Ubering Through a Syracuse Blizzard

Syracuse saw more than two feet of snow fall in a single day, the most in decades. Local officials warned people to stay off the roads. Plows struggled to keep up. Visibility dropped. The city slowed to a crawl.

That morning, I turned on the Uber app anyway.

Most of the rides weren’t glamorous. People weren’t going to parties or celebrations. They were going to work. A prep cook heading to Chili’s. Someone was trying to make it to the gym. People doing ordinary things on a day that wasn’t ordinary at all.

Driving itself wasn’t the hardest part. Going uphill was fine. You give it steady power and commit. The real danger was downhill. Once you start sliding, there’s no correcting it. You have to think three steps ahead: what roads to avoid, which hills to take slowly, and which turns to abandon entirely.

My car handled it well. All-wheel drive helped. Snow tires would have helped more. By noon, the roads were mostly cleared. But during those early hours, it was bad.

What stood out wasn’t the snow. It was the passengers.

I drove for 20 minutes over unplowed roads to reach one pickup. Two feet of snow. Heavy surge pricing. Real effort just to get there. When I arrived, the passenger messaged: “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Then they came outside and started shoveling their walkway, so they wouldn’t have to walk through the snow to the car.

I didn’t wait.

That moment summed up the disconnect. Drivers are often treated like public infrastructure rather than people. The conditions don’t register. The risk doesn’t register. The effort doesn’t register.

Only two of my passengers tipped that morning. Most of the people I drove were working low-wage jobs, and I understand that. Still, even a dollar would have said something. A simple acknowledgment that someone chose to be on the road when they didn’t have to be.

One passenger did stand out. A prep cook headed into work before the restaurant even opened. He tipped the most that morning. Not because he had to, but because he saw the situation clearly.

That’s the thing about driving in a blizzard. You see who notices. You see who doesn’t. And you remember both.

By the end of the shift, I was tired, cold, and relieved to be home. I wasn’t proud of driving through the storm. I wasn’t trying to prove anything. But the experience stuck with me.

Not because of the snow.

Because of how invisible the work can feel when things get hard, and how meaningful it is when someone notices anyway.