As a white girl, I never thought about diversity before UBER, however, at this job it was impossible to ignore the lack of it.
- Majority of drivers were from a diverse range of minority groups that you can find in NYC, that's expected, anyone that understand the driver landscape in NYC will know this. However, the entire office in Manhattan is white. This created a very strange dynamic, in a already tense environment.
- Many of the drivers had limited english, insecure about their technology knowledge and some would have preferred to not join UBER, but felt they were forced because of UBER's take over of the market. The demographics in the office intensified all of the factors mentioned above.
- The managers seem to think, that successful driver retention is based on how much money the drivers can make, however, after spending so much time with them, I realized the majority of them also care as much about belonging to something.
- Many of the drivers also explicitly expressed discomfort with the demographics of the office, we have to remember that the industry was very much controlled by a diverse group of immigrants prior to UBER, so for the drivers to enter a driver support center that is all white, was uncomfortable and makes no business sense. One driver even once told me "I'm good enough to drive for you, but you probably wouldn't hire my son who is a college graduate and grew up in NYC as an American, I can tell by the people here".
