What I learnt from tailing a Zomato delivery worker

I tracked a Zomato delivery worker for an entire day as he delivered orders. Here's what I learnt.

A few days ago, I reported a story about the life of one Zomato delivery worker in Gurgaon. I tailed him as he went about his day delivering orders, calculating the kilometres he rode for and the money he made at the end of his ten-hour long shift.

The story blew up.

You can read it here: When algorithms dictate your work: Life as a food delivery ‘partner’

I’m documenting some of things that couldn’t be in the story (to keep it under a certain word limit).

I’m extremely inconsistent at writing things beyond work. But I do put something out every now and then. Maybe consider subscribing?

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Sumit Kumar, the 31 year old Zomato delivery worker, has been with the company for four years. In that sense, he is one of the “older” delivery workers attached to the company, because by Zomato’s own estimates an average delivery person’s tenure with the company is around a year.

I met with him in the early hours of a Sunday morning earlier in August at the Sector 31 market in Gurgaon where he had come to pick an order from a restaurant. However, before he could pick the order, it started raining incessantly, and he took shade under a shop’s elongated roof. That allowed me to approach him and convince him to let me follow him.

A sense of hesitation was clear when I proposed the idea to him. But he eventually agreed.

Dignity

As the rain slowed down a bit, he picked up the order and left to deliver it. But before we could go far, the rain’s intensity increased yet again and we took shade at a security post outside one of Gurgaon’s many flashy bungalows.

The person who had placed the order was calling Kumar repeatedly to deliver his order. He was hungry. And even though Kumar tried to explain him many a times that the rain was falling down too heavily, the person would have none of it.

Here’s an exchange between them that happened over the call:

Customer: What is the delay about? It’s already been 25 minutes.

Kumar: I understand Sir. But please you also understand that the rain is too heavy.

Customer: So what do I do? So many other delivery workers are delivering food. Wear your raincoat and come. I don’t care if the rain is too much. I want my food.

Kumar: Okay Sir, I’m leaving right away

As soon as he started his bike and proceeded towards the customer’s address, the person cancelled the order.

Kumar turned towards me and said: “Now I can keep this food, the company won’t say anything. But after people behave with you like this, nothing seems worth it. Sometimes, there’s no dignity in this job. People don’t talk to us like we’re humans”.

Tips

If you read the story published on Entrackr, you’ll know that on the day I was tailing him, Kumar completed 12 orders after travelling for more than 100 kilometres. At the end, he made Rs 787, of which Rs 200 were given as incentive to him by Zomato for completing 12 orders.

Many of you have since reached out to me asking how do tips given by customers factor in this payment. And admittedly, my original story did not deal with this subject. It should have.

Tips work in two ways: Zomato has an in-app tipping option and alternatively, customers can give tips in cash to the delivery worker in person.

On Sunday, none of the 12 customers gave a tip to Kumar. And he said this is a common occurrence. On an average, one out of 15-20 people tip, he told me.

More people should tip. But I’m of the belief that tipping should also not be totally normalised, because that could allow the company to evade its responsibility of fairly compensating its delivery “partners”. It’s a complex debate, and there are far more qualified people than me to talk about it.

Many people also asked me if the tips given to delivery workers via the app are given to them is exactly the same or if the company keeps a cut of that. I don’t have any evidence for it (since no one tipped), but Kumar said he gets the exact amount credited to his account.

Maybe people like @DeliveryBhoy could better answer that question.

It’s extremely difficult

We were on the road for a little over 10 hours as he delivered one order after the other. I was on a Honda Activa right behind him. And at the end of the ten-hour long shift, I had a massive pain in my lower back.

I asked him how he manages to do it every day.

That’s when I learnt that for the last two years, he has been struggling with acute back pain. But he has never consulted a doctor fearing a long hospital bill. But he has to keep on going, irrespective.

What Zomato wouldn’t say

I had sent Zomato a total of 9 questions for the story but they responded to only 7 of those questions. Here are the two questions that Zomato did not respond to:

1. Can Zomato delivery executives go on strike without fearing that they will lose their job? We learnt that a few months ago, several delivery executives had called a strike in Gurgaon, but were later informed by their respective team leaders that if they are caught at the strike, their IDs would be cancelled. They then called the strike off. Is that correct?

2. What is Zomato’s view on its delivery executives unionising?