You do my sort of work you eavesdrop. You pick up the details and clues that, put together, start to form a picture of all that is going on in a life outside of this car. You try to work out their story. From what I was hearing, this was a dude under pressure. An agent asking for a rewrite on four episodes. A kid not sleeping. Cash-flow fears. I knew the address that popped up on my screen. Dropped someone off there before. It was a street right off Vermont in Los Feliz. Full of little cottages which went for the low seven figures.

‘It’s going to be okay,’ he was saying. ‘I’m calling UTA right after and Lucy will get me … Yeah, yeah, I know all about the car payment …’

Oh man, not just money worries. Badass debt. He’d bought into the system as most of us had done: the mortgaged house, a family, the leased car, the credit card liabilities … while simultaneously telling himself that he was going to sidestep all the compromises and limitations that big grown-up responsibilities bring to the table. Whereas the truth of the matter was: we buy in because we tell ourselves that not to buy in is not to do what we were raised to do – which is to buy in. My story like so many others.

I liked this guy. Someone with the smarts to be paid for writing … but vulnerable. Especially as, from what I heard, he was a new dad. And when you have kids … man, are you endlessly vulnerable.

His phone call ended. I heard him do a few breathing exercises – something to calm down the worry within. Then he was dialing another number.

‘Lucy Zimmerman, please … Zach Godfrey here … Yeah, I very much am her client … Sure I can hold …’

His face scrunched up. Being told to wait showed his lower status on the totem pole. The fact that the receptionist didn’t recognize his name … not good. He kept the phone to his ear, he shut his eyes, he sank back into the seat. Asking me:

‘Could you please put on a little music? KUSC?’

‘You got it, sir.’

I clicked the radio into life. KUSC was number 4 on my presets. The classical station. Something old and violin-heavy came on.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Are you always so decent?’

‘Try to be, sir.’

‘You like the work?’

‘It’s … work,’ I said.

‘I hear you. Working for Uber is working for The Man, right? But don’t think that’s a reproach. We all, on some level, work for The Man these days.’

‘I appreciate your point of view,’ I said, ‘and agree with it. But I need to explain something to you. When it comes to “working for Uber” …’

Someone was now back in his ear.

‘Hold that thought,’ he told me, then started his phone call.