Saturday, 13 May 2017.
Today I am at Kuching the cat city for my son's sister in-law wedding.
8.33am, booking an Uber from the arrival hall, Kuching International Airport. Mister CHG of Proton Persona picked me and my wife up. At the beginning, this uncle not speak very much. So I need to break the ice. Later, we conversed many things. He used to drive 3 tonnes lorry but now he retired. When I asked him why not using gps, he said, "aiyah, very hard loh, I know where the hotel already, so easier just to drive there directly." So he told me that he drives Uber after sending his wife to work and later in the evening needs to pick her up again. He drives Uber for two months already and doesnt drive at night. "Saya juga mau lehat mah," he said. Later, he sent us to Grand Margherita Hotel.
9.55am, booking an Uber again from the hotel to the wedding hall, which is about 3km away. ALX on proton Persona accepted the job. Like mister CHG, ALX also put his smartphone on the lap. When I told him that most drivers put the phone on the aircond grill, he seemed quite surprised. "Cannot lah uncle, later got burned and kaput also susah," he looked at me. I looked back at him. I told him how can the phone got burned while it hangs on the airconditioner?
After the wedding event, I booked another Uber driver going back to the hotel.
12.55pm, PSL got the job. This young man likes to talk too. He storied-mory about his experiences on driving Uber for the last 3 months. "I accepted all the jobs lah uncle, but I prefers the short distance jobs bcoz of the incentive given by Uber. If I completed 110 trips in one week, I got total rm1000!" he told me. "Before Uber, I was a tutor, the income was very ciput and little, only rm150 per week persubject," he seems happy now. When asked about Grab, he said, "Grab cannot carik makan here lah uncle. Nobody wants to use Grab in Kuching!" Like mister CHG and ALX who picked me up earlier, this PSL also put the smartphone on his lap. I reckon, all of them are new Uber driver and struggling to use the gps, especially the Waze.
