The kids were acting up the other night. You know, pushing the limits. Rude, sneaky, too big for their britches, that sort of thing.
Someone had to put their foot down.
"Enough!" I yelled. "Quit acting like Uber!"
Uber is the business world's spoiled child. It doesn't play well with others, won't respect its elders and seems to have forgotten everything it was supposed to learn in school.
Like following the rules.
"Is there a company in America more in need of adult supervision than Uber?" asks Michael Hiltzik in Sunday's L.A. Times. "The fast-growing ride-hailing firm can't seem to go anywhere without stomping on toes. It attracts complaints from local regulators like a deer attracts ticks."
Uber's smartphone app is the go-between for riders needing rides and drivers offering them. It's a hip cab service, but since cabs aren't trending anymore, Uber -- with a website that looks like a Ralph Lauren ad -- calls itself something else.
Ridesharing.
(Tomato. To-mah-to. Let's not play word games. If it drives like a cab, takes you places like a cab, charges you money like a cab, then it's a cab.)
Uber's app isn't the problem; it's the roughshod way that Uber has bigfooted into cities, thinking it can wipe out years of regulations and level-playing-field policies.
Like background checks and drug tests for drivers. Or vehicle inspections. Insurance. Those pesky things.
Cabbies are nauseated by it. Here in Chattanooga, one local owner -- Tim Duckett of Millennium Taxi -- has asked the city to file a cease-and-desist order against Uber followed by a federal injunction to shut down Uber's app from operating until it abides by the same rules he follows.
"If I had gone to the city council or transportation board and said, 'Hey, I want to handle all my own background checks, all my own drug tests, and use any car I want,' I would have been laughed out of the room," Duckett said.
The city of San Francisco filed a 28-page lawsuit against Uber, claiming a laundry list of violations. Falsely charging riders. Operating at airports without permission. Misleading claims about safety and background checks.
"Flagrant and unlawful business practices," the suit claims.
Portland is suing also. New Delhi banned Uber after one of its drivers was accused of raping a passenger.
Uber faces resistance in Europe, especially France, whose Uber-ban begins in 2015. Australia may be next. As an armed gunman held hostages in a Sydney cafe this week, Uber responded by jacking up its rates for nearby Aussies fleeing to get the next cab -- sorry, rideshare -- away from the danger.
"Many who were stranded in the area were forced to pay roughly four times the normal rate," The New York Times reported.
The company has threatened journalists and dodged responsibility when drivers have accidents. TechCrunch.com even catalogued Uber's Top 10 worst screw-ups. (No. 6: the time an Uber driver allegedly beat a passenger with a hammer.)
Tuesday afternoon, the Chattanooga City Council debated how and whether to regulate Uber.
I went.
I took a cab.
"We'll be there in a hot minute," the dispatcher said.
In a blue Millennium minivan, Victor arrived. He was prompt, kind, and a good conversationalist. He's been driving cabs for seven years or so. To get his job, he said, he had to pass a physical, a drug test, a background check, a breathalyzer, a vision test, then another test at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
"To get my F endorsement on my driver's license," he said, "which means 'for hire.'"
Uber shouldn't get to breeze into town and disrupt a storied industry simply by skirting its rules. Call it whatever you like, but Uber provides transportation for money, which makes it a cab service, which means it should be bound by the exact same regulations.
"They should have to play by the same rules," Victor said.
What a grown-up idea.
Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.