It’s no secret that the San Francisco Bay Area has a problem with wealth disparity. A simple glance at recent rent averages and cost of living increase statistics over the last five years shows that it has become a very expensive place to live, which in turn makes it very difficult for people who do not have high paying jobs. A few years ago, due to a couple videos going viral, the Google Bus became a symbol representing these struggles for a lot of people.
If we were to create a small list of these struggles, it might include:
- The average income for a traditional family in the Bay Area, compared to the average income for a tech worker at a Google-like company.
- The increasing difficulty for a traditional family to find an affordable place to live reasonably close to their job and school.
- The personal struggle of a traditional worker, including working conditions, hours, and the commensurate paycheck.
- The perceived inability of an employee at a Google-like company to empathically relate to the struggles of anyone who is a traditional worker.
For those unaware, for a bunch of reasons, a lot of employees at Google-like companies do not live anywhere near their workplace. As a result, Google-like companies have hired luxury shuttles to drive up to San Francisco where many of the employees live, pick them up, and drive them down to places like Mountain View where the workplaces are. While this is actually great for reducing traffic congestion in a place that has terrible public transportation, these buses have become a symbol representing rich tech companies in a land where it’s increasingly harder for everyone else.
That said, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the people who drive these Google-like buses are more likely to belong to the class of traditional workers than the rich tech workers, and I think it’s also reasonable to assume that it’s difficult for the tech workers to relate to what life is like for their chauffeurs. But I think I’ve found a way to begin to address some of these issues.
Imagine if once a year, all the Google-like companies held a lottery, with X winners, corresponding to X bus-drivers. The winners of these lotteries would be assigned a shift to drive a Google-like bus for a day, and the normal Google-like bus driver would be given a paid day off. Each winner would be able to experience life the way their chauffeurs live it every day: waking up super early, showing up to the Google-like bus depo, proceeding to drive around San Francisco making stops to pick up Google-like employees, and then sitting in traffic for two hours to help deliver the Google-like employees to their Google-like workplaces.
There might be liability issues, but surely the Google-like companies can afford to handle those. There might be training required, but I think Google-like employees are always eager to learn new skills. Because this would be in the form of a lottery, everyone would be equally likely to be selected.
In the end, my hope is that this might result in Google-like employees being slightly more understanding of the lives of their Google-like chauffeurs, and that it could even inspire them to invest time into the non tech-worker parts of their local communities.
