Nathan for You (2013–…): Season 4, Episode 3 - Andy vs. Uber - full transcript
Synced
by Bakugan
My name is Nathan Fielder,
and I graduated from one of
Canada's top business schools
with really good grades.
Now I'm using my knowledge
to help struggling small
business owners make it
in this competitive world.
This is "Nathan for You."
In season two of my show,
I gave marketing advice
to a small taxi company
owner named Andy Farshidian,
whose business was being destroyed
by the ride share giant Uber.
_
The idea was to generate
press by encouraging
pregnant riders to
give birth in his taxi.
But what I never saw coming
was that just a few months
after that episode aired
Uber just happened to launch
a new campaign offering
free baby onesies to anyone
who gives birth in one of their cars.
Encouraging customers births
to get press was our idea.
And when I met up with
Andy to tell him about it,
he couldn't believe his eyes.
You know, you're right.
They stole our idea.
Did you know about this?
No, I never saw this.
This is the first time I saw it.
After already having taken so
much from this struggling cabby,
for Uber, this was a new low.
Business had gotten so
bad that Andy had resorted
to turning his cab into
a mobile karaoke booth
in a last-ditch effort to
hold on to his customers.
♪ Say my name say my name ♪
♪ Around you ♪
♪ Say I love you ♪
♪ If you... my name ♪
♪ Say my name say my name ♪
It was clear we had to do something.
So I sat down with Andy
to discuss our options.
I never get mad.
I'm very cool and calm all time time,
but I am so furious that
they did this to you.
They stole everything.
You know what I mean?
The idea, the money, the
passenger, everything.
They stole everything, you know?
Well, I have an idea,
but it's pretty crazy.
Talk to me.
Uber may be a powerful company,
but there's a big vulnerability
in their business model.
Anyone can become a driver.
So if we recruited a fleet
of disgruntled cabbies
to sign up as Uber drivers,
we could effectively
create a sleeper cell
of rogue agents within the Uber network,
allowing Andy I with
the push of a button
to turn our drivers into nightmares
and unleash total
chaos across the globe.
get Uber to stop
using those baby onesies
by threatening them with a sleeper cell.
A sleeper cell, you said?
- Sleeper cell.
- A sleeper cell.
- Not sleeping.
- Yeah, just a sleep cell.
- Sleeper.
- Oh, sleeper.
- Sleeper cell.
- Oh, the person asleep.
- Sleeper cell.
- But no one's sleeping.
- Yeah, I know.
- Right.
- Yeah, okay.
- 'Cause once Uber realizes
a large portion of their
drivers are under our control,
they'll have no choice but
to listen to your demands.
Very smart, very smart.
And at that point, you can tell them,
"Get rid of that onesie."
Knock them down.
That's the best idea.
I love you, man.
I, uh... I love you too.
Okay, so I think that's good for today.
Okay.
I'd never started a sleeper cell before.
But in doing some research online,
I learned that the key to
running any clandestine cell
operation is having a
communication structure that
kept the identities
of the leaders secret.
That way, if any of our
sleeper agents were compromised,
they wouldn't be able
to rat us out to Uber
and bring down the cell.
From now on, we couldn't risk
using our personal phones.
We'd have to get prepaid burner phones.
So to make sure the purchase
couldn't be traced back to us,
I anonymously hired
someone off Craigslist
to go to a local Walgreens and
told him there would be cash
hidden in a dirty McDonald's
cup outside the location,
which he was to use to buy
up the store's entire supply
of prepaid cell phones.
The Craigslist guy was told
to then bring the phones
to an abandoned pier
at the San Pedro harbor
at exactly 1:15 p.m.,
where he would find a
waterproof pouch hidden
inside a white first aid
kit at the end of the dock.
He was then instructed to put
all the phones into the pouch,
hook the base of the pouch
to a nearby cinder block,
and throw it off the pier,
where unbeknownst to him,
I was awaiting the
delivery in full scuba gear
beneath the surface
completing the final step
of a burner phone purchase
that would be impossible
to trace back to either me or Andy.
Now that we had a way to
communicate with our drivers,
we would need to figure out
the commands to give them.
So I started researching
Uber Yelp reviews
and online comments to see
what behaviors from drivers
customers hated the most.
The complaints ranged
from foul-smelling vehicles
to telling offensive jokes
to blasting terrible music.
But to know which combination
of these would be most
effective, we would
need to test them out
on actual Uber customers.
So I had Andy go undercover
and sign up for an Uber driver
account with his personal vehicle.
And after taking it
for a final inspection
posing as an average Joe looking to make
a few extra bucks on the side...
Yeah, I'm just an average Joe,
make some money the side, you know.
Yeah, I'm a normal guy.
Andy was now registered as a
fully accredited Uber driver.
And that meant we could begin our test.
"Playing bad music," yep.
"Bad smell, driver..."
Driver what?
- Gas.
- Oh, that's bad, yeah.
- What's the worst of these?
- The worst one's
driver gets lost... go 5 right?
You're supposed to go to
5 North, drive me 5 South.
That's it. They're
like, "No, it's crazy."
Do you know how to do these, like...
Oh, of course.
I'm the master of these.
You're already a bad driver?
No, I'm not bad driver, but
I have lots of experience.
To simulate the smell of driver farting,
I brought Andy box full of ziplock bags
each filled with a
sulfur-based stink spray.
- So it's, like, one per ride.
- Okay.
They smell really bad.
Oh, they... oh, okay.
To test the effects of bad music,
I gave him a burned
CD with an endless loop
of Lou Bega's 1999 hit
"Mambo No. 5" on it,
considered by many experts to be one of
the worst songs ever made.
So with everything prepped,
Andy turned on his
Uber app and headed out
to pick up some customers.
- Hello. How are you?
- Fine. How about you?
- What's your name?
- Lori.
Lori, yeah.
Well, it doesn't matter the price.
How did it come out?
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Excuse me. Can I... can
we roll down the window?
Oh, the window doesn't
work. It's broken.
- It doesn't go down?
- No.
Oh, 'cause it smells in here.
Oh, I'm in an Uber right now.
I'm going someplace, and
the window doesn't go down.
And it kind of smells in here..
So... oh, wait. No, so I can't...
Ladies and gentlemen,
this is mambo number five.
- Oh, wait. I'm on the phone.
- I'm sorry. I'm on the phone.
Excuse me. Sir.
Sir, I'm on the phone.
Oh, my God. I'm gonna get out.
♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪
I'm getting out.
The first ride lasted
less than a minute,
and after running through our list
with several other customers...
Yo, I think I'm lost, man.
You're lost?
The most intolerable
Uber driver behaviors
became clear.
Turn off the music.
Cut it off.
Turn off the music.
♪ ♪
Turn off the music.
And after a full day of testing,
we got the results we were hoping for.
Bad rating.
- Bad rating.
- They gave me all bad rating.
With our activation plan in place,
we decided to name our sleeper
cell after Andy's dog Lucky.
Because he thought it
would bring us luck.
So maybe we get lucky,
you know, from his name.
So I created a website that
would act as our main hub
for recruits to sign up.
Now I just had to get word
spreading amongst taxi drivers.
Because I had to remain
anonymous while recruiting
drivers, I went to a
local hospital pickup zone
disguised as someone who had
just been released from surgery
and began hailing cabs.
- Hi, there.
- Yes.
- Where do you want to go?
- Just circle the block.
We have business to discuss.
My goal was to get word
spreading that an anti-Uber
resistance was looking for members.
So how's the taxi business going?
_
Not doing as well as you used to?
_
Why is that?
_
If you're interested in
helping take Uber down,
give me a call.
I spent the entire day hailing cabs,
driving in a circle,
and talking up drivers.
Would you be happier
if Uber wasn't around?
_
Well, there might be a way to do that.
Each of the business cards
I gave them had a burner
phone number on it where
they could get information
about a meeting that would
be happening later that week.
_
The interested cabbies who reached out
were given the address of a
local day care I had rented
after hours, where they
were told the leaders of
The Lucky Group would be speaking.
So while the cabbies trickled
in and helped themselves
to our spread of complimentary snacks,
Andy and I got ready in
the back storage room.
- Does it fit okay?
- Yeah.
But even with disguises, Andy
was concerned that a fellow
cabbie might recognize his voice.
I'm the most famous cab
driver in Orange County.
- Everybody knows me.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Can you do any accents?
Or can you disguise
your voice in any way?
So how about Southeast United States,
somewhere around there,
Louisiana or something in that area?
Sure.
How was your day, partner?
How is your business?
The taxi's gone, man.
That's Louisiana?
- Somewhere around Louisiana.
- Oh.
Maybe it's not exactly, but
somewhere around Louisiana,
the Southeast, I know that one.
Yeah, I think that will work.
- Okay.
- Sure, yeah, okay.
And with that, we headed
out to begin the orientation.
I'd like to apologize for the disguises.
But what we're doing is
very sensitive in nature,
so they are necessary.
Firstly, thank you all for being here.
We are The Lucky Group.
So we all agree that
the Uber corporation
has destroyed our industry, right?
Yes.
Our business down 60%.
- 85%
- Wow.
Since Uber.
As soon as Uber was mentioned,
a wave of frustration
swept over the room.
Uber corporation itself taken
over everything, everything.
It is completely unfair.
We're working with our permits.
We're working with background checks.
You know, whenever I see
bad news coming out of Uber,
I will see rape, rape, and
then, "We deliver puppies."
I will not allow anyone in my family
to ride in an Uber vehicle.
Because it's... not
because it's competition
but because it's unsafe.
I cannot pay my mortgage.
I cannot buy good shoes for my children.
Listening to these stories,
I began to understand
the human cost of Uber's
unquenchable thirst
for expansion.
And it's not me alone.
Maybe thousands and thousands like me.
I just hoped Andy would be
able to sell them on our plan.
I think have more experience
than any of you in taxi business.
I started in taxi business in about
1984, '85.
1980 right here.
Oh, okay, so you have four
years more experience than me.
It was a bit of a rocky
start, but pretty soon,
they started to get it.
I want you to humiliate Uber driver
and get one star.
How it is gonna affect the whole system?
- No, no, no, no, no.
- What he's saying is,
you give bad service to a customer.
- Bad service?
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- And before long,
it seemed like we had won them over.
From our company alone,
I will tell about 250
drivers went to Uber,
and I have contact with all of them.
So they are sleeper cells,
all those people holding
City of Los Angeles
taxicab driving permits.
So you have 250 people.
I have... I don't have
to persuade anybody.
I can give you names and
driver's license numbers
in a matter of 25 minutes.
The meeting couldn't have gone better,
and the drivers were eager
to hand out our website info
to all of their friends.
I will... I have bunch of
friends I'm gonna give them to.
- Really?
- Yes.
Thank you so much.
Within a week, we
already had 62 sign-ups
in The Lucky Group inbox.
So with momentum building,
I felt it was time to
prepare a short video to make Uber aware
of our presence.
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
I was pretty happy with
how the video turned out.
But before sending it to Uber,
I wanted to show Andy
it to get his thoughts.
It's a little bit...
you go too far.
After watching the video,
Andy seemed very concerned.
It's not... they then sue
us, we go to jail, all of us.
And that made me worry too.
I hadn't fully
considered the legal risks
of starting a sleeper cell.
And as a Canadian citizen,
if I got charged with even
a misdemeanor, it would be
a violation of my green card,
and I'd be deported from the
country I've grown to love,
America, so I did some research
to see if there was anything
that could protect me from deportation.
And it seemed like the only
thing that could give me
immunity was if I
married a U.S. citizen.
There was no one in my life
who would marry me right now.
I tried asking Andy if he
would marry me as a favor,
but he didn't want to do it.
Just legal status?
Yeah.
I don't want to marry a man.
So with the clock ticking
and no romantic prospects,
I felt like the only way
to safely move forward
was to marry Andy without his knowledge.
My plan was to make it appear
to Andy like we were just
gonna grab some Chinese
takeout for lunch one day.
So I rented out a Chinese restaurant
and redesigned their
menu to only consist
of unappealing dishes
that no reasonable person
would want to order.
The only exception
was the house special,
a chicken and broccoli
dish called Ai-doo.
To officiate the ceremony, I
hired someone who specialized
in traditional Chinese weddings.
Oh, my gosh. I so nervous.
- Don't be. Don't be.
- Okay.
- All right, so... so...
- To be clear,
the ceremony's gonna
be entirely in Mandarin?
- In Mandarin.
- That's correct.
Okay, you're not gonna say a
word of English the whole time?
No, I won't say a word of English.
- Okay.
- Now, is Andy gonna
understand Chinese?
- Of course, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Definitely.
So this where I was
thinking you could stand...
- All right.
- And do the ceremony.
- Oh, really?
- And we'll come in there.
Okay.
So with our officiant in
place, I met Andy outside
when he arrived.
One thing before we go
in; it's really authentic,
the restaurant, so it's
respectful if you order
your dish in Mandarin.
It's written out phonetically.
Oh, okay.
And with that, we headed
inside to get married.
- What did he say?
- I think he...
he wants you to order.
Oh, you want me to order.
So... Ai-doo.
I do.
I told the officiant I wanted
our marriage certificate
to look like a restaurant bill
as an homage to our first date
where we split the check.
So you accept Visa, right?
After Andy and I each paid,
we signed what he
believed was the receipt...
Officially making us
jie hun, or married,
in the eyes of the state of California.
It was a little odd
sitting across from someone
who had no clue they were your husband.
But all that really mattered
is that I was now legally
protected, so we could finally
move forward with our plan.
I was still a little nervous
about delivering our video
to Uber, as I knew that
once I sent this email,
they would do everything in
their power to track us down.
So before sending it, I cleared
my entire browser history,
including cookies, and destroyed
any remaining evidence
that could link either me
or Andy to The Lucky Group.
I didn't want to leave a
single trace of our existence.
Even the daycare we met at was fake
and designed from the very
start to disappear by morning.
But when I called in Andy
to delete his Uber account,
he dropped a bombshell.
What's all this?
These are how many...
you've got five star.
This is...
No, but why have you
been doing Uber rides?
You're doing rides every single day.
Yeah.
Andy had logged hundreds
of rides on the account
I set up for him since the
time we completed our test.
Well, so is this your job now?
Are you an Uber driver?
- No, I'm not an Uber driver.
- I mean...
- Well, what do you mean?
- You've done...
No, I started to research
about that company.
But you're driving for Uber full-time.
- Because I...
- Andy, that wasn't the plan.
- Yeah, I know.
- We're supposed to be...
But I have to survive somehow.
Andy admitted that he
was now relying on Uber
for his entire income
and had been keeping it a
secret from me for weeks.
Why didn't you tell
me you were doing this?
Oh, I don't know why should I tell you,
because, you know, compared to taxis,
it's easier to go to pick up,
get the car, all those things.
I don't even come from taxi anymore.
He was now worried that if we
continued with the sleeper cell,
it would affect his driver rating.
And that's when I realized
Andy had been turned.
When he took me outside
and showed me that he had
transferred his entire
karaoke machine into his Uber,
words were not even necessary.
We knew this was the
end of The Lucky Group
and our fight for the onesie.
I had the first karaoke
taxi in the world.
Now have the first
karaoke Uber in the world.
I couldn't help but feel a bit betrayed,
but maybe from the very start
we had been fighting a battle
that could never be won.
Just like telegraphs had
been replaced by telephones
and horse and buggies by cars,
the free market had
again chosen a winner.
The real enemy wasn't Uber.
It was progress.
If Andy didn't want to move
forward with the sleeper cell,
there was also no longer a
need for us to be married.
So I sat down with a divorce lawyer
to explain my situation.
Oh, so what did he think was
going on during that time?
He just thought he was
ordering lunch from someone
at a Chinese restaurant.
Okay.
Fortunately, the
lawyer said our marriage
would be easy to nullify.
So that's where the
element of fraud comes in,
that you brought him to the restaurant
under false pretense,
that you performed the
ceremony without his knowledge
and in another language.
But as I sat there
listening to him lecture me
about all the mistakes I had made,
I was reminded of the vows we had taken
at that Chinese restaurant.
I had promised to love and
accept Andy for who he was,
not who I wanted him to be.
I do.
So if Andy wanted to be an
Uber driver, I'd support him,
because no matter who he worked for,
I knew no one could stop
him from being himself.
Oh, this a karaoke Uber,
so you can sing.
♪ A feather in his cap
and called it macaroni ♪
♪ Yankee Doodle keep it up ♪
♪ Yankee doodle dandy ♪
♪ Mind the music and the step ♪
♪ And with the girls be handy ♪
Hoo.
So you're aware, Andy
and I won't be kissing,
because he has an STD right now.
- Oh, okay.
- Is that okay?
- Yeah, no, that's fine.
- You don't have to kiss.
- I mean, you can hug.
- Okay, sure, yeah.
- But both of you have to sign...
- sign the papers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Synced
by Bakugan
by Bakugan
My name is Nathan Fielder,
and I graduated from one of
Canada's top business schools
with really good grades.
Now I'm using my knowledge
to help struggling small
business owners make it
in this competitive world.
This is "Nathan for You."
In season two of my show,
I gave marketing advice
to a small taxi company
owner named Andy Farshidian,
whose business was being destroyed
by the ride share giant Uber.
_
The idea was to generate
press by encouraging
pregnant riders to
give birth in his taxi.
But what I never saw coming
was that just a few months
after that episode aired
Uber just happened to launch
a new campaign offering
free baby onesies to anyone
who gives birth in one of their cars.
Encouraging customers births
to get press was our idea.
And when I met up with
Andy to tell him about it,
he couldn't believe his eyes.
You know, you're right.
They stole our idea.
Did you know about this?
No, I never saw this.
This is the first time I saw it.
After already having taken so
much from this struggling cabby,
for Uber, this was a new low.
Business had gotten so
bad that Andy had resorted
to turning his cab into
a mobile karaoke booth
in a last-ditch effort to
hold on to his customers.
♪ Say my name say my name ♪
♪ Around you ♪
♪ Say I love you ♪
♪ If you... my name ♪
♪ Say my name say my name ♪
It was clear we had to do something.
So I sat down with Andy
to discuss our options.
I never get mad.
I'm very cool and calm all time time,
but I am so furious that
they did this to you.
They stole everything.
You know what I mean?
The idea, the money, the
passenger, everything.
They stole everything, you know?
Well, I have an idea,
but it's pretty crazy.
Talk to me.
Uber may be a powerful company,
but there's a big vulnerability
in their business model.
Anyone can become a driver.
So if we recruited a fleet
of disgruntled cabbies
to sign up as Uber drivers,
we could effectively
create a sleeper cell
of rogue agents within the Uber network,
allowing Andy I with
the push of a button
to turn our drivers into nightmares
and unleash total
chaos across the globe.
get Uber to stop
using those baby onesies
by threatening them with a sleeper cell.
A sleeper cell, you said?
- Sleeper cell.
- A sleeper cell.
- Not sleeping.
- Yeah, just a sleep cell.
- Sleeper.
- Oh, sleeper.
- Sleeper cell.
- Oh, the person asleep.
- Sleeper cell.
- But no one's sleeping.
- Yeah, I know.
- Right.
- Yeah, okay.
- 'Cause once Uber realizes
a large portion of their
drivers are under our control,
they'll have no choice but
to listen to your demands.
Very smart, very smart.
And at that point, you can tell them,
"Get rid of that onesie."
Knock them down.
That's the best idea.
I love you, man.
I, uh... I love you too.
Okay, so I think that's good for today.
Okay.
I'd never started a sleeper cell before.
But in doing some research online,
I learned that the key to
running any clandestine cell
operation is having a
communication structure that
kept the identities
of the leaders secret.
That way, if any of our
sleeper agents were compromised,
they wouldn't be able
to rat us out to Uber
and bring down the cell.
From now on, we couldn't risk
using our personal phones.
We'd have to get prepaid burner phones.
So to make sure the purchase
couldn't be traced back to us,
I anonymously hired
someone off Craigslist
to go to a local Walgreens and
told him there would be cash
hidden in a dirty McDonald's
cup outside the location,
which he was to use to buy
up the store's entire supply
of prepaid cell phones.
The Craigslist guy was told
to then bring the phones
to an abandoned pier
at the San Pedro harbor
at exactly 1:15 p.m.,
where he would find a
waterproof pouch hidden
inside a white first aid
kit at the end of the dock.
He was then instructed to put
all the phones into the pouch,
hook the base of the pouch
to a nearby cinder block,
and throw it off the pier,
where unbeknownst to him,
I was awaiting the
delivery in full scuba gear
beneath the surface
completing the final step
of a burner phone purchase
that would be impossible
to trace back to either me or Andy.
Now that we had a way to
communicate with our drivers,
we would need to figure out
the commands to give them.
So I started researching
Uber Yelp reviews
and online comments to see
what behaviors from drivers
customers hated the most.
The complaints ranged
from foul-smelling vehicles
to telling offensive jokes
to blasting terrible music.
But to know which combination
of these would be most
effective, we would
need to test them out
on actual Uber customers.
So I had Andy go undercover
and sign up for an Uber driver
account with his personal vehicle.
And after taking it
for a final inspection
posing as an average Joe looking to make
a few extra bucks on the side...
Yeah, I'm just an average Joe,
make some money the side, you know.
Yeah, I'm a normal guy.
Andy was now registered as a
fully accredited Uber driver.
And that meant we could begin our test.
"Playing bad music," yep.
"Bad smell, driver..."
Driver what?
- Gas.
- Oh, that's bad, yeah.
- What's the worst of these?
- The worst one's
driver gets lost... go 5 right?
You're supposed to go to
5 North, drive me 5 South.
That's it. They're
like, "No, it's crazy."
Do you know how to do these, like...
Oh, of course.
I'm the master of these.
You're already a bad driver?
No, I'm not bad driver, but
I have lots of experience.
To simulate the smell of driver farting,
I brought Andy box full of ziplock bags
each filled with a
sulfur-based stink spray.
- So it's, like, one per ride.
- Okay.
They smell really bad.
Oh, they... oh, okay.
To test the effects of bad music,
I gave him a burned
CD with an endless loop
of Lou Bega's 1999 hit
"Mambo No. 5" on it,
considered by many experts to be one of
the worst songs ever made.
So with everything prepped,
Andy turned on his
Uber app and headed out
to pick up some customers.
- Hello. How are you?
- Fine. How about you?
- What's your name?
- Lori.
Lori, yeah.
Well, it doesn't matter the price.
How did it come out?
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Excuse me. Can I... can
we roll down the window?
Oh, the window doesn't
work. It's broken.
- It doesn't go down?
- No.
Oh, 'cause it smells in here.
Oh, I'm in an Uber right now.
I'm going someplace, and
the window doesn't go down.
And it kind of smells in here..
So... oh, wait. No, so I can't...
Ladies and gentlemen,
this is mambo number five.
- Oh, wait. I'm on the phone.
- I'm sorry. I'm on the phone.
Excuse me. Sir.
Sir, I'm on the phone.
Oh, my God. I'm gonna get out.
♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪
I'm getting out.
The first ride lasted
less than a minute,
and after running through our list
with several other customers...
Yo, I think I'm lost, man.
You're lost?
The most intolerable
Uber driver behaviors
became clear.
Turn off the music.
Cut it off.
Turn off the music.
♪ ♪
Turn off the music.
And after a full day of testing,
we got the results we were hoping for.
Bad rating.
- Bad rating.
- They gave me all bad rating.
With our activation plan in place,
we decided to name our sleeper
cell after Andy's dog Lucky.
Because he thought it
would bring us luck.
So maybe we get lucky,
you know, from his name.
So I created a website that
would act as our main hub
for recruits to sign up.
Now I just had to get word
spreading amongst taxi drivers.
Because I had to remain
anonymous while recruiting
drivers, I went to a
local hospital pickup zone
disguised as someone who had
just been released from surgery
and began hailing cabs.
- Hi, there.
- Yes.
- Where do you want to go?
- Just circle the block.
We have business to discuss.
My goal was to get word
spreading that an anti-Uber
resistance was looking for members.
So how's the taxi business going?
_
Not doing as well as you used to?
_
Why is that?
_
If you're interested in
helping take Uber down,
give me a call.
I spent the entire day hailing cabs,
driving in a circle,
and talking up drivers.
Would you be happier
if Uber wasn't around?
_
Well, there might be a way to do that.
Each of the business cards
I gave them had a burner
phone number on it where
they could get information
about a meeting that would
be happening later that week.
_
The interested cabbies who reached out
were given the address of a
local day care I had rented
after hours, where they
were told the leaders of
The Lucky Group would be speaking.
So while the cabbies trickled
in and helped themselves
to our spread of complimentary snacks,
Andy and I got ready in
the back storage room.
- Does it fit okay?
- Yeah.
But even with disguises, Andy
was concerned that a fellow
cabbie might recognize his voice.
I'm the most famous cab
driver in Orange County.
- Everybody knows me.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Can you do any accents?
Or can you disguise
your voice in any way?
So how about Southeast United States,
somewhere around there,
Louisiana or something in that area?
Sure.
How was your day, partner?
How is your business?
The taxi's gone, man.
That's Louisiana?
- Somewhere around Louisiana.
- Oh.
Maybe it's not exactly, but
somewhere around Louisiana,
the Southeast, I know that one.
Yeah, I think that will work.
- Okay.
- Sure, yeah, okay.
And with that, we headed
out to begin the orientation.
I'd like to apologize for the disguises.
But what we're doing is
very sensitive in nature,
so they are necessary.
Firstly, thank you all for being here.
We are The Lucky Group.
So we all agree that
the Uber corporation
has destroyed our industry, right?
Yes.
Our business down 60%.
- 85%
- Wow.
Since Uber.
As soon as Uber was mentioned,
a wave of frustration
swept over the room.
Uber corporation itself taken
over everything, everything.
It is completely unfair.
We're working with our permits.
We're working with background checks.
You know, whenever I see
bad news coming out of Uber,
I will see rape, rape, and
then, "We deliver puppies."
I will not allow anyone in my family
to ride in an Uber vehicle.
Because it's... not
because it's competition
but because it's unsafe.
I cannot pay my mortgage.
I cannot buy good shoes for my children.
Listening to these stories,
I began to understand
the human cost of Uber's
unquenchable thirst
for expansion.
And it's not me alone.
Maybe thousands and thousands like me.
I just hoped Andy would be
able to sell them on our plan.
I think have more experience
than any of you in taxi business.
I started in taxi business in about
1984, '85.
1980 right here.
Oh, okay, so you have four
years more experience than me.
It was a bit of a rocky
start, but pretty soon,
they started to get it.
I want you to humiliate Uber driver
and get one star.
How it is gonna affect the whole system?
- No, no, no, no, no.
- What he's saying is,
you give bad service to a customer.
- Bad service?
- Yeah.
- Thank you.
- And before long,
it seemed like we had won them over.
From our company alone,
I will tell about 250
drivers went to Uber,
and I have contact with all of them.
So they are sleeper cells,
all those people holding
City of Los Angeles
taxicab driving permits.
So you have 250 people.
I have... I don't have
to persuade anybody.
I can give you names and
driver's license numbers
in a matter of 25 minutes.
The meeting couldn't have gone better,
and the drivers were eager
to hand out our website info
to all of their friends.
I will... I have bunch of
friends I'm gonna give them to.
- Really?
- Yes.
Thank you so much.
Within a week, we
already had 62 sign-ups
in The Lucky Group inbox.
So with momentum building,
I felt it was time to
prepare a short video to make Uber aware
of our presence.
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
_
I was pretty happy with
how the video turned out.
But before sending it to Uber,
I wanted to show Andy
it to get his thoughts.
It's a little bit...
you go too far.
After watching the video,
Andy seemed very concerned.
It's not... they then sue
us, we go to jail, all of us.
And that made me worry too.
I hadn't fully
considered the legal risks
of starting a sleeper cell.
And as a Canadian citizen,
if I got charged with even
a misdemeanor, it would be
a violation of my green card,
and I'd be deported from the
country I've grown to love,
America, so I did some research
to see if there was anything
that could protect me from deportation.
And it seemed like the only
thing that could give me
immunity was if I
married a U.S. citizen.
There was no one in my life
who would marry me right now.
I tried asking Andy if he
would marry me as a favor,
but he didn't want to do it.
Just legal status?
Yeah.
I don't want to marry a man.
So with the clock ticking
and no romantic prospects,
I felt like the only way
to safely move forward
was to marry Andy without his knowledge.
My plan was to make it appear
to Andy like we were just
gonna grab some Chinese
takeout for lunch one day.
So I rented out a Chinese restaurant
and redesigned their
menu to only consist
of unappealing dishes
that no reasonable person
would want to order.
The only exception
was the house special,
a chicken and broccoli
dish called Ai-doo.
To officiate the ceremony, I
hired someone who specialized
in traditional Chinese weddings.
Oh, my gosh. I so nervous.
- Don't be. Don't be.
- Okay.
- All right, so... so...
- To be clear,
the ceremony's gonna
be entirely in Mandarin?
- In Mandarin.
- That's correct.
Okay, you're not gonna say a
word of English the whole time?
No, I won't say a word of English.
- Okay.
- Now, is Andy gonna
understand Chinese?
- Of course, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Definitely.
So this where I was
thinking you could stand...
- All right.
- And do the ceremony.
- Oh, really?
- And we'll come in there.
Okay.
So with our officiant in
place, I met Andy outside
when he arrived.
One thing before we go
in; it's really authentic,
the restaurant, so it's
respectful if you order
your dish in Mandarin.
It's written out phonetically.
Oh, okay.
And with that, we headed
inside to get married.
- What did he say?
- I think he...
he wants you to order.
Oh, you want me to order.
So... Ai-doo.
I do.
I told the officiant I wanted
our marriage certificate
to look like a restaurant bill
as an homage to our first date
where we split the check.
So you accept Visa, right?
After Andy and I each paid,
we signed what he
believed was the receipt...
Officially making us
jie hun, or married,
in the eyes of the state of California.
It was a little odd
sitting across from someone
who had no clue they were your husband.
But all that really mattered
is that I was now legally
protected, so we could finally
move forward with our plan.
I was still a little nervous
about delivering our video
to Uber, as I knew that
once I sent this email,
they would do everything in
their power to track us down.
So before sending it, I cleared
my entire browser history,
including cookies, and destroyed
any remaining evidence
that could link either me
or Andy to The Lucky Group.
I didn't want to leave a
single trace of our existence.
Even the daycare we met at was fake
and designed from the very
start to disappear by morning.
But when I called in Andy
to delete his Uber account,
he dropped a bombshell.
What's all this?
These are how many...
you've got five star.
This is...
No, but why have you
been doing Uber rides?
You're doing rides every single day.
Yeah.
Andy had logged hundreds
of rides on the account
I set up for him since the
time we completed our test.
Well, so is this your job now?
Are you an Uber driver?
- No, I'm not an Uber driver.
- I mean...
- Well, what do you mean?
- You've done...
No, I started to research
about that company.
But you're driving for Uber full-time.
- Because I...
- Andy, that wasn't the plan.
- Yeah, I know.
- We're supposed to be...
But I have to survive somehow.
Andy admitted that he
was now relying on Uber
for his entire income
and had been keeping it a
secret from me for weeks.
Why didn't you tell
me you were doing this?
Oh, I don't know why should I tell you,
because, you know, compared to taxis,
it's easier to go to pick up,
get the car, all those things.
I don't even come from taxi anymore.
He was now worried that if we
continued with the sleeper cell,
it would affect his driver rating.
And that's when I realized
Andy had been turned.
When he took me outside
and showed me that he had
transferred his entire
karaoke machine into his Uber,
words were not even necessary.
We knew this was the
end of The Lucky Group
and our fight for the onesie.
I had the first karaoke
taxi in the world.
Now have the first
karaoke Uber in the world.
I couldn't help but feel a bit betrayed,
but maybe from the very start
we had been fighting a battle
that could never be won.
Just like telegraphs had
been replaced by telephones
and horse and buggies by cars,
the free market had
again chosen a winner.
The real enemy wasn't Uber.
It was progress.
If Andy didn't want to move
forward with the sleeper cell,
there was also no longer a
need for us to be married.
So I sat down with a divorce lawyer
to explain my situation.
Oh, so what did he think was
going on during that time?
He just thought he was
ordering lunch from someone
at a Chinese restaurant.
Okay.
Fortunately, the
lawyer said our marriage
would be easy to nullify.
So that's where the
element of fraud comes in,
that you brought him to the restaurant
under false pretense,
that you performed the
ceremony without his knowledge
and in another language.
But as I sat there
listening to him lecture me
about all the mistakes I had made,
I was reminded of the vows we had taken
at that Chinese restaurant.
I had promised to love and
accept Andy for who he was,
not who I wanted him to be.
I do.
So if Andy wanted to be an
Uber driver, I'd support him,
because no matter who he worked for,
I knew no one could stop
him from being himself.
Oh, this a karaoke Uber,
so you can sing.
♪ A feather in his cap
and called it macaroni ♪
♪ Yankee Doodle keep it up ♪
♪ Yankee doodle dandy ♪
♪ Mind the music and the step ♪
♪ And with the girls be handy ♪
Hoo.
So you're aware, Andy
and I won't be kissing,
because he has an STD right now.
- Oh, okay.
- Is that okay?
- Yeah, no, that's fine.
- You don't have to kiss.
- I mean, you can hug.
- Okay, sure, yeah.
- But both of you have to sign...
- sign the papers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Synced
by Bakugan