My homage to (UBER drivers in) LA

Caroline-Lucie Ulbrich
8 min readMar 17, 2019

I recently spent 2.5 weeks in LA. I booked myself into a WeWork at West Jefferson Boulevard in Culver City, got an AirBnB in West Adams and was all set.

It’s not like public transport does not exist in LA: there are busses and the metro. However, everybody knows that it is fairly limited. You either need a car or a generous UBER budget. Due to lucky circumstances (thank you, AirBnB), the latter applied to me.

Boy did my daily UBER rides in LA provide me with a glimpse of the cultural diversity that is so characteristic of this metropolis. Into that and the human condition.

In a short period of time, I was exposed to many different drivers and their narratives. Some shared a lot, others only revealed a little. To some, I acted as a coach; others in turn provided their wisdoms to me. Do you remember kaleidoscopes from your childhood? I’d liken my experience to that — seeing a city through the prism of its inhabitants’ life experiences.

Let’s get started and look at the various “characters” I encountered. There was this friendly man from El Salvador. He was in his late 50ies or early 60ies. I don’t recall how; but we started diving into his marital issues very quickly.

A very warm and cheerful person, he was not sure whether his life partner of over 30 years was cheating on him or not.

They lived together, had children together, yet never married. She had been conversing with a man back in the home country for over 1.5 years now. Every time my UBER driver attempted to take on this issue with his life partner, she would say she loved him, that he was the only man for her and then remain silent. Upon hearing this, I suggested they seek the services of a couple therapist to improve mutual communication. Once I had suggested this, I wondered: did they have these counsellors in his community? Could they afford one?

Wasn’t this a very “Sex and the City” advice to dash out from my part?

But he liked the idea. I mused whether this other man (the one that was potentially threatening my UBER driver’s relationship) was after his partner’s money. He agreed. Our conversation ended as we had arrived at LA International Airport and I had to go. What I appreciated most was his willingness to take my advice; the level of tolerance he displayed (for example, when I told him I was not interested in having children if that entailed having to stay at home). The conversation also humbled me: this man encountered difficulties yet remained cheerful. He was a genuine person trying to make ends meet and lead a good life (or so my interpretation).

I was lucky to happen onto another friendly UBER driver with a lot of life experience to share. This time around, the man was originally from the Philippines. He drove a Volkswagen (a Passat as far as I recall). I am German(-French): we take pride in our cars in my county. Cars are always a good conversation starter. So OF COURSE I had to congratulate him on his ride. We laughed as he confided in me that he had gotten the nice German car and his wife’s car was some no-name brand vehicle.

He commented: “Why should she get the nicer of the two cars? They (my family) usually ride with me anyway”. Hilarious.

We conversed about my studies in Singapore and his regular travels to Hong Kong in the past (he’d go once a month). And then — finally — we got to the truly fascinating story. My driver narrated that his very first car was a beetle. He continued being loyal to the Volkswagen brand as many years ago, driving one in the Philippines had saved their lives. They were on the highway when a truck in front of them lost some of its load. My UBER driver took the courageous decision to stay on course and ride over the load. In his mind, this would put his family less at risk then trying to change his car’s course and then end in a tailspin. What a story! In my mind, I saw them on a lonely highway in the middle of the jungle in the 1960ies … (I don’t think my depiction of the Philippines was right). Woo-ha!

On another ride, my driver was a young cheerful African-American. His father was a marine and taught him certain values. For example, to not get into conflict with the law and to not do hard drugs. I remembered the countless times when I had done internet research on the marines; being impressed with the fact that they have well trained Belgian shepherd dogs and that these dogs are even able to jump from airplanes. That is plain crazy stuff! … we ended up discussing his current employment situation as an UBER driver. He told me he had completed a first round of phone interviews with a company.

When they asked him what really mattered to him, his response was: work-life balance.

These Millennials! That’s an answer I as a member of Generation X (and a management consultant) never would have dared giving in an interview. It truly is a different generation (and I think they have their priorities right).

DTLA. Credit: Photo by Adrian Trinkaus on Unsplash

On my last day in LA, a Monday, a very religious man acted as my driver. It was sunny out and he pointed that out at the very beginning of our conversation.

He proceeded to share with me that he would take some time off to go to the beach and admire the seashore. I in turn confided in him that water has a soothing effect on me.

His story: He used to run his own business as an auto mechanic in Santa Catalina but eventually moved back to LA. A native Angelino, he missed the city. I suppose relocating was also a means to cope with his divorce a couple of years back. And now comes the “interesting” part: he explained to me that everything is a three (morning, noon, evening). Ok… I sometimes just let people talk, curious what comes next. Religion became the topic du jour. We agreed that angels exist. So far, so good. The conversation took a turn when he claimed that we humans are all fallen angels and that earth is hell.

I retorted by telling him I had experienced plenty of happy moments on earth and that to me, this was definetely not hell.

My favorite driver was a 38 year old African-American woman. She was moving back to ATL at the end of the month. Her job with Delta enabled her to travel a lot — with the Caribbean being her favorite region (the Caribbean does nothing for me at all). As a former professional basketball player she had spent three years abroad, in France, Germany and Latvia.

She had played in Munich for one year and had encountered racism there and I apologized for it.

We then had a bit of a moment of truth. I told her how aware I am what it means to be white in this world. Everytime I am in Singapore and Hong Kong, it feels like colonialism is not fully over — all one has to go do is to spend Sundays downtown to witness how many maids and cooks and gardener and construction workers from various Southeast Asian nations spend their lives serving the more privileged classes.

Not all of our conversation was that serious: we had a good laugh when I told her about my attempt to signal my interest to a cute guy at my co-working space.

The cute guy had checked me out for several days in a row. On one of my last days at the WeWork, I set myself the task (how German of me) to finally talk to him. So I went up to him and asked him how working with a big screen connected to this MAC book was for him. The poor guy certainly had no clue that this presented my attempt to flirt with him. I do remember him talking to and smiling at me and me thinking how breathtakingly handsome he was. I froze — I was unable to smile back.

My driver found this funny and also told me: sometimes the shy guys are the best ones.

She was my favourite. Not only was she laid back and cheerful. Her moving back to ATL brought back all kinds of memories: As a 17 year old, I went to High School in Lawrenceville, a suburb between Atlanta and Athens. And I loved it there — it was my ultimate chance to reinvent myself. My admiration for the US and its story-telling population stems from this time.

There were also two drivers coming from the African continent. I suppose their stories were somewhat representative of the hardship inhabitants of that continent encounter. Hardships we from the West can hardly imagine, right? One of them was a lady from Nigeria who clearly needed money and didn’t make enough driving for UBER. Her boyfriend was still back in Nigeria and she said she loved him and was ready to have kids. He still needed to get his papers and relocate to the US.

Another one was an Ethiopian who had won the Green card lottery. He hailed from a family with 13 kids which made me think of my French grandmother Lucienne. She was also from a family of 13. The Ethiopian was a very optimist young fellow.

His sister had just died in a car accident in Ethiopia — his grieving grandmother stated that she should have died instead.

How did he maintain that positive frame of mind? I am comfortable with death; but I don’t think I would cope well with my sibling’s untimely passing (I am fortunate to have a very reliable and smart brother). What a tragedy. Last year, I witnessed my aunt dying and suffering in the process; an experience that still haunts me to this day. But I at least had the chance to tell her how much both my brother and I loved her; and that my deceased father (her beloved brother) was waiting for her. This guy — this young Ethiopian — did not have the chance to bid his sister farewell, to prepare her for her journey.

That’s it — my homage to (UBER drivers in) LA. The various encouters made me humble. When you live in a pretty homogenous country such as Germany, spending time in a multicultural city such as LA is truly invigorating.

Why did all of these conversations instill a sense of gratitude of me? Because they made me realize how privileged I am to have grown up without any hardships; what it means to come from a country that is a global economic might. One has to travel to realize that.

Multicultural cities like LA always feel like home to me. This might be due to the fact that my family encompasses five different nationalities — German, French, American, Vietnamese (add to that my uncle’s Italian girlfriend). Of course one can argue that if I were to move to LA, I would get upset with the traffic (everybody complains about the traffic). But you know what? People are warm there. They share their stories. I love it when people do.

After all, we are humans — and our life stories are our capital.

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