Ooh, That Smell — Can’t You Smell That Smell?

There are moments doing rideshare when something happens and you’re left wondering exactly what you were supposed to do differently.

Today, apparently, that something was a smell.

I had driven to pick up a passenger for what would have been another one of those longer trips across Massachusetts. The passenger gets into the car and then decides they can’t stand the smell and cancels the trip.

Okay.

Here’s the problem: What smell?

I keep my car exceptionally clean. That isn’t me claiming that nothing could ever smell inside my vehicle. It’s a car. People get in and out of it all day. Weather comes through the vents. Cleaning products have smells. I have air fresheners. Previous passengers can leave odors behind.

And smell is incredibly subjective.

I’m actually pretty sensitive to smells myself, especially as a former smoker. There are plenty of odors that will bother me long before somebody else even notices them.

So if somebody gets into my car and says, “That air freshener is killing me,” great. Tell me.

I’ll throw the damn thing out.

Roll down the windows. Turn up the ventilation. Give it a couple of minutes and we’ll probably solve the problem.

If you smell cleaning solution, food, smoke, mildew, gasoline, or whatever else you think you’re smelling, tell me that too. At least now I have something I can investigate.

But simply saying “there’s a smell” and canceling gives me absolutely nothing useful.

Then Uber Kept Sending Me the Same Passenger

This is where the situation stopped being about a smell and became an algorithm problem.

After the passenger canceled, Uber offered me the passenger again.

And again.

I believe I saw the request three additional times.

Now think about that from either side of the transaction.

The passenger has already decided they don’t want to ride in my vehicle. Whatever their reason was, they made that decision.

And after having somebody get into my vehicle, complain about an unidentified smell, cancel the trip and leave, I’m probably not particularly interested in doing that pairing again either.

So why is Uber’s system trying to put us back together?

That’s especially irritating when you’re dealing with long-distance requests. There aren’t always dozens of drivers sitting around willing to take somebody across the state. I happen to take quite a few of those trips.

But repeatedly offering me a passenger who just canceled on me isn’t helping the passenger find another ride.

It isn’t helping me.

And depending upon how Uber calculates the rejected requests, I’m potentially being asked to take an action against my own metrics simply because their matching system keeps offering me a trip that has already demonstrated it isn’t going to work.

Apparently Uber Can Fix It

I eventually contacted Uber Support.

And here’s the interesting part.

Uber responded and told me:

“We’ve let our systems know not to match you with them again.”

So the capability exists.

Uber can apparently tell its system that two particular accounts should no longer be paired.

They also made a note on my account and gave me 10 Uber Pro points for the inconvenience.

Fine. Thank you.

But now I have another question.

Why did I have to contact Safety Support to make this happen?

The passenger had already canceled the ride after getting into my vehicle. Then the same passenger’s request started circulating back to me.

Wouldn’t the sensible algorithmic response be something like:

Passenger cancels after meeting driver → temporarily stop offering that passenger to the same driver.

You don’t necessarily need to punish anybody.

You don’t need to decide who’s right.

You don’t even need to decide whether the mysterious smell existed.

Just recognize that this particular rider-driver combination didn’t work.

Find another driver.

And Then Came the Punch Line

Not long afterward, another passenger got into my car.

This wasn’t even some random person who had never been in the vehicle before. She had ridden with me previously. I’ve driven her all the way out to Revere before.

And she’s an Uber driver herself.

So we’re talking and I tell her what just happened.

Somebody got into the car, complained about a smell and canceled.

Her response?

“What smell?”

Exactly.

We had a pretty good laugh about that one.

She knows the car. She’s ridden in it before. She knows how I drive and what the vehicle normally looks and smells like.

She couldn’t identify whatever this mysterious offensive odor was either.

Now, that doesn’t prove the first passenger was lying.

Maybe they genuinely smelled something neither of us noticed.

Maybe they’re extremely sensitive to one of the air fresheners.

Maybe something came through the ventilation system for thirty seconds.

Maybe their nose simply picked up something ours didn’t.

That’s entirely possible.

But it brings me right back to the beginning.

Tell me what you smell.

Because I can’t fix “something.”

I can fix an air freshener.

I can fix a dirty floor mat.

I can investigate the ventilation system.

I can clean upholstery.

I can roll down the windows.

I can remove something another passenger left behind.

But I can’t troubleshoot:

“There’s a smell.”