Updated: Apr 18, 2020
This 1973 Corona Wouldn’t Hurt A Fly
So here we are. It’s mid-March 2020 and yesterday the president of the United States issued a state of emergency, governors closed state legislatures and government agencies, schools shut down statewide, the University of Michigan suspended their final semester and other schools are following suit.
Heads of State and/or their spouses have been diagnosed with the Coronavirus, the NBA has canceled their season, The Master’s Golf tourney has been suspended, toilet paper can’t be found, hand sanitizer is disappeared, and restaurants are losing employees and threatening shutdowns because people aren’t going out in public.
So? Where does that leave us-the gig driver? Hard to say really… Don’t ya hate when you come to something or someone seeking answers and they hit you up with one of those “depends” or “yes and no” or “good and bad” or “hard to say” responses? It’s anyone of those responses if you want to make an excuse for not saying.
The motivation for writing this has come from the past few days-however, the inspiration came last night when I got an email from Network Solutions, an internet hosting company, telling me they had my back. No…really. You can check it out below.
Screen Shot Of My Email
To be honest, it really is just the latest in a long list of emails and notifications I’ve received over the past few days telling me that this or that place is looking out for me. Not the least of those concerned companies have been those I gig for. It started with Postmates and cascaded from there.
What's going on? What's the problem? Here in Georgia they’re considering legislation to temporarily stop accepting cash in all establishments including restaurants; a move that restaurants support! The restaurants say it’s a move to support their staff.
The gig companies are sending out notifications about “contactless delivery” for the protection of the eater. Other companies are telling their employees to telework and the children? Well… let’s just call this, The Useless Summer Part Deux.
One question is, who’s looking out for us? The other question is, do we really need someone looking out for us? My answer is absolutely not! Look, as gig employees, the only contact we have is at the restaurant and that’s nothing a little sanitizer won’t take care of. The pizza delivery drivers have it much worse in that they must take cash and sometimes personal check and sometimes they have to use the customer’s phone to call in a credit card…
This new “contactless” thing is really nothing different from we’ve done all along if you think about it. All we do is hand off a package to the eater like a quarterback to the running back.
We only spend about 10-15 seconds at the eater’s door once they answer…and that’s a generous gauge. Estimates for someone working solely for a particular restaurant on delivery waiting is about 2 minutes at the door. I don’t know about you, but for me-with some customers that’s about 2 minutes too long.
Not to fret though folks. As gig workers we prefer the independence of determining our own schedules, our own hours, and ultimately our own deliveries. This one really is a no-brainer, Virus 0-Drivers 1. No contest, unless you’re ridesharing-then again, that’s another story altogether.