Diary of an Uber Driver

By TheOriginalUberDriver

'The best storyteller we've had on the show' Kyle Sandilands, Kyle & Jackie O, KIIS FM

Welcome to the secret world of the Uber driver. Ben Phillips enjoys an intimate glimpse into the lives of ordinary people around Sydney -- from their morning routines to their despair after a date gone wrong, the trip out to the city and the drunken ride home afterwards. He acts as a sounding board, takes the rap for loud music, sees people at their finest and weakest, and most importantly gets to observe a cast of thoroughly extraordinary characters that make a big metropolis.

Featured on ABC The Drum, The Today Show and KIIS FM, Ben Phillips' wry wit and insight have taken Sydney by storm. Diary of an Uber Driver is a snapshot of our unerring propensity to share, and overshare, from the safe anonymity of the back seat. These are your stories -- whether you remember telling them or not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Feb 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781460707159

Book preview

Contents

Why Uber?

Holly

Alejandro

The Rugby Boys

Keithy

Marco

Love: Part 1

Love: Part 2

Gary

Jack

Jacob

Steve

Terry

Viva la Uber

Revenge of the Taxis

The Wolf of George Street

Bondi Bad Girls

The Note

Philippe

Oscar

Private School Girls

Damo’s Bucks

Just Keep Driving

About the Author

Copyright

Why Uber?

Over the past twenty-seven years I have found myself in many truly bizarre situations. However, if you had sat me down when I finished high school and said, Listen, in ten years’ time you will be broke, have grey hairs in your beard and be driving for a modern-style taxi service called Uber, I wouldn’t have believed you. In fact, I would have been rather offended. I was supposed to be retired by now and drinking pina coladas on a beach in the Bahamas, not ferrying around abusive drunkards on a Saturday night and sculling cans of energy drink to stay awake.

My seventeen-year-old self envisioned a tall, bronzed statue of a man with perfect white teeth and a full head of hair. I am still tall, but pale, and far from statuesque. I am not overweight but have a midsection like a plastic bag full of warm custard. I’m by no means bald, but my hair is slowly running away from my translucent face. My teeth aren’t white, straight or close to perfect. They are more of a McDonald’s-fries yellow, slightly chipped and in need of attention. Dentists are expensive and my bank account is as empty as a schooner glass on ANZAC day. By now I was supposed to be a man who could speak several languages. I am fluent in English and Australian slang.

I haven’t travelled, not really: England for two months before flying home to a girl I thought I loved doesn’t count – so my friends like to remind me. And maybe that’s my problem. The reason why I haven’t made it to the Bahamas. Fuck, I haven’t even made it to Fraser Island.

I had just quit another sales job when a close friend suggested I drive for Uber. He said it would be the perfect temporary job while I worked out the next career move or business venture I was inevitably going to wade into like a Labrador puppy chasing waves at the beach. A feeling of relief instantly washed over me as I imagined a life with no boss, no inbox overflowing with emails and no real responsibilities, besides driving my passengers to their destination safely, of course. Yes, I was going to be an Uber driver. The decision wouldn’t get me to the Bahamas any time soon, but strangely, freeing myself from self-imposed expectations, if only temporarily, felt like a holiday to me. I couldn’t afford a gap year to Europe to find myself, so I would hit the streets of Sydney instead.

The idea met staunch opposition from my mum, who was convinced I was going to be kidnapped by a rogue passenger, never to be seen again. She also doubted I would ever get paid by some fancy tech-business operating out of San Francisco. I watched her face turn from white to red to scarlet as she shook her head and pursed her lips, desperately trying to conjure her best argument to convince me not to drive for Uber. Well . . . you, you, you’re not a bloody taxi driver, alright! she finally managed to yell, her face changing back to its original colour. We both burst out laughing at her outburst.

My reasons for driving for Uber were simple. I wanted some breathing space, free from the pressure and stresses of a full-time job, to work out exactly what I wanted from life. I didn’t want my judgement to be clouded by sales targets and deadlines or a boss constantly asking how many meetings I had in my diary for the week. Uber could give me this freedom, so I signed up and started to drive.

Any half-formed plans I had for career moves quickly evaporated as I became more interested in listening to my passengers than the constant, tiresome self-critical rhetoric playing on loop inside my mind. I was thoroughly enjoying the new world I had entered. In a single day I would meet inventors, successful business owners, cancer researchers, budding actors and musicians. I would be introduced to new ideas, new information and new perspectives from people I would never ordinarily have had the chance to meet. For the first time in an age I would leave work inspired and excited for my next shift.

When people asked me what I had been up to lately I could finally replace my usual stock-standard answer of Not much with countless stories about the intriguing people I had met. My friends and family, it became obvious, weren’t so interested in stories about the well-adjusted, successful citizens of Sydney. They were becoming obsessed with my tales about Sydney’s more colourful characters. They desperately wanted to know more sordid details about the young woman scorned after a first date gone wrong, or the male prostitute I was taking to a call-out, or the passenger with so much cocaine up his arse I’m surprised sniffer dogs in New Zealand weren’t picking up the scent. I was now constantly being asked if I had any more good Uber stories to tell, and I did.

Late on a Friday or Saturday night, I would park beneath the street-lights and type notes into my phone. I began keeping a detailed log of the more outrageous passengers I was encountering. It wasn’t just friends and family who were interested in my stories either. A regular question from my passengers was, Do you have any cool stories about crazy passengers in your car?

I had always enjoyed writing so I decided to start a Wordpress blog titled, Diary of an Uber Driver. To protect the identities of my passengers I changed their names and locations. Otherwise I stayed as true to the rest of the details as possible.

Following my fourth entry, which was about passengers attending the raucous celebrations at the Woollahra Rugby Club in Rose Bay, I was approached by the Daily Mail for an interview about my online diary. Shortly after the article was published, the number of visitors to my blog sky-rocketed; I found I was being written about by countless online news outlets. In just three months more than 100,000 people across the world had logged on to read my stories. I was completely overwhelmed and humbled by the response. My blog was ranking just beneath Diary of Anne Frank in Google.

I could never have foreseen that taking what I thought was a backwards step would lead me to where I am now. I am grateful to be given the opportunity to share my stories with you and equally as grateful to the wonderful, vibrant people of Sydney for providing me with fodder to share.

Holly

It doesn’t matter that you’re ugly and you have a small dick. You’ll still have women throwing themselves at you! Won’t you! hissed the drunken Medusa as she glared at me from the passenger seat.

No, this isn’t a scene from a blind date gone wrong. This is where the conversation ended up on my first job as an Uber driver.

I will take you back to where it all started.

My palms were sweaty, knuckles white, as I clenched the steering wheel with both hands. I jerked my head to the side, winced and bit my bottom lip. I was in a fierce argument with myself: whether or not to drive home and lock this crazy idea away in the bottomless pit of pipe dreams and failed schemes of years past. My empty wallet and growling stomach won this round. I spent my last eighty dollars on a full tank of petrol and a nifty black iPhone holder that sticks to my windscreen . . . sometimes. I needed to do this.

It was 10 p.m. on a cool winter’s night and I knew it was coming soon. My stomach jumped at every Facebook notification and Viber message beeping away on my screen. I’m unsure why I was so nervous. I know how to drive a car; in fact, I’m a rather good driver. I’d just never done anything like this before.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

My phone suddenly lit up with an image of a flashing map and a countdown timer which started at ten seconds. Would I accept my first mission? Nine, eight, seven, six . . . I pressed my pointer finger firmly into the screen and the beeping stopped. I took a deep breath and read the instructions on the phone.

Holly – 4 minutes – Balmain

There was also a picture of a map with Holly’s location, and her phone number.

I secured my phone into its holder on the windscreen and took my car out of park. Alright! I reassured myself with a firm nod of the head. Let’s do this. I hit the navigate button on the phone and started driving toward the mysterious Holly. What would she look like and where would I be taking her, I wondered.

I pulled up out the front of an old English-style pub in Balmain called the London. Bursting through the tavern doors were two middle-aged lovers with red-wine grins. Dressed as Danny and Sandy from Grease, their passionate make-out session was rudely interrupted by the worst Fonzie impersonator I had ever seen. He had sideburns painted on in black texta and wore a leather jacket with elbow patches. AYYYYYYYYYY! he gurgled, just inches from their faces. "Ahh, fuck off would ya, Darryl! Fonzie wasn’t even in Grease!" barked the drunken Sandy as she wiped droplets of Fonzie’s spit from the corner of her mouth.

Faux-Fonzie, taken aback by the insult, crashed into a young barman balancing a glistening snake of pint glasses four feet above his head. Ohhhhhh noooooo! came the screams from the barman as the glass anaconda plummeted into the pavement, sending hundreds of tiny shards hurtling into the street. A few specks of stale beer peppered my passenger-side window as I fought back laughter.

But where was Holly? I reached for my phone to give her a call when it flashed suddenly with a private number. I quickly answered.

Hello? Holly, is that you? I asked politely. I could hear broken breathing on the other end of the phone. Hello? I asked again.

Hello! responded the stranger on the other end of the line. "I’m at the bus stop around the