Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - Instaserfs (III of III)

Episode Date: July 7, 2015

“This is part of the sharing economy, I am sharing myself” Our instaserfs series comes to a crushing conclusion, Hear Instapoder Andrew attempt to manserve…  Plus we meet two former Uber drivers! Also this Thursday July 9th 3pm EST a live online ToE post-listening party. Visit spoken.am for details. Your host will be there, along with Andrew and some of the guests featured in the show, plus Mary Gray a researcher who studies labor and the sharing economy. Special thanks to our new sponsor Zady.com

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Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. You are listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called InstaSurf's Part 3. Andrew, our adventure is almost over. I think it's time, as the adults say on the radio, time to do the numbers. Yeah, well, we need to talk about that. Because I think we kind of have a problem calibrating all the different tips I got from these sharing economy jobs. What do you mean? Well, okay, take Lyft, for example.

The first couple of days, I didn't tell anybody I was working for the podcast, and I made significantly less per hour. For example, I drew four hours on the third, and I made $73. As opposed to I drew five hours on the sixth, and I made $271.20. So basically you're saying the very nature of doing this podcast kind of threw off the experiment. Well, I think when I told people that I wasn't actually a Lyft driver and that I was doing a podcast, I think a lot of people went, oh, you're really interesting now. And then they would tip me really well kind of as a result. That doesn't make

any sense. So if you're a fake worker with a microphone, they're going to tip you more. I'm not sure I buy this. I'm telling you, if I elevated my status above mere worker they gave me more money every time. Yeah, but you know Andrew, I think neither one of us

is an economist and we kind of have to figure out our own way of analyzing our data. I think we should sort of stick to the original idea, which is, could you make it? And if you look at this pile of money, and you look at your bills, how does that sort of work itself out? Right, well, that doesn't work out particularly well at all. But I think if we factor in the manservants here that haven't gotten paid for yet, I think that could really turn it around. Yeah, I feel we need to talk about this one. I mean, I'm still not 100%

convinced that this kind of like fits in with all the other companies. Oh, but I think this is totally a part of the sharing economy. I'm sharing myself, really. I think you need to explain a little bit more about how this one works. Okay, so in Manservants, it's basically, you know, there's a series of profiles online, and women, instead of getting a male stripper or something like that, can get a manservant. Who's, you know, presumably an attractive, fit, young man in a tuxedo. Who kind of does whatever you want. All right, so I'm a little unclear.

Did you have an onboarding session like you did with the others? No, not really. It was just I was sent a manual, and then I had to take a really extensive online quiz with essay questions, with all kinds of hypothetical situations that I could get in. Stop right there for a second. I want to test this out. Here's a hypothetical situation for you. So you've been hired to manserv for a very lonely woman.

When you arrive, the lights are out. You kind of have to let yourself in. She's sitting on the couch. She's very scantily dressed. You sit on the other end of the couch, She's very scantily dressed. You sit on the other end of the couch, but slowly she scoots over to you. Eventually she's in your lap. Oops, she says with a laugh. Come on, Andrew, quick. What do you do? You're supposed to deflect, but in a nice way. You say things like, I think you're beautiful. You're gorgeous. I would be so lucky, but I have to stop because

this is against the manservant's code. All right, let's try this again. You've been hired by a very wealthy, high-powered, no-nonsense woman who's invested not only her time, but her money in hiring herself a manservant. And she makes it clear to you that as soon as you walk in the door, that she is ready to take advantage of your services and compensate you handsomely for said services. What do you do? It's against the code. You know, the manual says right there, sex is a big no-no. And I don't even think that would happen.

This is preposterous. This is just like Uber saying it doesn't have workers. This is just like manservants saying it doesn't have sex workers i mean it's it's it's obviously sexual or it's like sensual or there's there's something sexual about it no no my my issue is who's training you that's what i want to know like do you get any guidance i never i've never met anybody from manservants i've've never met a single person. It was all over the phone, text message, emoji, you know what I mean? Emoji. Back up here.

You communicated with your superiors using emoji? Oh, absolutely. The manual uses emojis extensively. When it says you're not allowed to drink while you're on the job. And so for this part, they have a picture of beers and a pill and then an emoji with X's instead of I's. I would interpret that as basically them saying don't get roofied because you're not going to make the money that you should be making. Like they're just going to take advantage of you. Oh, yeah, that could happen. you're not going to make the money that you should be making. Like, they're just going to take advantage of you.

Oh, yeah, that could happen. But you wouldn't have to risk getting roofied if you weren't drinking. You shouldn't be drinking in the first place. So if you get roofied, it's your own damn fault. You are on your own. So is there a manservant's app? Did your phone make a noise to let you know it's your time to manserv? No, no. I got a text, like, from the head manservant. What did it say?

Girls Night In is the name of the event. Details. A low-key event. Three friends hanging out for a relaxing evening of outdoor fireside wine sipping. They're looking for a bartender, a showman type. So there are different types. You can get a showman or you can get more of a butler or whatever. And so they want a showman bartender who's named Eric. So that means I know my name's Eric for the night. And so I'd be like, hello, my lady, my name is Eric. And it is my pleasure to be your manservant for the duration of the evening. And I think that's pretty much what I said verbatim when I walked into Dickie's kitchen last Friday. And she was like, hi, Eric.

I need you to go outside because that's where the real party is. And so we went outside and I opened some champagne. Come on. You go outside and it's like, what? Like that's where her lady friends are just standing around waiting for your arrival. This is like a really bad porn movie. Oh no, not at all. Not at all. In fact, I could tell that they were kind of like, Oh, what are we going to do with this guy? You know? So they weren't impressed. Um, well I think i think okay i think two of them were impressed

but there was a third the third one was wasn't impressed so whenever anything would come up she would go like maybe that's something we could get eric to do like what like um like their grill was rusty. So I cleaned the grill with the wire brush and, you know, pretty thoroughly. And I started them a fire for the fire pit so they could hang out and be warm and stuff. And then moved all the furniture over whenever they wanted to move, you know, from where the hammock is over to the fire pit. I did end up actually doing palm readings. Palm readings? The manual actually suggests it as a way to lead into giving them hand massages. You're supposed to offer them hand massages? What happens if this leads to arm massage or back massage or full body massage? I mean like

where do you draw the line? Well, in the manual, there's a pretty clear emoji explanation of where the line is. Really? Yeah. There's the smiley face, and then there's a top hat. And that's the manservant. And on the next line, there's a lady hand that's getting a little nail polish put on it. And then there's a picture of a lumberjack.

And that's the symbol for hand massage. Okay. And then there's a picture of a smiley face woman with a crown on it. And that's the lady that the manservant is... Touching. Hand massaging. And then there's a stop sign. And then there's a pair of feet.

So, wait, how are you interpreting this? It's like stop at the hands, don't go to the feet. What do the feet emoji look like exactly? Oh, it's like a pair of dancing feet and shoes. It actually looks like they're doing the moonwalk. What? Yeah, yeah, it's like a pair of dancing shoes going backwards, like a moonwalk. Couldn't you then interpret it to mean, don't stop till you get enough?

You know, like the Michael Jackson song. No, no. I'm pretty sure it means to stop, don't do the feet. But then it would be feet feet, like feet with no shoes on. No, no, no, I promise you. I know how to read emojis. It means stop. Alright, this is ridiculous. I need how to read emojis. It means stop. All right, this is ridiculous. I need you to just explain one thing to me. Why the hell are there no Andrew Manserving recordings? Okay, well, I did try to record it,

but I was kind of nervous that I might end up with my shirt off or something. So I put the recorder in my pants, and the sound, it's not, it's not good. What do you mean not good? There's a lot of rustle. You do understand that you are starring in a podcast where you are going undercover into the exploitation economy and you can't just walk into a room full of ladies who have hired you to be their manservant and have, you know, nothing to show for. You're going to have to do this one again. I mean, can't you just get another manserving shift?

Well, okay. I actually, just today, I did get a text from the manservant guy and he said that they actually commented about my shoes on the survey. There's like a rating system. Oh, totally. Totally. So the client gave feedback that my shoes were not up to the standard. What's wrong with your shoes? mean they're kind of I wear them every day they have a couple scratches on them so yeah I sent him a photo and he just told me that I was gonna need to get new shoes okay so I mean get another pair of shoes I mean we still got time to do another manservant yeah well so i sent you a link on amazon to the to the shoes and so yeah i was wondering if you could you know make the order you want you want me to buy the shoes yeah partner there's a sub letter at my house right, and she had a handy worker there.

Like, there was a woman that was coming in to clean and do her chores. We have a chore wheel, and she was paying a fucking 1099 worker to do her fucking chore. And this woman, I was walking down the stairs, and I was picking up some mail, and she saw me, and she was like, I'll get that for you. And I was like, no, no, I can do this. Mansur Narala is one of my earliest listeners. I remember getting an email from him back in the early 2000s, back when my show was called Your Radio Nightlight, back when it aired on a Boston community station. Every couple of years, Mansour sends me an update about his life. And so last month, when I was in San

Francisco setting things up with my Instapotter Andrew, I decided to drop in on him and hear more about his experiences in the exploitation economy, driving for Uber. Before Uber, Mansour Noorallah drove a taxi. He started driving a cab at Yellow in San Francisco in 2006. He did it a few days a week. That was enough to pay the bills. When Uber showed up in 2010, a bunch of taxi drivers that he worked with immediately quit. Some of them even bought their own town cars.

But not Mansour. He thought Uber was doomed to fail. For me, it was just like the fear of like regulation. It's crazy to think that I thought that then. But like back then, I was like, this won't last. He was like one of the last holdouts. Slowly, all these drivers from Yellow that I used to see around, I would see them driving town cars. I was like, holy shit, like the fleet is being like poached.

But by the fall of 2013, Uber had completely disrupted the taxi industry of San Francisco. In order to make his rent and finish paying for grad school, Mansour had to get a new job. The final nail in my taxi-driving coffin was, like, when I had to pay out of my pocket for a day's work. I didn't make any money. I actually had to go to the ATM and withdraw money to pay my gate. Uber offered financing to people like Mansur, people who wanted to work for Uber but didn't own a car. So he went to the Uber lot and picked out a $19,000 Toyota Corolla. But the terms were terrible. Predatory. And I was like, oh, I don't think I'm going to do this. And I just like walked out and got on the train and was like,

I was like confused. It was like, this is like a 27% interest loan that I was going to be getting. And it was going to be directed directly from my earnings. And so I went to Hertz Rent-A-Car and bought the cheapest car that they had, which was the Nissan Versa. So what's the difference between being a taxi driver and an Uber driver? According to Mansur, it all comes down to one word, power. And as an Uber driver, you are made aware from day one that you have none. One of the first things that I noticed with Uber was that my opinion and my experience was completely devalued. Like, there were people, like, telling me, who just moved here, would be telling me I'm taking them the wrong way.

This actually happened to Mansur on one of his very first Uber rides. He was driving a woman across town during rush hour, and he took an alternate street to avoid traffic, but his passenger was following Google Maps on her phone. And so we're on Buena Vista Park, like about to cross the hill, and she's like, this is the wrong way. Mansur says he explained to the woman why he was doing what he was doing, and then he tried to the woman why he was doing what he was doing, and then he tried to engage her in conversation.

They said, can I ask you a question? And she's like, yeah. I was like, how long have you been living in the city? And she's like, oh, we just moved over from Greece. This transplant to San Francisco gave Mansour a low rating. And this is why the Uber driver has no power. Because passengers rate their drivers. And the Uber driver lives or dies by these ratings. If you went below a 4.67 out of 5 stars, you don't have a job anymore?

Like, that's crazy. Like, after you've invested, like, tens of thousands of dollars, you don't have a job. For nothing. There's no criteria. They don't have a job. For nothing. There's no criteria. They don't even say what the rating system was. They don't say, check if Mansour was dressed inappropriately. It's nebulous. The rating system could be because it's happened to me.

Excuse me, ma'am. I would have really appreciated if you'd get in on the curbside instead of opening my car door into the street. I could see if that person gave me a lower rating after that. You know what I mean? Like, it just perpetuates, like, paranoia and fear amongst drivers. They have all the power. And I have to try to accommodate them, irrespective of, like, whether they mean me harm. And they do mean me harm when they give me a bad rating.

That's harming my ability to make money. And I was worried about losing that ability to make money, especially early on. I was like, I need this job to be able to finish school, and I have this car and this money wrapped up in it. So that was like a perpetual drama for me, just being, like, scared. Uber customers are known to leave bad ratings if their driver fails to offer them free snacks.

The expectation is that she's supposed to have, like, water and snacks and stuff. And I decided I wasn't going to do that. I did that for the first time. And I was like, why am I spending money on people who make a lot more money than me? That was another anxiety because I was like, I don't want to participate in it. But I know people are going to rate me poorly because I don't have it. Because that's the norm. Mansour says he tried to get Uber to address his concerns about the rating system, but they were unresponsive.

He also never got anywhere when he asked questions about insurance. All of the communication from Uber was one way, an email from partnerssf at uber.com. Mansour hated these emails. Even when it's bad news, it's, hey, good news for you guys. And then, about four months after he started,

partnerssf at uber.com sent Mansour an email that changed everything. They were like, oh, hey, partners. You, our partners, have been so successful and we've had more riders than ever. It was something along those lines. Like, there were a million rides given last year.

You guys are helping keep people out of their personal cars. And, like, it was like, oh, yeah, I'm doing a good thing. You know, this is great. And at the bottom of the email, it was like, so what we're going to do is we are going to raise our commission to 20%. I can no longer deceive myself, you know what I mean, about what Uber was about. And I even just noticed, like, that was curtains for me mentally. Even though it was strictly forbidden,

Mansour decided to drop in at the Uber office to see if he could talk to someone about his pay cut or the rating system or meet the person behind the partnerssfatuber.com email address. And at the office, he saw for the first time that he had co-workers. And he saw for the first time that he had co-workers. And he saw for the last time how Uber truly feels about this workforce. It was filled with immigrants. It was like recent immigrants.

Like, oh yeah, I heard the guy speaking Amorito or Amoro and like Chinese. I'm like the only African-American here. Or like the one other white guy who drives a cab, you know what I mean? But also one thing I noticed was like how the people in the Uber offices were talking to the drivers. It was just this complete lack of like empathy or kindness or respect for that matter. We're being talked to like we're children.

So the thing about Uber it's hard capture, is it means different things to different people. But for me, and a lot of people that were transitioning from taxi driving, it meant being able to participate in a luxury American dream. It was like, you can be a businessman, you can be successful, you can have things, you can like participate in the economy instead of being an object of the economy you know what i mean or being participated upon as a cab driver so that's that's how they sold a lot of drivers like in the if you look at a lot of literature it'll be like hey be an entrepreneur you're entrepreneur you can be a small businessman but it's like a bait and switch. So it's June 30th, and it's my last day having to do sharing economy work.

And I'm still in bed. This friend of mine posted an article about Uber on Facebook, and I've been arguing with this woman in the comments section for like an hour. Listen to this. This is what she just wrote. Uber is a very simple model. You get paid for the work you do. No commitment. They have their own business.

Isn't that the American dream? They work for themselves. They are happy. I wish I could be an Uber driver. She really doesn't like that I keep calling the drivers serfs. Listen to this. The only time I ever felt like a slave was when I worked a part-time job at Macy's. I paid the union, not Macy's and not the government, $250 for six weeks work. I handed my check over to a middle-aged woman

reading a romance novel, sitting alone in an empty office. All right, let's see. If paying union dues made you feel like a slave, try predatory loans, a dependency on your most expensive asset, working perfectly all the time, insurance plan that'll only cover the passenger and not the driver,

secret pay scale algorithm changes happening almost constantly so it's impossible to keep up, no worker phone support number or text message, only email, and good luck with them getting back to you about any issues.

Swag. only email and good luck with them getting back to you about any issues swag as much as i love man serving i feel like maybe i should spend my last day doing something a little more important. Maybe I should make a video. A viral video for Facebook. You know, that people would actually want to share. Ooh, yeah. Okay, yeah, maybe if it got viral enough, we could go all the way to John Oliver and Taylor Swift. Ugh, okay, wait. First, first I make the video that'll get

Taylor Swift's attention and then she will write the open letter to Uber and then John Oliver will see the letter and he'll do a segment and then he'll come up with a hashtag. Oh yes. Okay, I can totally, I can totally see this. Okay, shit, I need to get out of bed. Why not do it as what it's like to drive somebody around, right? Like, just one ride

as an Uber driver where you appear that you're getting into the car as a consumer, right? Like, just one ride as an Uber driver. Where you appear that you're getting into the car as a consumer, right? Like, it's you getting into the car, but boom, you shut the door and you're in the driver's head. Oh, that's good. That's good. You know what I mean? Like, that'd be super dope.

I decided to hire a TaskRabbit to help me with my viral video. Introduce yourself however you would want to be introduced on the radio oh and i got super lucky because i got the most amazing task rabbit ever hi my name is brooklyn how are you good it turns out there are people who quit their six-figure jobs to work in the sharing economy that's what brooklyn said she. She quit her job managing a car dealership to work for Uber. Eventually though, she got fed up with the way Uber was treating its drivers. And she says she makes way more money as a task rabbit. But still, she's pretty bullish on the sharing economy. The shared economy isn't the shared economy, right? You're still under control. But at least I have more freedom here

than I feel like I've had anywhere else. And I think that's what makes the whole thing rewarding, though, is the ability to say, yeah, I did that, right? I make as much money or not as much money as I want to make. If I want to work on a Friday, I work on a Friday. If I don't, I don't. If I want to hang out with Andrew on a podcast, I hang out with Andrew. There's nothing wrong with what's happening because just the fact that now I can go to work when I want to work, classic, amazing, right? My mom just had a heart transplant so i needed to go to chicago and spend

three months in chicago not only was i able to do it but i was also able to set up uber at the time and do uber right but okay but what you said was there's nothing wrong with it and that's wrong because there there are so many good there are good things there are great things about it but there's a dark side you know that's not being addressed that nobody wants to talk about. I thought we just have to address it. This is good. The brainstorm's starting now. I had a lot of ideas about how to highlight the exploitation of the sharing economy in my video.

But Brooklyn said they were all too depressing. Plus, she says, what I find horrible about the sharing economy is what most Americans have been dealing with in the workplace for decades. Welcome to life, boo-boo. Like, as a black gay female, I have been dealing with this since I was born. Like, understand it's okay. Like, you can still live a great life and still love people and bring people together and be an activist in your own way and a feminist and wave your freak flag.

Like, you can do all of it. You just have to maneuver within the game. It's chess brooklyn told me i should make a video that's funny something that people want to watch you dance it's entertainment right like i think the one thing that you've always hit on so far well always as in the whole two hours i've known you since Since I've met you, you've always said. Right? It has to be entertaining.

But it also has to be educational. Right? It's the E in E. So it has to be funny. Well, yeah, if we could get a more minor celebrity, build up to Taylor Swift first. Taylor would do it. Who's below Taylor Swift?

If we could get, I mean, George. No, who's local, it. Who's below Taylor Swift? Like, if you could get I mean, George... Who's local, right? Who's local? Yeah, that's good. Sam Rockwell. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. But either way, the first video needs to go viral so we get Taylor's attention. And then we do one of those videos that's like, you

know, all the actors, you know, where we get Taylorlor swift and then beyonce and then and then who have bradley cooper and chris pratt we got to get chris pratt yeah you know any that makes a weed joke or something you know like one of those videos where they're completing each other's son oh sorry i grabbed her beer that's awesome. Right there. Oh, yeah. It's empty. That's right. That's the problem. That's what's wrong. Okay, so Brooklyn left before we really made anything. Plus, I gave her all the shoe money Benjamin gave me.

But it's cool. She gave me a lot of good ideas. And now I'm thinking, this could be way bigger than a video. Medium? Small? But in order for this to be a movement, I need to find some support, some troops. So I made some T-shirts and passed them out at a concert in the park.

Using a Sharpie, I wrote out, fuck Uber, on some super ethically made white T-shirts. People really liked them. Uber on some super ethically made white t-shirts. Wear it out. Let them know. Let the people know. People really liked them. You would not believe this, but a fashion photographer came and was like, can I take a picture of your shirt? And yeah, I took a picture with her. Yes!

My fucking Uber shirt. And I tried to look so cool, but I didn't look cool until I was wearing this shirt. There you go. Thank you. I didn't charge for them, but I didn't look cool until I was wearing this shirt. There you go. Thank you. I didn't charge for them, but I think it's safe to say that people will really go for them if I make this a reward for my sharing revolution Kickstarter. Okay, so we ran out of shirts. I'm sorry, I'm all out of shirts. I would give you this one.

If you want that sort of thing. No, I'm cool. But you know what? Go home and make your own. I will. Yes. It's almost midnight, and I'm back at home. I bought a domain.

I got www.sharingeconomy.fail. I'm thinking I should wait a few weeks before I do the Kickstarter, but I can do everything else tonight. You know, build the website, the Twitter, the Instagram, Vines, Tumblr. So, there's a big problem. I can't seem to quit any of the sharing economy apps. I can delete the apps from my phone, but not my accounts? I'm still getting these texts.

This makes me want to throw my phone out the window. I've gotten like 10 texts in the past hour. Even Uber keeps telling me to fix my car. I'm going to keep getting texts until the day I die. And after I die, my phone will keep binging. All of the latest promos and incentives. Blitz pricing all day on 4th of July. Payouts higher than normal.

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You now have access to hundreds of exclusive discounts at some of your favorite local and national merchants. Enter the code ride july to unlock your free ride hope you had a great weekend please fill out your schedule You have been listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called InstaSurf's Part 3. Also, special thanks to Mansur Noorallah. It was really great to finally meet you. This show is a proud member of Radiotopia from the Public Radio Exchange. Radiotopia is a collective of some of the best podcasts being produced right now. Really, if there's a program in our roster that you haven't tried out yet, you should do that this week.

Just grab a random episode and give it a listen. You can find all of us at radiotopia.fm.