When God sent me an Uber!

I have been off LinkedIn posts lately, thanks to my busy work schedule. All in a good way :)

But I really wanted to share a small story on an incidence which happened to me this Friday. I am in Bellevue for a business trip and i went to Sabbamish lake, around 9 miles away from Bellevue with a colleague. After we were done, i wanted to do some shopping and my colleague dropped me at a Safeway nearby. I thought i will do some shopping and then head back home in a cab.

I shopped heartily and picked up a lot of groceries, water, juices etc. So by the time i was done, i had 2 huge carry bags with me along with my office bag. It was around 6:30 pm in the evening and the sun was loud and bright (its day till 9:30 PM in Seattle/Bellevue these days). I came out of the Safeway and realized my data connection was pretty slow and the Uber app was firing but i wasn’t able to book a cab. I tried for 3-4 times but to no avail.

I thought i would walk around and find some taxi. Next thing, i was new to this area and could not identify a taxi. So i checked with a guy around and he told me that the taxis are Yellow/Green colored but its tough to find them here since most folks use Uber/Lyft. I thought I will give it a shot and kept strolling around for around 15 mins, but to no luck. I saw a gas station around, and spent some 15 minutes there, hoping if some cab might stopover for gas, but again no luck.

It was around 7:15 PM now and there was no sight of a cab and the place was also pretty deserted. I thought i will call some of my colleagues and see if someone can pick me up. I realized i just had the number for one of my colleagues, and the number was not reachable. For others i just had the Indian numbers which were not working (we had landed in US just a couple of days before). I was just roaming around carrying the big bags in my hands and just hoping to catch the glimpse of a cab. Surprisingly, i could not even spot even a single cab on the roads, leave alone one which was available. In between, i was also trying to book an Uber, but it was just not accepting a booking, the slow data never really sent the packets!

It was over an hour now and i was wondering if i don’t get a cab soon, i might start walking towards my hotel; however it would be a really daunting task, Since i had no access to maps neither i knew which direction i had to go. But i thought i might be able to find a cab somewhere somehow. As i was lost on the roads and just strolling around, a cab pulled over to me, it was a red color Civic, and the guy in the car said, “Is this Ankit?” I said, "Yes.” He again said, “This is your Uber, hop on.”

I was pretty surprised, since i wasn’t able to book one and told him. “I don’t think i was able to book one, though i was trying to make a booking and Yes! my name is Ankit.” I moved closer to him to take a look at the app, and yes it was the same pick up point and my name was there 'Ankit', I thought lucky me, perhaps some technical glitch and i hopped on to the cab with relief. The drop location was something else, but since i was trying to book with ‘Destination later’ option; i told him to change it to my hotel and we started the ride.

It was less than a minute into the ride, and the driver gets a phone call, it was on Loud mode. The guy on the phone spoke in a pretty rude tone,” Whom did you pick up and where are you going?!!” Well, as it turned out some other *Ankit* had booked the cab and it was from the same pickup location, somewhere in a random block near Lake Sabbamish in a suburb near Seattle. My driver apologized since he had picked up the wrong guy because of the name confusion. Since the other guy was rude, he cancelled his ride and offered to drop me back home. He started getting other pickups but he went offline just to drop me back home. Luckily i also had cash, since he didn’t have a card machine. 

It was sheer luck, that i got a drop home that Friday evening after waiting for over an hour. How much is the probability that you have the same name and same pickup location in a far-off deserted place in a foreign land and you get a cab even when you weren't able to book one?

Well, Yes! This time God did send me an Uber!