By day English teacher Nick Somich can be seen walking through the halls of Mayfield but by night he can be seen driving his Nissan Sentra for Uber and Lyft.

Somich first took up this job last August as another form of income. He said, “I realized in order for [my wife and I] to make more money for childcare that I needed to pick up something more flexible.”

Somich drives weekends and nights but he mainly chooses when he drives since he is his own boss. When Somich has free time—especially during the summer—he chooses to go out and drive.

A feature Somich admires is the diversity of his customers. He said, “I realized this gig is kinda cool because you meet people of all ages, of all types, of all social class and almost every person I’ve driven was happy and pleasant and non-threatening.”

Whenever he is driving, Somich doesn’t compare himself to other drivers. He said, “I’ve always thought about the task at hand.” Somich also tries to make sure that he is timely and focused for every ride.

Somich has been in situations while driving that he would never have experienced before like driving until five a.m. or meeting John Gammon, an actor on the T.V. series The Middle.

Somich said, “It was really kind of cool to see someone who is a true actor. So that was a kind of rush to see that.”

He gets paid by the app and is frequently out driving when the demand is higher than the supply of drivers. This is when the drivers get paid a higher amount for driving with more traffic. This is known as ‘Surge pricing.’

Somich understood when this would happen and decided to go out when this was in effect.

“I pick times that work around my family’s schedule and to capitalize on surge pricing. I typically like to work later hours on weekends when there are a lot of people going out for social events and my daughter’s asleep so I’ll be able to go out and not miss any interaction with her,” Somich said.

Somich said, “It is a complete cashless operation.” This means there is no paper currency going between the driver and the rider but this process does have uncertainty with the system.

Whenever Somich drives to a possible customer’s destination the customer could cancel the ride and Somich doesn’t receive any pay for that ride although he arrived on time.

Somich said “Overall there hasn’t been any indiscretion with the amount I’m paid.” He even has a promo code for first time riders: h48c4. Somich also has a code for Lyft: NICK103667

John Sullivan, a friend and colleague of Somich, said that he wasn’t surprised when Somich told him. “I know he likes to drive a lot and I know he likes to meet people so I think the two go hand in hand.”

Somich told Sullivan when he was only a few months in and wasn’t secretive with social media either. He posted about driving on his Facebook wall and was very open about his second job and that he drove multiple Mayfield alumni.