Tag Archives: Uber

Sorry Seems to Be the Easiest Word

 

I don’t like watching unrecorded television, probably because I have no dominion over it.

Live sports are maddening: My favorite teams have the audacity to err, lose a game even. And studies have shown that listening to the “Keyes on Van Nuys” jingle repeatedly will cause human ears to bleed and, eventually, fall off. That’s just science.

Same with any show that isn’t called Breaking Bad or Fargo. I’d rather record a late-night airing, even if I’m awake for it, to avoid sales pitches for hemorrhoid creams and personal injury attorneys.

But this week, I was drawn to the unadulterated boob tube by a much-publicized game for which I cared little. And I was glad I did.

Not for the game, which was putrid. But the ads were fascinating. In the span of two prime time hours, three companies ran advertisements with movie-quality production values, which is nothing new. But this is: The ads collectively said one thing: ‘I’m sorry.’

First came Uber’s, which apologized for its reputation of misogyny and driver/rider mistreatment:

Then came Facebook, which apologized for giving out personal data to anyone with a checkbook:

Finally, there was Wells Fargo, which apologized for creating bogus customer accounts — and the requisite account fees:

https://youtu.be/1rrivHxCeeY

Whether the ads are effective remain unclear. But on a corporate scale, the mea culpa marketing strategy is in full bloom. A cursory check of commercials of other  corporations reveal a similar tack. Here was Domino’s apology for making pizza that tastes like a cereal box:

General Motors asked forgiveness for all the taxpayer bailout money it needed to stay afloat:

And, not to be out-humbled, Toyota said ‘my bad’ for a string of recent recalls:

The strategy seems risky but well-defined in purpose: to make corporate America appear more humanoid. The Supreme Court has ruled that businesses have much the same rights as American citizens. But the court didn’t require them to have manners.

So corporations are putting on their best human airs. How many times have we seen a commercial with the subtext “Real people, not actors?” As if a) actors are not people; and b) real people are less likely to lie to you.

Only time will tell if the public will forgive. But an informal poll of friends suggests skepticism is a hard wall to bring down once it’s erected. Do you believe a deceiver who tells you, ‘This time, for real?’ We hear your apologies, corporate America. And we apologize for being so suspicious of ulterior motives. We’ll do better next time.

Promise.

 

 

 

 

Baby You Can Drive My Car

 

I took my first Uber ride this week.

That embarrassing acknowledgement comes as part confession, part contrition, and part caustic admission that I was wrong and need to own it.

For years, I railed against the ride sharing service, as I’m want to do with so many 21st century things. I’ll still never forgive my colleagues for allowing the term “social media” to take hold. And we did allow it — how else would it spread through popular culture? The American Surgery Association, a real thing, never would  recognize the term “social surgeon.” The Federal Aviation Administration would laugh your ass out the door if you applied for a “social pilot” license.

Yet not so with cars, even though there are 1.3 million traffic deaths a year, according to the National Highway Traffic Administration. That’s 3,287 deadly car crashes a day.

And Uber was suffering additional concerns. There was the fatal accident by a self-driving Uber in Arizona. And Jason Brian Dalton, the Uber driver from Kalamazoo who shot 6 people to death between fares in 2016.

But in truth, what  gave me pause was the “training” regimen required for all Uber drivers: a 13-minute YouTube video.  Everything a licensed cabbie must demonstrably learn about driving laws, legal liability, customer service, etc., could be neatly wrapped up watching that video, according to Silicon Valley. That says a lot about one of two industries, I’m not sure which.

The video is below, in its entirety. If you watch it, you’re technically Uber-approved to run a personal taxi service (though I wonder how many Uber drivers actually watched it).

That never cut it with me. I would rather drive myself, I rationalized, rather than trust a stranger in a deceptively deadly exercise in a vehicle I knew nothing about.

What an idiot.

Confession: I’m a YouTube junkie. Documentaries. Converted podcasts. Stanford lectures (brilliant idea). Animals doing funny shit (I am human, after all).

And it was on the unofficial lecture circuit I learned of the Cognitive Bias Codex, a map as complex as a New York subway. Evolutionary psychologists officially describe it as this: “Cognitive biases can be organized into four categories: biases that arise from too much information, not enough meaning, the need to act quickly, and the limits of memory. The biases can result in a departure from normative behavior and rationality.”

But isn’t that just a long way of saying you mistakenly believe you know what people are thinking — including yourself? The codex doesn’t have enough room on a circle to fit them all. When I gave up trying to learn the first definition and learned to accept the second, I realized my unwarranted bias against Uber.

After all, they are taking a bigger risk than me in the chance meeting. They are doing it for money. I do it in distraction. Speaking of which, I also had to face it: I suck at driving. They are more likely to be protective of their car than  I am, even in my own.

So I bit the bullet, downloaded the app, and scheduled a ride to the poker game that night.

Why was I nervous? What was the etiquette? Do I sit in the front seat or back? Do I tip him/her? Did they know they were popping my Uber cherry? I actually checked myself in the mirror and waited on the front patio like  an anxious prom date.

But my nerves began to ease when I paid more attention to the app itself. It pinged me two minutes before he was to arrive. The driver, an elderly Middle Eastern man in an immaculate Honda Civic hybrid, had been on 5,204 5-star rides in his two-and-a-half years at Uber. As his car approached, I could watch it block by block on the app’s GPS. So distracted was I, he had to gently beep twice when he stopped in front.

Alas, the driver either didn’t know he was taking my Uber virginity, or didn’t care. He was quiet as a monk and as cautious as a soccer mom. The ride cost me $11.33. I don’t know what a taxi would have cost. But I do know that if cab services aren’t implementing their own apps with similar GPS services, their time on this Earth will be shorter than that of newspapermen.

While I’m sure I’ll continue to bray against the do-it-yourself, asshole-economy, I have to admit I’d rather someone else deal with traffic.

Even a robot.