Do you ever ask questions like “what’s wrong with people?” Maybe it’s a little bit more abrasive, like What the —– is wrong with people? Well I do. I have only ever experienced road rage from other people maybe ten times. Each have stuck out in my head for specific reasons. Maybe I was a little slow or I made a driving error. We’re all human and mistakes happen. On my way south one morning I overtook a green Chevy Silverado with the number plate VA7437. He began to tailgate me for overtaking him and eventually overtook me again. He slowed down and managed to shoot a mass amount of exhaust from his muffler. Lucky my internal air was on and I didn’t have to breath in the carbon monoxide left behind by this wanker. Why was he irritated? He was the one going under 70 miles an hour, which was the speed limit. Did he not like Japanese cars? Black cars? Being overtaken? What ever enraged this prick there was no reason for it. Also he’s probably the reason why ice sheets are melting by shooting large amounts of green house gasses out of his tail pipes. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he owns a large amount of guns and has a large truck to compensate for his lack of manhood. I can get mad on the road too and it’s no thanks to idiots like this.
Ridesharing started to become more quiet than before and as a result I turned on the dreaded Uber Eats. Subway was the first order of the day. Eat freeeeeeesh. Face masks were becoming a more prominent feature on people’s faces. Then I had a passenger after that delivery who needed a pickup from a restaurant kitchen. We discussed the impending shutdowns that will occur. Afterwards I had a cleaner and someone who sells weed.
More deliveries occurred at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. They gave me a free drink. Next passenger was two Chinese passengers. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. I tried to make conversation, but it went nowhere. They were more interested in themselves. That’s fine I don’t have to talk to everyone.
More passengers needed a ride. Schools were shut down at this point and people were getting ready to leave the county, state, and even country. Three Indonesians needed a pickup at Whatcom Community College. They were studying English and mathematics. I told them how I did my honours on the archaeological work done on the sea cucumber industry back in 2009. The “Macassans” a collective word for the sea peoples from Indonesia, came down to Australia to catch, collect and process sea cucumbers, pearls, sandalwood, and tortoise shells before Europeans set foot in places like Western Australia, The Northern Territory, and even Thursday Island in Queensland. It was fascinating that hundreds of people would travel south via the monsoon winds, trade with the indigenous Australians and leave after eight months. All goods would go the Dutch or the Chinese. My passengers from Java, knew nothing of this historic lesson I was giving them. I discussed at length with them about more of their archaeological history including the discovery of Java Man (Homo erectus) and the Hobbit (Homo floresiensis). How these great discoveries changed the scientific world as we know it. My honours supervisor Professor Mike Morwood was responsible for directing the excavations in Flores back from 2003 to 2013. It became a ten year tangent for him until his death (RIP). He was looking for more evidence of Homo erectus and ended up finding a whole new hominid species. He would always invite me to excavations in Indonesia and I’d never go, due to the workload I had excavating in Australia. It could have been my shot at the academic world. He dedicated the rest of his life to finding out more about this three foot tall hominid.
Discussing this, my heart sank and my archaeology career appears in tatters. Over 10 years of experience and it took one man to destroy it. Yes I had two positions after that, but nothing permanent. What can I do? Where do I go from here? The American job market is saturated and extremely competitive. I could get more temporary work, but nothing permanent. I don’t want to just get by anymore. Australia, an employees market, seems to be where it is at for my career that I chose. What do I do? I’m not perfect, but no one really is. We all make mistakes and my biggest one that I make is with templates. I’m better off writing from scratch instead of attacking a document from five years ago with crappie formatting. It may take more time, but it’s the quality of work that matters. Not mass amounts of reports with hundreds of errors.
After bombarding my passengers with facts about their own country. I had an Uber Eats for Burger King. Yep this is exactly what I’m talking about. You know what this has taught me though? Customer service and how important navigation is. It has also taught me about how to communicate with people better. Not that I had too many issues, but it’s all about the tips if you want to have a so called successful week. As I dropped the delivery off, the customer appeared out of the darkness of her house and scared the living crap out of me. Crikey crumbs! “Sorry!” She said and picked up her food. “It’s okay, I replied I’ve had a full on day”.
Five rides from Lyft with a so called streak bonus! Four Uber Eats deliveries and one Uber trip. Next is a long trip to SeaTac.
