Mercenary Driver: The Definitive Guide

By Dr. Tim Dosemagen

Mercenary Driver is a masterpiece. Stunning in its simplicity, audacious in the scope of the journey, and astounding in the genius of Dosemagens rider vignettes, his sixth book is a ten-strike and a strange journey of six thousand faces, some of these noteworthy, all of them entertaining. If Mark Twain could have taken an Uber, this would be his diary. You will laugh out loud, cry just a little, and thoroughly enjoy this journey of life lessons, hilarious hijinks, and the most straightforward presentation of the Uber phenomenon writtenall set in Tucson, Arizona. This book reads like a movie. Strap in and prepare to be amazed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546231424

Dr. Tim Dosemagen

Dr. Dosemagen has driven over two million miles, and has traveled the open roads of 38 United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) with not one accident. His travels also include the roadways of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Hong Kong, Spain, Jordan and Israel. India is the next hill. Dosemagen is fluent in Chinese, conversational in Korean, proficient in German, OK at Spanish and Japanese, and knows just enough Russian to get in trouble. He resides with his wife of 30 years in Arizona

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© 2018 Dr. Tim Dosemagen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/08/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-3143-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-3142-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018902694

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

How UBER Works

Sgt. Fighter

Raytheon Douchebag

Hospice Man

Full Change Girl

The Ride to Nowhere

Wal-Mart in My Backyard Lady

Senior Bonkers – The Aussie from Nogales

Blind Cool Dudes

20 Minutes To Drive One City Block – Vaya Ventana Vamos

30 Minutes to a Cancellation In Arivaca

Three Days at 116 Degrees – Fainting Lady

Sneaky Dogs

Dude - Could We Stop At The Liquor Store?

Please Turn Off Rush Limbaugh – The 1 Cent Tipper

University of Arizona Millennial One Block High Heels Riders

The Good Sunday Preacher

4 Transvestites to 4th Street

White Supremacists

Morbidly Obese Woman – Help Me Get Out!

How 5 University of Arizona Students Trashed My Car In 5 Minutes

Weddings

Phoenix Car Purchase Taiwanese Students

The Subway Restaurant Coincidence

Oh The Yumanity!

Unknown Address – Passenger at Airport

Suicidal Tendencies

Tucson International Airport – This Should Be Easy

Exchange Students – Middle East

Exchange Students – China

Climate Change

Driverless Cars

The Trumpster

Ramping Up For Yet Another War With North Korea

UBER’s Founder – The Travis

Why Don’t You Lyft?

Mexicanos

Can You See Me?

Get The Hell Out Of My Car, Dude

Miracle Rides – The Unexplainable

Trusting UBER With Their Children

The Insane

Places to Go

Drunk, Angry, and Ejected – The Night Derps

My Radio Show

The Hangover – Blue Katrina

Guide Dogs - And Dead Dogs, Too

Beggars & Vagabonds

The NFL’s ‘Protesters’

UBER Eats – Or Is It UBER Bites?

So How Do You Like UBERing?

The Loud, Proud and Obnoxious New England Patriot Fans

Nice People

The Door Slammers

Elderly Chemo Man

Big Tippers

Back Seat Romances & Low Rate Rendezvous

Non-Stop Talkers

Quiet Types

Shooting My Trusty Malibu

Military Passengers

No Shows

Hookers

Delivering a Car Part

Delivering a Goat

The Tombstone Thailand Time Traveler

Arboretum Mistake – Take Two?

Game Nights

Desperados – The Cashless

Very Scary Passenger One: Don’t Judge Me

Very, Very Scary Passenger Two: Airport Confidential

Golfers

Personal Questions

Guidance Counselor

Confessions

Lost and Found

Jokers, Liars and Clowns

India Man – The All Telling & All Knowing Guidance Guru

Pakistani Dude – Would You Care To Join Me For Dinner?

Where Do You Go To Get Laid?

Mormons

Vampires

Professors

Heard In Passing – Conversational Snippets and Free Advice

Christmas

New Years

Thanksgiving

MLK Day

SuperBowl Sunday

Halloween

Easter

Memorial Day

Independence Day

Labor Day

Advice – The Sound Of Your Own Wheels

Gassing Up

Car Damage

Fights

Cleveland

Goin’ Up The Country

Weather Effects

Daa Cups - We Won Da World Series!!!

DUI Chronicles

Road Maintenance

My Best Ride

My Worst Ride

Are You Married? Buy You A Drink?

Basketball Sightings – Sean, Rawle + Laurie

Odors and Perfumes

The Vegas Massacre, and Other Mass Murders

Side Hustling The Side Hustle

The Perfect Accident

Did I Just Run Over That Dude’s Foot?

Bicyclists

Trolls, The Angry, and Whiners, Sliders & Moaners

Epilogue

Other works by Dr. Dosemagen

Prodigies

The Impossible

Rediscovering the American Dream

The Trigger

Human Engineering

Dedication

To all the UBER drivers. More importantly, to all of their passengers, for it takes great bravery to drive a stranger in one’s own car, but even more courage to trust one’s life to a perfect stranger, in a strange vehicle, and a strange land.

Most importantly, to my wife Cheri, for working two jobs, buying me a tank (or twenty) of gas, dozens of lunches, and hundreds of the official beverage of Tucson, the great Circle-K Polar Pop, all of which powered this long strange trip to reach its final destination.

UBER importantly, to the light sweet crude oil producing nations of the world, for overproduction, and for keeping the price of a gallon of gas in Tucson steadily between $2.05 and $2.35 during the entirety of this 13 month odyssey. Bless you, bless fracking, and bless the frozen federal gas tax.

To my two new wonderful grandsons, Bodhi Chaz Dosemagen and Harvey Ryker Fatula, both of whom arrived in this jolly world, perfectly and on-time, during this long strange odyssey.

And a VERY BIG shout out to The Creator, for not one accident, plenty of grace filled moments, many miracles and quite a few spins around that Holy Rosary, which always hangs from my rear-view mirror.

Preface

In December of 2014, I took a position as Chief Academic Officer of the San Jose, CA Campus of a large, strong, for-profit, private post-secondary education provider. I loved the job and the folks at the campus, but alas, before my on-boarding paperwork had been completed, just one month later, taking a $10,000 pay cut to work near my Southern Arizona home, I took the position of Director of the Tucson Campus of a large, dying, for-profit, private post-secondary education provider. It was a gamble – just like I like them – so I took a roll.

16 short months later, in May of 2016, that college system, with 130 campuses dotting the United States, under a full SEC investigation and on ‘show-cause probation’ a pre-closure, terminally ill hospice welcome letter, I was suddenly and ruthlessly fired. I crapped out, paisan.

10 very short weeks later, the Department of Education shut that entire college system down, for good – including the Tucson Campus I had come to know and love. In retrospect, I was never happier to have been fired – although in 40 years of non-stop employment, earning a Doctorate after work and on the weekends, rearing two children, volunteering a lot, etc….it was the very first time I’d been fired, and it stung a little. Little did I know that the slammed door would soon roll down all 4 windows…Wanna make God laugh? Make plans – then wait.

So it was plowing time again in the field of opportunity.

By November of ’16, it was time to either start drawing on reserves, (not a smart play when your face is getting craggy and your age is double nickels) or get a job, muy pronto. Frankly I was sick of being a Provost, or a Vice President of Academics, or Director of Academic Affairs….Dean….tired of being the hired gun from Tucson, fixing dysfunctional colleges, shuttling back and forth from the Southwest to Houston, Louisville, New Orleans, San Jose, Japan, China, and of all places, Roanoke (don’t ask).

It was time to roll the dice one last time. And - Holy Cow – roll ’em I did……..

The bills kept coming, and it was high time to drive my career into a radical new direction.

I knew that I loved to drive, since borrowing my mother’s car during Saturday night Catholic Mass at the age of 13 (and getting caught), having racked up well over a million miles in 40 years behind and above the wheels of nearly a dozen new cars, and half a dozen not so new. I knew that although I was unemployed I still had a good car, although one with well over 150,000 miles on her. My Malibu. My old horse from Beaumont, TX – bought on the drive home from New Orleans - after shooting my silver Malibu - after a bike gang dropped a coffee can in my lane on Highway 10, after I hit that can at 84 mph, knocking out my tranny and oil….but I digress. Two Malibus in a row, loving the late autumn days of Mally-II.

I had heard about ride sharing, but quite frankly, had never heard of UBER, until I saw an ad on the web.

The rest, as they say, is………

Now – let’s take this book for a spin, shall we my good passengers?

Introduction

The author started driving for UBER at the EXACT moment of the ride hailing company’s apogee, late in autumn, in the year 2016. UBER, although never having yet to post a single profitable quarter in the taxi-killing company’s brief, meteoric history, nevertheless intrigues the entire world, which is violently in love with the entirety of the UBER mythos, and chimera. This is the setting and timing for this book.

And it would not last. And The UBERVERSE knew it. But enough for third person past tense…..To the story, and make it fast, OK driver?!?

Let’s go!

So I started driving for UBER at the maximum extent of the inflation of the UBER balloon. It was just like teaching for the University of Phoenix in the mid-2000s, exactly like it must have been to work for Zeppelin Airships in the late 1920s, or McDonald’s in the 1960s, or to serve in the U.S. Military during WW-II, or work for Google today. In the late 2010s, UBER holds a grasp on the mythology of the American employment community unmatched in our time.

And it will not last. I know it.

Ultimately, war machines ride on tanks, which need gas. Most of all, tanks need drivers – so I became one.

In 2018, UBER is brilliantly built upon a remarkably diverse army of free tanks, with drivers who are, for the present, very eager to pay for all the gas, cheerfully lapping up wages of $10 to $25 per hour, over potholed roads, often in dangerous territory and under harsh conditions and through bad weather, all to drive complete strangers in their personally owned vehicles. The drivers are of varying ages and differing skills; of fickle social graces and extremely shaky loyalties. They are overwhelmingly male and over 40, and at the same time, they are people who, on a daily basis, willingly drive the shit out of their cars for minimum wage, mostly for the hidden benefits of being able to call it a day (or week) at any moment, and listen to their own poetry on their own car speakers, in their own town, mostly for rocking chair money. Don’t believe me? Check the average age of UBER’s drivers - it’s a geezer’s gig, man.

UBER understands that a model built upon the free tanks and the free gas of a willing army of hungry, but aging tank drivers, with absolutely no company loyalty, using their POVs and racking up beaucoups miles, dodging rush hour traffic while dealing with sometimes sketchy riders, is not a long-term strategy for survival OR good mental health.

UBERing is a tough gig, and The UBERverse knows it.

This will not last. The future of cheap ride-sharing is driverless. UBER knows this. More on this company killing, sadly inevitable, doomed to fail wager - later on this journey.

In fact, UBER is unwisely betting against its army of free tanks and free gasoline and willing drivers with a cynicism that must rank at or near Paulus’ 6th Army, tersely being told by Nazi High Command in 1943 to, Keep advancing. Fight until the last man. Never surrender. And for all but a few thousand obedient soldiers back in 1943, the Nazi tank drivers were indeed as loyal, through to the bitter end, as pit bulls.

UBER is different – it cannot shoot the disloyal.

And - unlike the Nazis, UBER never fostered any loyalty in the first place. In fact, its founding genius, the very driven Travis Kalanick can be seen on YouTube, in full ass-face mode, berating one of his erstwhile tank drivers, in a now famous clip that cost dear Travis his seat at the top of the UBERVERSE (but not his cache of inflated shares of UBER stock).

God Bless you Travis, old chum – you cashed out, dude – CHACHING! Bravissimo!

Oh, and thanks for digging the trenches for this author’s gig – please share your success with your friends, by clicking here.

Yet oddly, UBER is unwisely betting not so much against its free tanks, and certainly not against its free gas – but completely against its army of willing drivers, a very UBER thing to do. And the savvy drivers, or those who care, or perhaps both, already know this. You can smell the manure - like following a cow truck on the I-10, heading south to slaughter, in 110 degrees, in heavy traffic, toward Nogales.

And this is precisely why this book is fascinating.

It is an elegy of sorts; an omen to be sure – a portent perhaps – but certainly a painfully realistic anthropology of an as yet still living organism. Just imagine being able to walk the Jurassic as a small land mammal, in real time, about 165,000,000 years ago….sound like fun? Get in…join me!

In its current form, every U.S. Dollar, or Sheckel, or Peso, or Yuan, or Euro of rider-paid fare is roughly split 75/25 - driver/UBER.

This is high tide for the UBER Army’s advance. Remember, UBER has NEVER experienced a single profitable quarter. NEVER. Let this all sink in for a minute, while the lights change. Shocked?!? Not I.

Today, costs are kept competitive for this model via historically low fuel prices, and gobs of eager new drivers who sign up (and quit) by the HUNDREDS, daily. This churn is not just a symptom – it is a terminal diagnosis. Listen to any radio station – you can hear the ads constantly exhorting: Get your side hustle on – set your own hours – and drive for UBER!

And it WILL fail – because UBER, just like the doomed Jurassic giants, is too slow moving to avoid its fate. Add to that the fact that the company is abusive to its drivers. Add to that the fact that, unlike a meteor, UBER’s kill shot will not come like a bolt, instead it can already be seen in its over-consumption of resources (drivers) fueled by its currently successful model of unsustainably metastatic hyper-growth, coupled with shareholder confidence.

Please consider that UBER did not even equip its app to allow tipping of its drivers, until December of 2016. Think of the patho-psychology of UBER’s senior management, taking THAT long to be willfully evil to the very backbone of its massive workforce. Is a picture emerging? Keep driving – the plot thickens.

Now think about this:

UBER cynically rewarded the author of this book, a loyal driver, a nice guy who had driven easily 40,000 miles (at the time), completing 5,000 trips for the company (at the time), 2,000 of these trips earning ratings of 5 stars from very happy customers - with a terse, stingy, snarky three sentence email that stated, and I quote: You’ve reached 5,000 trips. Congratulations! Share your success by clicking here.

The click? Fasten your seatbelt:

It sent me a link which, once clicked, would blast a message