies, including some very major corporations, experiment with “Theory Y,” very often successfully, but fail to reproduce this success as new managers replace the old or the companies arbitrarily decide they like “Theory X” better.[6]

I think the way to understand this paradox is to realize that profit is not in fact the primary motivation for managers. This shows up when so-called meritocracy turns out to be a rationalization for nepotism and incompetence.[7] It shows up when bosses require workers to all show up at the same places at the same time, jamming roads and overwhelming public transit systems, for no real reason. It shows up in the wake of the pandemic as, despite successes with working from home,[8] managers are insisting that workers return to the office.[9]

This is not about productivity. This is not about profit. This is about control.

And what I’m seeing with Uber’s driver “support” is an extreme antithesis of “Theory Y,” extreme even by “Theory X” standards. This “support” is blatantly incompetent. It is blatantly wasteful as I, and presumably other drivers, cyclically and desperately attempt to elicit competent responses and this waste should be apparent through metrics that one would expect Uber to be collecting. So I have to assume that this imbecility is not limited to driver support; a management that sets up such a system, refusing to consider that not all problems are “frequently asked questions,” and then refuses to discard it on evident failure, is either woefully stupid or maliciously negligent and will be so in many more areas than driver “support.”

There is much about Uber that does not make sense; indeed, reminiscent of the dot-com boom, the company has no real business plan and there are longstanding doubts about its potential for profitability.[10] It’s possible to see this so-called driver “support” as a microscopically short-sighted attempt to cut costs in a likely doomed quest for profitability.[11]

If you assume that drivers are infinitely replaceable, it really doesn’t matter if some, like me, fall by the wayside. This assumption has, in the wake of the pandemic, proven problematic, and one might think that Uber and Lyft should adjust to taking better care of drivers, which they really aren’t doing.[12]

Again, there is a rigidity to these companies’ stupidity that goes beyond their so-called driver “support.” A lesson I drew from my dot-com crash experience is that if it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense, and it will not last. Some way, somehow, even if not right away, reality will arrive to bite people in the ass. I think I am seeing these companies’ demise.


Update, July 25, 2021: When I originally wrote this post, I had seen headlines, but not archived stories, indicating that employers were seeking to end work from home arrangements, bringing workers back into their offices, with a consequence that, at the time, I was unable to cite a source for this claim. The Wall Street Journal has since published a story on the phenomenon so I now have a source to cite[13] and have added the citation to the original text.

The story does not challenge, nor does it supply evidence supporting employer claims that workers work better together in person.[14] This despite contrary evidence from when work from home arrangements began as a contagion-limiting response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[15] Given the corroborating evidence in the original post, I therefore continue to believe that this is more about control than it is about profit or productivity.

  1. [1]Scott McCartney, “Wait, Where Did All the Rental Cars Go?” Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/hertz-avis-enterprise-rental-car-shortage-11618335385
  2. [2]Nora Naughton, “Selling Your Used Car? You Could Turn a Profit,” Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/selling-your-used-car-you-could-turn-a-profit-11626606000
  3. [3]Debby Wu, Sohee Kim, and Ian King, “Why the World Is Short of Computer Chips, and Why It Matters,” Bloomberg, June 17, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/the-world-is-short-of-computer-chips-here-s-why-quicktake
  4. [4]Yvon Chouinard and Vincent Stanley, The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years (Ventura, CA: Patagonia, 2012); Chip Conley, Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007); Gary Heil, Warren Bennis, and Deborah C. Stephens, Douglas McGregor Revisited: Managing the Human Side of the Enterprise (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000); Art Kleiner, The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008); Carol Sanford, The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011); Marvin R. Weisbord, Productive Workplaces: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012).
  5. [5]Yvon Chouinard and Vincent Stanley, The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years (Ventura, CA: Patagonia, 2012); Chip Conley, Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007); Gary Heil, Warren Bennis, and Deborah C. Stephens, Douglas McGregor Revisited: Managing the Human Side of the Enterprise (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000); Art Kleiner, The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008); Carol Sanford, The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011); Marvin R. Weisbord, Productive Workplaces: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012).
  6. [6]Yvon Chouinard and Vincent Stanley, The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned From Patagonia’s First 40 Years (Ventura, CA: Patagonia, 2012); Chip Conley, Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007); Gary Heil, Warren Bennis, and Deborah C. Stephens, Douglas McGregor Revisited: Managing the Human Side of the Enterprise (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000); Art Kleiner, The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008); Carol Sanford, The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011); Marvin R. Weisbord, Productive Workplaces: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012).
  7. [7]Christopher Hayes, The Twilight of the Elites (New York: Crown, 2012).
  8. [8]Jeff Horwitz, “Facebook to Shift Permanently Toward More Remote Work After Coronavirus,” Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-shift-permanently-toward-more-remote-work-after-coronavirus-11590081300; Noor Zainab Hussain, “Mastercard won’t send staff back to office without coronavirus vaccine,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 21, 2020, https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/mastercard-won-t-send-staff-back-to-office-without-coronavirus-vaccine-20200521-p54v12.html; Heather Kelly, “Twitter employees don’t ever have to go back to the office (unless they want to),” Washington Post, May 12, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/12/twitter-work-home/; Dana Mattioli and Konrad Putzier, “When It’s Time to Go Back to the Office, Will It Still Be There?” Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-its-time-to-go-back-to-the-office-will-it-still-be-there-11589601618
  9. [9]Chip Cutter, “The Boss Wants You Back in the Office. Like, Now,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/return-to-work-the-boss-wants-you-back-in-the-office-11627079616
  10. [10]David Benfell, “This is not a business plan,” Not Housebroken, July 8, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/06/20/this-is-not-a-business-plan/
  11. [11]Rich Alton, “Basic economics means Uber and Lyft can’t rely on driverless cars to become profitable,” MarketWatch, August 12, 2019, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/basic-economics-means-uber-and-lyft-cant-rely-on-driverless-cars-to-become-profitable-2019-08-12; Eliot Brown, “Uber Wants to Be the Uber of Everything—But Can It Make a Profit?” Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-wants-to-be-the-uber-of-everything-11556909866; Eliot Brown, “Lyft Raises 2019 Revenue Outlook and Sees Smaller Annual Loss,” Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/lyfts-raises-2019-revenue-outlook-and-sees-smaller-annual-loss-11565208387; Eliot Brown, “Uber Posts Its Largest Quarterly Loss,” Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-posts-its-largest-ever-quarterly-loss-11565295373; Richard Durant, “Uber’s Profitability Problem Is Structural,” Seeking Alpha, August 21, 2019, https://seekingalpha.com/article/4287055-ubers-profitability-problem-structural; Ryan Felton, “Uber Is Doomed,” Jalopnik, February 24, 2017, https://jalopnik.com/uber-is-doomed-1792634203; Edward Helmore, “Will Uber ever make money? Day of reckoning looms for ride-sharing firm,” Guardian, August 4, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/04/uber-ride-share-lyft-ipo-earnings; Sebastian Herrera and Heather Somerville, “Uber Shares Hit New Low as Post-IPO Lockup Expires,” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-shares-face-more-pressure-as-post-ipo-lockup-is-set-to-expire-11573041602″; Megan McArdle, “Uber can’t keep bleeding money, can it? It apparently thinks it can,” Washington Post, November 5, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/uber-cant-keep-bleeding-money-can-it-it-apparently-thinks-it-can/2019/11/05/4aa4fec0-000b-11ea-8501-2a7123a38c58_story.html; Tom McKay, “Surprising No One, Uber Continues to Hemorrhage Cash,” Gizmodo, November 4, 2019, https://gizmodo.com/surprising-no-one-uber-continues-to-hemorrhage-cash-1839625062; Christopher Mims, “In a Tight Labor Market, Gig Workers Get Harder to Please,” Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-tight-labor-market-gig-workers-get-harder-to-please-11556942404; Patrick Howell O’Neill, “Just In Time For Its Big IPO, Uber Loses $1 Billion,” Gizmodo, April 26, 2019, https://gizmodo.com/just-in-time-for-its-big-ipo-uber-loses-1-billion-1834331980; Annie Palmer, “Uber falls to all-time low as investors grow more skeptical,” CNBC, August 12, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/12/uber-stock-falls-to-all-time-low-as-investors-grow-more-skeptical.html; Dan Primack, “Uber’s IPO got caught in a perfect storm,” Axios, May 11, 2019, https://www.axios.com/ubers-ipo-perfect-storm-2a75a55a-adec-496b-bc23-02d99d02920f.html; Erik Sherman, “Yesterday, Shareholders Bailed on Uber. Today, Insiders Got Their Chance,” Fortune, November 6, 2019, https://fortune.com/2019/11/06/uber-stock-insiders-growth-profit-lockup-period/; Faiz Siddiqui and Greg Bensinger, “Uber’s first day of trading ended deep in the red over gig-economy fears,” Washington Post, May 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/10/uber-ipo/; Heather Somerville, “Uber Shedding About 350 Jobs to Shore Up Business,” Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-shedding-about-350-jobs-to-shore-up-business-11571092680; Heather Somerville, “Uber Booked Another Quarterly Loss as Revenue Climbed,” Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-booked-another-quarterly-loss-as-revenue-climbed-11572901549; Heather Somerville and Mark Maurer, “Uber Cuts More Than 400 Technical Jobs,” Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-cuts-more-than-400-technical-jobs-11568144111; Georgia Wells, “Uber Cites Tight Competition After Posting $1 Billion Loss,” Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubers-first-quarter-loss-tops-1-billion-11559246846; Stephen Wilmot, “Uber’s Long Road to Profits,” Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubers-long-road-to-profits-11566471068; Julia Carrie Wong, “Disgruntled drivers and ‘cultural challenges’: Uber admits to its biggest risk factors,” Guardian, April 12, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/11/uber-ipo-risk-factors; Michael Wursthorn, “Lyft Shares Rally on Hopes Price Increases Will Drive Profit,” Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/lyft-shares-rally-on-hopes-price-increases-will-drive-profits-11566845457
  12. [12]Jessica Bursztynsky, “Uber CEO is ‘not happy’ with how long it’s taking to pick riders up or prices being charged,” CNBC, May 25, 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/25/uber-ceo-is-not-happy-with-driver-supply-pricing.html; Laura Forman, “Uber and Lyft Need a Sharper Turn,” Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-and-lyft-need-a-sharper-turn-11618311794; Michael Hiltzik, “Uber reneges on the ‘flexibility’ it gave drivers to win their support for Prop. 22,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-28/uber-flexibility-prop-22; Faiz Siddiqui, “Where have all the Uber drivers gone?” Washington Post, May 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/07/uber-lyft-drivers/; Faiz Siddiqui, “You may be paying more for Uber, but drivers aren’t getting their cut of the fare hike,” Washington Post, June 9, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-lyft-drivers-price-hike/; Mariella Moon, “Uber and Lyft rides are pricier due to a lack of drivers (and the waits are longer, too),” Engadget, June 1, 2021, https://www.engadget.com/uber-lyft-surge-pricing-lack-of-drivers-035835230.html; Edward Ongweso, Jr., “Uber and Lyft Can’t Find Drivers Because Gig Work Sucks,” Vice, July 8, 2021, https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvej4/uber-and-lyft-cant-find-drivers-because-gig-work-sucks; Rida Qadri and Alexandra Mateescu, “Uber and Lyft: woo drivers with stable pay, not short-term honeypots,” Guardian, June 20, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/20/gig-economy-companies-uber-lyft-drivers-pandemic; Preetika Rana, “Uber, Lyft Sweeten Job Perks Amid Driver Shortage, Lofty Fares,” Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-lyft-sweeten-job-perks-amid-driver-shortage-lofty-fares-11625223601; Faiz Siddiqui, “Where have all the Uber drivers gone?” Washington Post, May 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/07/uber-lyft-drivers/; Faiz Siddiqui, “You may be paying more for Uber, but drivers aren’t getting their cut of the fare hike,” Washington Post, June 9, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/09/uber-lyft-drivers-price-hike/; Alissa Walker, “Why Your Uber Ride Is Suddenly Costing a Fortune,” New York, June 4, 2021, https://www.curbed.com/2021/06/uber-lyft-expensive-new-york-city.html
  13. [13]Chip Cutter, “The Boss Wants You Back in the Office. Like, Now,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/return-to-work-the-boss-wants-you-back-in-the-office-11627079616
  14. [14]Chip Cutter, “The Boss Wants You Back in the Office. Like, Now,” Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/return-to-work-the-boss-wants-you-back-in-the-office-11627079616
  15. [15]Jeff Horwitz, “Facebook to Shift Permanently Toward More Remote Work After Coronavirus,” Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-shift-permanently-toward-more-remote-work-after-coronavirus-11590081300; Noor Zainab Hussain, “Mastercard won’t send staff back to office without coronavirus vaccine,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 21, 2020, https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/mastercard-won-t-send-staff-back-to-office-without-coronavirus-vaccine-20200521-p54v12.html; Heather Kelly, “Twitter employees don’t ever have to go back to the office (unless they want to),” Washington Post, May 12, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/12/twitter-work-home/; Dana Mattioli and Konrad Putzier, “When It’s Time to Go Back to the Office, Will It Still Be There?” Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-its-time-to-go-back-to-the-office-will-it-still-be-there-11589601618

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