【7.1 Update】Delivery Driver's Diary

free discussion Work Diary
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Meituan and Ele.me couriers
Meituan and Ele.me couriers2500×1666 510 KB

Afternoon of July 1st
This morning, I went to Meituan’s dedicated delivery station, preparing to join as a Meituan delivery rider. Since I have previous experience as a dedicated delivery and crowdsourced delivery rider, I knew the onboarding process for dedicated riders, so I directly inquired with delivery personnel near my residence to find out the location of the delivery station, planning to understand the situation thoroughly before joining. The main purpose of this approach was to prevent being exploited through intermediaries (about how intermediaries and Meituan stations colluded to exploit riders even before onboarding, which can be detailed later).

Upon arriving at the station, I turned on my recorder in advance, because as is well known, Meituan’s labor protections are very poor, and there is not even a labor contract, so recording the specific working conditions here is important to prepare for future struggles. When I entered the station, I saw two station managers, whose status was basically that of supervisors, sitting in an air-conditioned room looking at computers (“dispatching” riders within the delivery range). The manager who negotiated with me looked to be in his twenties, but had the appearance of a small-time thug, with tattoos on his arms. As soon as I sat down, I also smelled a strong betel nut aroma.

Next, he handed me a two-page document. The first page detailed the specific working conditions at this station, including base pay, distance, weight, subsidies, etc. Below that was a naked hierarchy system. The station ranks riders based on the number of orders delivered per month, dividing them into about six levels. Riders of different levels receive different additional subsidies per order, with the last level receiving no extra subsidy. The second page was entirely about penalties for riders: not attending morning meetings, being late, absenteeism, not smiling in actions… Minor penalties included fines, and severe penalties included dismissal. Interestingly, the station manager also told me, “There aren’t many penalties,” and added, “as long as you don’t work hard enough.” Meituan’s dedicated delivery system is truly savage; in terms of labor protection, it has no labor contracts, only service agreements. Riders are outsourced, but in terms of discipline, they are strict—these fines are just excuses to deduct wages.

Later, I learned about the approximate delivery range of this station and expressed my intention to work here. He hardly asked anything, only inquiring about my name and phone number. It must be said that in today’s depressed job market, factories generally operate a 12-hour workday, and the service industry is almost not hiring. Only delivery stations seem to be “hiring happily.” Of course, this is not because Meituan, Ele.me, or JD.com provides employment for unemployed or semi-unemployed workers as “conscientious entrepreneurs.” The reason for such phenomena is that they all implement brutal piece-rate wage systems, requiring little labor supervision compared to other industries, allowing riders to generate large surplus value for them. China now has over ten million delivery riders. Are their lives good? In fact, the enormous number of delivery riders allows these capitalists to lower prices, research more demanding delivery and service conditions, and create more fines.

Soon, he arranged for me to be paired with a mentor who would take me out for two days. During these two days, I wouldn’t deliver orders myself but would follow my mentor to familiarize myself with the routes. After two days, I would officially join. Although I have previous delivery experience, I was still unfamiliar with the routes here and needed an experienced rider to guide me. I was added to a temporary WeChat group, and following my mentor’s instructions, I went to a location to meet him. Meeting my mentor, he appeared to be a rather complicated person. His first impression was that he was riding a very expensive electric motorcycle, also carrying a balance bike (used for entering neighborhoods where bikes are not allowed). He also had a “How to Train Your Dragon” doll hanging on his bike, indicating he wasn’t badly off and was somewhat influenced by bourgeois art and culture. After running with him for a while, the main conversation was about the order situation in this area. I learned that most nearby residential areas are quite “upscale,” with only one accessible by bike; the others require walking. There is also a large supermarket nearby, and he often receives orders from there, usually involving many heavy items. When I mentioned I had delivered before, he asked whether I often refused orders during my crowdsourced (part-time) work, because, according to him, data from Meituan’s dedicated delivery and crowdsourcing are interconnected. If you frequently refuse system-assigned orders in crowdsourcing, the system will reduce your order dispatch rate or assign you very difficult orders (like very far away). I understand that refusing orders often lowers dispatch rate, which is a way for Meituan to enforce discipline among riders (making the myth of “free” and “willing to deliver” completely a capitalist lie). But I had never known that dedicated delivery and crowdsourcing are interconnected. Later, while waiting for orders, I exchanged some thoughts with my mentor, mainly about the relationship between merchants and Meituan. It is well known that Meituan employs riders in two ways: dedicated delivery and crowdsourcing (the distinction is complex; I plan to explain in detail later, but simply, the former is full-time and the latter part-time). Merchants can also choose to join Meituan via dedicated or crowdsourced services. The former is mainly chosen by chain stores, and the latter by small producers. Today, I learned from my mentor that stores using dedicated delivery must pay at least 35% commission to Meituan. This figure is shocking, meaning most small producers cannot afford this commission. Both delivery methods involve brutal exploitation of riders and extortion of small producers, just in different ways. For dedicated delivery, if there is a delivery problem, the merchant does not need to compensate; only the rider does. For crowdsourcing, it is the opposite: riders usually bear no responsibility, and merchants must compensate.

During this process, I also observed my mentor. He came to this station last November, so he is an experienced rider. I saw that he watches videos, news, and short videos with loud music, explaining electric scooter features. When he encounters female riders from the same station, he jokes around with them, but I didn’t catch what exactly was said—only heard questions about orders or work situations. It also shows he has many skilled labor abilities. When I followed him to deliver an order to an apartment, at one point, when we arrived at a floor, he took off his helmet as he was leaving the elevator, placing it at the elevator door, which kept the door open. Then he quickly delivered the food without waiting for the elevator. These behaviors don’t clearly reveal his moral character yet; I need to observe and communicate more in the future. After 1 p.m., I returned home to rest and planned to go out again at 5 p.m.

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Great! We also have delivery personnel on our forum.

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:hushed_face: I previously had no understanding of the life of delivery drivers, but now I can finally understand their situation. Currently, there are many delivery drivers who are oppressed, and they will definitely become a powerful revolutionary force in the future.

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Yes. Delivery workers are ultimately service workers in the food distribution industry, and they are numerous, with a strong sense of class identity (I have seen delivery workers support other striking workers in their struggles). They are also highly mobile, leveraging the internet for quick communication and high solidarity, making them a group of workers under deep oppression but capable of unleashing great strength. In the future, as more delivery workers participate in forums, they should unite to become a powerful force to oppose the reformist ruling class.

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I also work as a dedicated delivery person on Meituan, just a reminder that you must not forget to attend the morning meeting! My first month, I forgot to attend the meeting, and according to our rules, being late once deducts 20 yuan. As a result, at the end of the month, just for “missing the morning meeting,” I was deducted 400 yuan. Later, I talked to the station master and team leader, and they waived the deduction.

Also, the content of the morning meeting is pretty stupid. Most of the time, the team leader just records a video on their phone, and the riders shout slogans: “Meituan Waimai, the more you eat, the more handsome”; “Meituan Waimai, fast delivery whatever you order”; “Our safety slogan is, safety first, keep it in mind, for yourself and your family.” It’s just perfunctory, and if you don’t attend, they’ll deduct your money.

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So, Meituan’s morning meeting is entirely a performance art, and many service industries also use this kind of abstract slogan, which is a form of insult to workers. By the way, I also saw some remarks from this comrade before. Do you plan to write a self-introduction?

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7.1 Afternoon (written at 7.2 early morning)

In the afternoon, I packed up and went to work. After arriving at the location, I guess my master was delivering orders somewhere else, so I waited for a while, then continued to communicate in the group about the newcomers. After my master arrived, we started working. Today afternoon, I didn’t work for long, basically from 10:30 to 7:30, about two hours. Mainly, I realized that my master is indeed very complicated. When he was watching videos, the main content was about various flashy electric motorcycles, and his attitude towards women is also hard to say. Once in the afternoon, I saw him joking around with a female delivery person, grabbing each other’s hands. The interactions with male delivery workers were mainly some vulgar jokes, sometimes bragging about how many orders they had, like showing off, saying things like “People who can do delivery will definitely do it, those who can’t will never do it.” Sometimes, there were also some swear words. But it wasn’t to the extent of being a strikebreaker; it was mainly joking. Also, they discussed how to modify electric motorcycles. For the former, I would ask him how his current orders are, whether they are on the way smoothly, etc. For the latter, I didn’t participate. However, I also thought about my previous experience delivering food, which still had remnants of a luxurious enjoyment mentality, wanting to ride better bikes. I think this is something I need to persist and fight against, to combat the backward thoughts among delivery workers. Additionally, although the afternoon wasn’t long, because it was rush hour, not only were there many orders, but also many people dining in the restaurants (I have to say, the lives of these affluent petty-bourgeois and bourgeois are so decayed), which made restaurant staff overwhelmed, so delivery was quite tight. There were several times I pushed the throttle to the limit and almost couldn’t keep up with my master. The work of delivery workers is indeed very physically demanding and dangerous. This evening, my master was assigned four orders in a row, starting with only about twenty minutes for delivery, and this restaurant was very busy, with chefs and waiters overwhelmed, leading to long food preparation times. Although Meituan allows riders to report “slow food” to extend the delivery time, this only extends the delivery time for that particular order, but it makes other orders on hand very difficult to manage. Moreover, this reporting has a limit of five times per day for both food and non-food orders. Such intense labor results in very high riding speeds today. Also, the road planning here is very poor. The non-motorized vehicle lanes are basically fenced off from motor vehicle lanes, and often occupied by parked cars. Throughout this afternoon, we hardly used the non-motorized lanes and were riding entirely on the motor vehicle lanes. There are many reasons why delivery riders are forced to ride faster. For example, walking in some residential areas, or waiting for elevators in apartments and malls that are hard to wait for… Regarding the latter, my master told me this afternoon that some residents in the apartments here are very selfish and stupid. When waiting for the elevator, they press both the up and down buttons, which often causes the elevator to stop, open, and close at floors where no one is present, wasting a lot of time. It can be seen that Meituan’s “delivery service quality” is built on such high-intensity, high-risk labor. Around 7:30, my master told me to go home, while he continued delivering, and he said he would continue to run with me at 10 o’clock tomorrow. I changed a battery and went home.

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That’s how it is. Meituan’s dispatch system pushes riders’ delivery times very tightly. During peak hours, except for scheduled orders, most are 20-30 minutes. Sometimes, the dispatch system acts erratically, inserting a scheduled order into an instant order, preventing you from following the system’s designated route (scheduled orders can only be marked as delivered when there are still 7 minutes left; otherwise, they are treated as overdue). If this scheduled order can’t be delivered, you can only finish the subsequent instant orders and then go back to deliver the scheduled order.

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7.2 (Written in the early morning of 7.3)
Around 10:30 in the morning, I arrived at the commercial area, waiting for my master to come. This morning, my master’s orders were relatively few, and most of them were long-distance deliveries. My master helplessly said, “He ran too much yesterday, today all are junk orders.” But this doesn’t mean the labor intensity is low; these long-distance orders don’t take much time, and today he also encountered quite a few issues with restaurant delays.
In the morning, my master received a long-distance order from KFC. I was quite puzzled because KFC has its own delivery service, so I wondered how Meituan could still receive their orders. After asking my master, I learned that they have their own delivery personnel, but if they can’t deliver all the orders, they will be dispatched to Meituan’s station. Moreover, KFC’s orders are very strict; regardless of the distance, they only give 21 minutes. This reminded me that within my previous dedicated delivery station, there was a Starbucks that directly handed over delivery services to Meituan, under the same regulation. Even the station manager told us that once they receive a Starbucks order, it might be late, so they would call and transfer it to someone else who can deliver on time. I asked around and found out there is also a Starbucks here, which is a crazy exploitation by Meituan, Starbucks, and KFC jointly against the couriers.
Today, I also encountered an order with a wrong location. The customer clearly ordered from an apartment, but the location was set to a nearby office building where no one lives. My master told me that Meituan’s location system is very accurate. Some people are very selfish and deliberately do this to cause delivery delays so they can claim compensation from the timely delivery guarantee. During the delivery process, we are not only exploited by Meituan’s capitalists but also face various customers and merchants. Most small bourgeois or proletariat customers are kind and sympathetic, sometimes even providing free snacks and drinks for couriers. Many customers also have a good attitude towards couriers. But there are also extremely selfish customers, which is very disgusting. Although they may not belong to the exploitative class, they stand on the side of the bourgeoisie.
In the afternoon, there were many orders. In a rush, my master mistakenly took an order from Meituan 15 instead of Meituan 14. Only when he arrived at the delivery location did he realize the mistake. At that time, my master had other orders, so I helped him handle it and bought a bottle of Coke for the customer to prevent complaints, because dedicated delivery doesn’t fear delays; delays only result in points deduction, which doesn’t directly affect wages. But the most annoying thing about dedicated delivery is complaints, which can lead to heavy fines. I helped him exchange the order and handed over the wrongly taken order to the correct courier, who was also about to be late with only seven minutes left. If my master had delivered alone without anyone following, many orders would likely be late.
This afternoon, I went to the station. The two days of follow-up work were about to end, and I still needed to handle some matters. When I arrived at the station, I saw many couriers watching a safety training video about not speeding, running red lights, etc. In short, it was useless; the couriers were either on their phones or dozing off, some even making fun of the accident scenes in the video. The latter is also a moral decline of the courier himself; making fun of others’ suffering is very vulgar, treating others’ pain as entertainment. It also reflects a misunderstanding of their own oppression—many of them often drive dangerously to avoid delays. But Meituan is still the most disgusting; the station manager was pretending to tell us not to run red lights. After the training, I went to the station manager to handle some pre-employment procedures. Unexpectedly, he wanted to test me, giving me 11 merchant names to find. After finding them, I had to take photos with the shops and send them to him to assess my familiarity with the merchants and navigation. It took about forty minutes, and I found all the merchants. The most difficult to find were a few shops that had no specific location on the map or had significant deviations. Fortunately, I asked nearby delivery personnel, and I quickly got the answers. Tomorrow morning, I will officially start my job.

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It’s so crazy, I can’t believe there are such selfish and disgusting behaviors. It reminds me of a classmate in high school whose delivery was taken by Lao Jiu. She unreasonably demanded compensation from the delivery person, threatening to leave bad reviews and complaints if she didn’t. In the end, she forced the delivery person to give her money (although Lao Jiu intervened in the end). Indeed, in a sense, people who deliver food are also exploiting and oppressing.

I didn’t expect there to be such an assessment.

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Overtime doesn’t deduct money on your side? Here, each late dedicated delivery costs two yuan, and originally one dedicated delivery was only 3.5 yuan. After deducting two yuan, only 1.5 yuan remains. A single complaint can cost several hundred yuan.

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Here, two months ago, we also started accepting KFC orders, similar to yours. Most KFC orders are fixed at 20 minutes per order, and the station master has no authority to exclude late KFC orders. If it’s late, you can only accept your bad luck. Sometimes, the food hasn’t even been finished when the order is overdue, and you have to report to the merchant for slow food preparation to extend the delivery time, or ask KFC staff for help to cancel the current order and reassign it.

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We can extend the delivery time of orders by changing the address. If you don’t have many orders and encounter polite customers, you can ask if they can help change the delivery address, even a teleportation on the spot will turn overdue orders into non-overdue orders. However, each station has different policies, so tomorrow you can ask the master if this can be done.

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That’s really barbaric. The unit price here is relatively high, about six yuan per order. But the fines for complaints, early delivery, and so on are also very high. This includes being late or absent from the morning meeting, which also incurs fines.

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7.4-7.5 (Written in the early morning of 7.6)

7.4
Had a morning meeting at 9:40, then went to the commercial district, but waited half an hour before getting an order. The first order came at 10:30. During the lunch peak, orders were still manageable, but later in the evening, there were very few orders. In the morning, I took a few KFC orders, which were very tight on time. Originally, I only had a few minutes to deliver, but at this point, my phone overheated and I couldn’t take photos, so I watched the orders timeout. It was really frustrating. The weather forecast predicted less than forty degrees, but I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the forecast. The anarchistic production state of maintenance has already led to increasingly extreme weather. However, I found that now I can use Meituan’s built-in navigation, which is very convenient. I just turn off my phone and put it in my pocket, let the navigation run in the background, and listen through the helmet. This way, the phone won’t overheat, and I can still know the route. Once I get familiar with the route, it will be even more convenient, and I won’t need to look at the map much. I have to say, Meituan’s weather forecast and maps are very accurate, for example, the map is accurate to the meter level. But Meituan doesn’t promote these useful features at all; they are mainly used to squeeze delivery riders to deliver faster. These ‘advanced’ technologies are used for reactionary purposes. Of course, these technologies are also unreliable; they can’t truly ‘convenience’ delivery riders. Many times, Meituan’s location tracking still has issues, not to mention the previously mentioned extremely selfish customers who deliberately give false locations.

7.5
In the morning, I went near the health clinic at the delivery station to try to get a health certificate. I thought I could just show them the Meituan rider app and get it for free, but they said I needed a business license; otherwise, it would cost 90 yuan. By then, it was almost ten o’clock, so I decided not to get the health certificate today. Started delivering orders in the commercial district. Today is Saturday, so the workload suddenly increased, and more selfish people appeared, probably because parasites are resting at home on weekends and started ordering takeout. The first unusual order was okay; the restaurant made a mistake, giving me three bowls of noodles but only one was actually provided. Later, the customer called me, but that had nothing to do with me. But then, there were some extremely unreasonable people. One person ordered takeout and was different from the person receiving it. When I delivered, I called and was told I left the food at the door, which the customer agreed to, and I took photos as proof. After dozens of minutes, someone called asking where the order was. Later, the station manager told me that person had requested a refund because I didn’t knock or call. I was really annoyed at that point, but I kept records to prevent such extremely selfish people from succeeding. Later, I had an order where I couldn’t contact the customer, and I didn’t know what was wrong with their phone; I couldn’t get through. I even called the carrier to test the line. I then reported the customer as unreachable. After about ten minutes, they initiated a second delivery. I thought I might contact them, but the situation was the same—no answer. Since other orders were about to timeout, I decided to leave the food at the door, take photos as proof, and also called customer service to report the issue. These kinds of people only care about themselves; they place an order and then stop answering the phone within half an hour. It’s a mystery what they are doing. I also didn’t dare just leave the food at the door and leave because these people are extremely selfish. Once they place an order, they ignore everything—no calls, no notes—so if I leave the food without confirming with them, they might complain that I didn’t coordinate properly. In the afternoon, I was still busy, but since I can only handle three orders at once now, I didn’t have many deliveries.

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These extremely selfish people even go so far as to have the delivery person intentionally deliver late so they can collect the overdue fee from the timely delivery bonus. They may not even realize that this money is deducted from the delivery person’s earnings, or they might be deliberately trying to exploit the delivery person.

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Running a red light reminded me of something. I previously watched a program on Radio Free Asia that reported on the national income of Nazi China. It said that this year, Nazi China’s non-tax revenue increased by 25%, and the main components of non-tax revenue are administrative income and fines, which are essentially penalties. There was a period when I did some crowdsourcing work, but because my labor skills were not proficient, I didn’t earn much. However, what was extremely outrageous is that in the city I live in, Nazi China actually uses surveillance to identify electric vehicles running red lights and then dispatches police dogs to set up checkpoints to intercept them. Even if you run a red light without police seeing it directly, if you’re caught on surveillance footage, they will lock onto your license plate. When you go out to work during the day, they track your whereabouts and have police officers wait at fixed points to catch you. It’s simply absurd.

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A few days ago, I still saw a few traffic police crouching on the sidewalk, sneaking behind trees. I also had an experience of running a red light and being fined before; at that time, the police didn’t catch me directly at the red light I ran, but at the next one. They used the traffic cameras at the intersection to identify people, waiting for me at the next intersection. These “high-tech” tools are completely used to impose dictatorship on the proletariat.

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Speaking of which, there’s also a really stupid thing. The intermediaries responsible for recruiting riders nowadays are very disgusting. They start by using all kinds of Confucian tricks to deal with you. I once thought about whether delivering takeout might be more自由 (free), so I contacted a so-called shitty intermediary. As a result, this shitty intermediary was disgustingly annoying; when they saw I was young, they called me弟弟 (little brother). In the end, I thought it over and decided not to do this job. These intermediaries then went crazy, calling me and shouting about how working in a factory is not自由 (free), and so on. Even when I didn’t contact them for a few days, they still called me to ask about my job search situation, which was very absurd.

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Haha, these agents are definitely trying to scam you into renting an electric scooter. I’ve encountered this too; just ignore them when they call, and it’s fine. To find a legitimate station, just ask a rider to take you there, that’s what the original poster and I did.