October 30:
After more than half a month of consideration and practical understanding, today I finally took the first step of delivering takeout. Considering part-time hours, study activities, etc., I decided to keep the same labor intensity as the dedicated delivery riders, and deliver from 10:30 in the morning to 8:00 in the evening when conditions permit.
Based on the intensity of dedicated delivery riders, the number of orders I can deliver in a day in City S is about 25-30, reaching over 30 on rainy days. Over the course of a day, the journey recorded in the Meituan delivery app is about 60-90 km (actually more, since the distances for battery swaps, meals, etc., are not included), which makes purchasing or renting a dedicated electric bike for delivery, and subscribing to a rider-specific battery replacement plan, necessary. The battery swap plan costs about 300 yuan per month (subject to fluctuations depending on local prices), meaning that before starting work, delivery riders must prepay this amount. For a small number of gig workers who do a single day or ten days, this expense is not just for a few extra earnings; over a month, it might even eat into their profits. For ordinary delivery workers, this is undoubtedly a significant expense: based on average wages, dedicated riders need to work almost two days just to recover the cost of necessary equipment for labor.
Such a situation—where workers have to prepare their own electric bikes, battery swap plans, and other tools, then monopolize the market to suffer double exploitation by delivery companies—is already considered “natural law” by many delivery workers. But as a “newcomer” just stepping into the industry, I feel somewhat uncomfortable: isn’t it natural for the bourgeoisie to provide workers with labor tools? Do slaves working for their masters need to bring their own tools? Do I need to buy a Shaker and tea leaves when I go to shake milk tea at a bubble tea shop, and brew it myself after quitting? The battery swap plans, high-performance electric bikes—these should be provided by the bourgeoisie’s sweatshops—in the delivery industry, by big companies like Meituan (their subsidiaries)—that’s “natural.”
Just like Liu Sijie lives off the car shares rented by Xiangzi, Wang Xing also lives off the “car shares” of delivery riders. But even in Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China, Xiangzi bought his own car and didn’t have to pay rent to Liu Sijie. Now, delivery workers not only buy their own bikes (if they rent, they have to pay rent on top of that, truly peeling three layers of skin from a cow!), and the battery plans are self-activated. Even uniforms are purchased at the station, and because of the depressed unit prices, they are unknowingly being drained by bourgeois bloodsuckers every day—until one day they can’t take it anymore and seek another way out or end up in hospital after a fall. The bourgeoisie provides no labor tools or protective gear to workers; instead, they suppress prices through market monopoly, and use exploitative delivery systems to double or triple exploit workers, making them barely able to survive despite their hard work. Such a “natural” rule of labor has long been established! It’s a brilliant satire of the imperialist China that propagates “hard work leads to wealth”!
While I was pondering randomly in my mind, under the drizzling rain, I rode my home electric bike and went to their “base”—a McDonald’s near a commercial district. Xiao D told me that when they have no orders, they rest here because it’s close to the commercial circle and has air conditioning. Besides meal times, it’s quite suitable for resting. Inside this McDonald’s, I exchanged some words with Xiao D as if preparing for a test. But within minutes, his phone rang with “Meituan delivery, new order arrived,” and the system started dispatching orders to him, so our break ended. Xiao D’s first order was at a snack shop a few dozen meters from McDonald’s. He went straight there, took the meal, and set off (at this point, I understood why the “base” was so close to the commercial district). On his advice, I also accepted a spicy hotpot order, recalling what he taught me earlier, then followed the process of picking up, delivering, taking photos, and finally completing the first delivery.
“It’s not hard at all. At this speed, I can probably handle three orders at once,” I thought to myself, then delivered several more orders, eventually accepting three orders on Meituan’s gig app that I thought were on the way, and went to pick up the meals according to the app’s recommended route.
By then, the initial drizzle had turned into heavier rain. I rode my home bike, constantly weaving between shops selling spicy hotpot, fried buns, and chicken pot rice. Rain kept hitting my glasses, blurring my vision, so I had to slow down. The raincoat that combined rider and vehicle was very inconvenient—each time I got on or off, I had to take off my helmet, remove my glasses, squeeze out of the raincoat, then turn off the engine, take the meal, and repeat, wasting several minutes each time. Eventually, I simply took off the raincoat, relying on my thick denim jacket and fleece-lined pants to withstand the rain, which surprisingly lasted quite a while, making delivery easier and more comfortable.
Honestly, as a gig rider, I actually prefer rainy days because the unit price is higher and there are more orders. From my experience, if I run all day, I can earn an extra forty or fifty yuan compared to usual. I naturally welcome this. But through conversations with Xiao D later, I also realized—where do these extra forty or fifty yuan come from? Basically, they are bought with the blood and tears of workers. Who doesn’t know that rainy days are prone to accidents?
When delivering to “Landlord Chicken” (note: for privacy and safety, place names, personal names, and shop names in my labor diary are pseudonyms), I saw firsthand a delivery rider brake suddenly because the car in front stopped abruptly, causing a slip and fall. But I was in a hurry to deliver my order and couldn’t help much, so I could only say “Bro, be careful in the rain,” and continued.
As the rain grew heavier and my electric bike couldn’t swap batteries, after riding dozens of kilometers, my speed slowed down. The last order to the “Yiding Empire” community was about to timeout in a few minutes. I had already learned the day before that “Empire” is one of the largest communities in the city and is a “non-defensible city”—meaning delivery riders can enter by bike. I pushed myself to ride there. But as I said before, high prices are bought with workers’ blood and tears. The reckless behavior of high-speed riding in the rain soon punished me.
When entering the community, I was in a hurry and didn’t notice the road conditions; when changing lanes, the vehicle skidded. Because my electric bike had no anti-lock braking system, I immediately fell. I landed hard on my butt, almost blacking out. Fortunately, the impact was concentrated on my tailbone, and I didn’t injure my limbs. Like any other delivery rider who falls, I struggled to get up, ignoring the pain, and quickly picked up the scattered delivery, straightened the crooked rearview mirror, and rushed into the “Empire.”
Since my home bike and the battery swap system are incompatible, after delivering orders for a morning, my bike’s battery was less than half. Plus, I had no phone holder, so riding required one hand on the throttle and the other holding the phone. For safety, I had to use my left arm to hold the left rearview mirror for balance, which was dangerous. I decided to keep going until after the lunch rush, then return home once the battery dropped below 25%. Just then, a pre-order, a nearby order, and a “high-value” order came in, so I accepted all three, took the pre-order and the nearby order, and headed out along the route recommended by Meituan.
The first order was from a training center, marked as “pre-order.” Pre-orders have a fixed delivery time, neither early nor late. This order needed to be delivered between 12:30 and 12:50. After picking up and delivering to the center, I checked my phone and saw it was only 12:20—still not time to click “delivered,” so I thought about resting a bit. But as soon as I sat at the staircase, I saw a choking scene—the deadline for the third “high-value” order was only five minutes away!
(P.S.: I only learned weeks later that “high-value” delivery orders probably refer not to high delivery price but to the high value of the goods themselves. Plus, they might involve detours and require arriving within the specified time, so they are not necessarily good choices.)
On one side, I still had ten minutes before I could complete the delivery; on the other, only five minutes to pick up. Under the dilemma, I had to pick up the goods first and then return to click “delivered.” After contacting the customer and agreeing to leave the food at the entrance, I hurriedly set out in the rain to pick up the “high-value” meal from Shaxian Snacks.
Shaxian Snacks is less than a kilometer from the training center, and I reached there in less than two minutes. But unexpectedly, as I took the meal—an order with no receipt, order number, phone number, or barcode—the phone in my hand started ringing like crazy. On answering, I heard a sharp young woman’s voice. I just said “Hello,” and she burst out: “What’s going on? Why hasn’t my meal been delivered? If you’re far away, don’t accept the order, you know?! I’m in a hurry, what do you mean you haven’t delivered it yet?! I’m about to leave, when will you deliver it?!?!”
Looking at the nearly 20 minutes left, I felt speechless but tried to keep calm: “Hello, I’m at the entrance of Shaxian Snacks. Your meal will be delivered soon, don’t worry.”
This woman from “Aiyuan” paused briefly, then muttered “Hurry up, I’m leaving soon,” and hung up.
“Rude thing,” I cursed inwardly, feeling a surge of petty bourgeois individualism. “Let’s see if I can deliver on time.”
I followed Meituan’s navigation straight to the building, and within ten minutes, I delivered the meal to the lobby of the “Big Building.” But since delivery riders are only qualified to use the freight elevator, and there was only one, I wasted a lot of time queuing to go up and down. Finally, I reached the floor, circled around, and found the address marked on my phone, handing the “no-name” meal to a female staff member.
“See, I told you I’d deliver on time,” I said with a smile, then left.
“On the phone, you hit me hard, but now you’re so timid in person,” I thought, while scrolling through the gig app to confirm delivery, then got back on my bike to deliver the last nearby order.
At that moment, my phone rang again.
“Hello, I ordered xx fried skewers, but I think it’s not your delivery. Could you check if it’s the wrong one?”
“No, I followed Meituan’s route. I also confirmed delivery, and I can’t click ‘delivered’ without arriving,” I answered while checking the bag on my bike hook.
The damp receipt faintly still showed “xx fried skewers.”
No wonder the attitude changed so much, and it was delivered inside the building.
My vision blacked out briefly, and I hurriedly apologized to the innocent female staff on the phone, then rushed back into the building with the xx fried skewers. It was almost natural—one item, very slow speed, and the freight elevator serving 30 floors kept stopping—pinning me to the first floor. After finally being taken upstairs and correcting the wrong order, I went down again and endured the same painful process. When I finally reached the first floor, the “Aiyuan” woman’s order was already overdue by only 8 minutes.
At this moment, her call rang just in time: “Why haven’t you delivered yet! Do you know I’m about to leave? How am I supposed to eat?! I ordered hours ago, and you still haven’t delivered! What do you mean?! If you’re far away, don’t accept my order!”
I was already annoyed by her capricious attitude, and hearing her scolding, I couldn’t hold back: “I don’t know when you ordered, but when I accepted, it showed over half an hour. Even now, it’s not overdue; it still shows 8 minutes. Why are you in such a hurry? I delivered on time, isn’t that enough? If you think it’s slow, you should order earlier.”
“I ordered a long time ago! It’s overdue by half an hour on my end! You just didn’t deliver it to me!”
“I don’t care what you say; my app shows no delay,” I suppressed my anger, “If you want to verify, I can send you a screenshot.”
“Wait until you arrive, I want to check with you!”
“Be my guest!”
“Doo… doo…”
She hung up. After arguing with her, the remaining time was even less.
Two kilometers away, with only 6 minutes left, I twisted the throttle to the max and dashed out in the pouring rain.
When I arrived at “Aiyuan,” since I was riding my private bike and wearing a denim jacket, the security guard didn’t recognize me as a delivery rider—after all, I only had this one meal, and the rest were delivered—so he didn’t stop me.
I wandered through the “secluded” flower and grass path in Aiyuan for a long time but couldn’t reach the precise location, which made me very annoyed. I don’t know if it was due to my phone’s low performance or the inaccuracy of Meituan’s navigation, which often delayed five or six seconds before updating, so I couldn’t find the exact building location. Finally, I opened Gaode (Amap) and found the unit of the “Aiyuan” woman on foot.
By then, only one minute remained. I quickly placed the meal at her door, took a photo, clicked “delivered,” and let out a long breath, then called her.
“Hello, I’ve left the meal at your door.”
“I’m right at the door, how can we see it? Huh?! What do you mean?!”
Hearing her words, I immediately realized I might have delivered to the wrong place. I hurried out of the elevator, took the meal again, and thought about what to do next.
“Are you on the sixth floor?”
“I’m on the sixth! No, I’m on the sixth! I haven’t received the delivery yet, what are you calling me for?! What do you mean?!” The “Aiyuan” woman was already hysterical.
“Sorry, I’ll deliver it to you right away. I’m on the sixth now.”
As I got back into the elevator going down, she was still yelling wildly. Although I clicked “delivered” within the time limit in theory, the meal was not actually in her hands, which objectively caused a delay. No matter how bad her attitude was, I was not in the right. It was clear that I had to apologize to this selfish, petty bourgeois, barbaric right-winger.
Thinking of this, she smugly mocked me, and I could only lower my head in silence, feeling like the scene was about to jump out of my mind.
It was extremely uncomfortable to apologize to such a scoundrel, but what made me even more uncomfortable was what came next—I realized that because the lid was not tightly closed, her “spicy beef offal soup” spilled half out, dripping down.
The phone was still connected, but I couldn’t hear her voice anymore.
What to do?
What to do??
The phrase “What to do” completely occupied my mind. Deliver it? Now it’s objectively one minute overdue, and being insulted, mocked, and ridiculed is inevitable. But even if I willingly accept all the trash she throws at me, will the matter end here? Probably not.
Apologize? Her soup is spilled halfway, and I apologize—would this sharp-tongued person forgive me? Unlikely.
What to do?
What to do??
She was still talking, and I said nothing.
Existence determines consciousness. Because of my past personal life experiences as a petty bourgeois, and because I am used to playing alone, I am often a solitary person. Although I can maintain superficial social interactions, deep down I dislike communicating with fellow petty bourgeois who are just as selfish and self-interested, preferring to talk to myself instead. Even after studying Marxism and meeting many comrades, this has not changed much—it’s still a work in progress.
At this moment, this petty bourgeois intellectual’s personal emotions began to spread again. I no longer think about what to do (or rather, I already know what to do), but start reciting some English sentences and classical phrases I like:
“To be or not to be, that is a question…”
“生存还是毁灭，这是个问题…”
“Now I am dead, or I will die, or I will die for a great cause, wait for death, can the country die…”
…
“You don’t want to deliver takeout, then don’t do it, what are you delivering for!” She was still talking, and her dissatisfaction was at its peak.
“Bastard, what are you shouting for?” In her speech, I helped add a line:
“What attitude do you have? Are you insulting me? I’ll complain about you!” She suddenly sneered.
“Go complain then!” I couldn’t bear it anymore, “F*** your mother, idiot!”
“Go eat s***, I’ll eat your food for you!”
“Doo… doo…”
This time, I hung up her call.
After hanging up, I took the elevator to the first floor, ignoring the water on the mat, sat heavily on my bike, and rode away. The first training center’s pre-order was still not confirmed, and now it’s considered overdue. “Let’s go back and confirm it first,” I thought, and rode straight to the training center.
After confirming the delivery again, I found a bench outside the commercial circle, sat down, and looked at the “Aiyuan” woman’s Shaxian Snacks. Rain, falls, falls, overdue, and arguments—my first day in the “delivery life” was unexpectedly “colorful,” and in just half a day, I was almost “adding more courses.”
Honestly, when I first argued with the “Aiyuan” woman, I even thought about throwing this meal out the window. But considering safety, and realizing it was impossible to deliver it to her hands, I decided to just add more courses.
So I sat on the bench, letting the rain drip on me and the food, and ate directly. It was the first time I ate in such a public place. After finishing, perhaps due to adrenaline wearing off, the pain from the fall immediately surged, and my right leg and buttocks started to go numb.
My electric bike had less than half a battery, and I was soaked through. Looks like I had to call it a day.
Before I even reached home, Meituan called. After answering, I inquired about the incident, and they said they would adjust. So I concealed the “add more courses” matter, explained the conflict and the shouting, and then hung up after pretending the takeout had spilled due to some reason.
After returning home, after taking a shower and changing clothes, Meituan called again.
“The customer said she has a bad temper and shouldn’t have gotten angry. She said her meal was “unique,” a “nutritional meal” for her sick child, and even if it spilled, it’s okay. She asked if you could deliver it now, and if so, just forget about this order.”
What a “unique,” a “sick child’s meal,” and “spilled doesn’t matter”! As soon as I heard Meituan customer service say this, I could almost see the sharp, calculating face of the “Aiyuan” woman. In an instant, I understood what she meant.
Earlier she said she was “about to go out,” but now, nearly at two o’clock, she still demands me to deliver to her home. It’s clear she wasn’t really going out but just wanted to eat quickly and use the delivery rider as a tool. Likewise, she initially said she was eating herself, but now she changed to “a meal for her sick child,” clearly to pressure Meituan and morally coerce me into returning the meal, which was impossible since it wasn’t really for her “sick child”—eating greasy soy-sauce braised pork and a spicy beef offal soup, which is unheard of! Finally, I told her on the phone, “Your meal, I’ll help you eat it,” and over an hour later, she asked me to return it, pretending to be innocent and saying she “doesn’t mind if it’s spilled,” clearly assuming I ate or disposed of it, and wouldn’t return it. This solidifies my guilt and makes her demand compensation.
After seeing through her intentions, I told Meituan that because I fell earlier, the meal was completely spilled and undeliverable, so I disposed of it. After some pretense, I hung up. In retrospect, I didn’t get any punishment besides a bad review; probably Meituan processed a refund—likely because as a gig rider, I have looser labor discipline. At this point, it’s roughly the end of this episode.
Later, I discussed this matter with other comrades on the forum, and we shared many thoughts.
The reason I could “endure to the limit and no longer tolerate” is fundamentally because I don’t rely solely on gig work. Besides delivering, I have a relatively easy and high-paying mental job. Even if I get banned from delivery, it doesn’t matter much; finding another job isn’t difficult.
This “no matter where you stay, you’ll find a way” condition is something most manual laborers can’t have. In other words, my ability to recklessly confront the sharp-tongued “Aiyuan” woman is because I have solid backing—knowing that even if I push back, it’s not a big deal. This confidence comes from two sources: one, having a mental job as a safety net, not fearing unemployment; the other, having learned Marxism with the help of many comrades, knowing how to fight against Meituan’s capitalists and stupid customers if things go wrong.
From these two points, the situation becomes clearer: my mental job is secured because I studied in China’s bourgeois universities for over ten years, holding relevant professional certificates, so I’m not worried about finding work. I learned Marxism because decades of school life—especially four years of university—left me with plenty of free time to do what I like and learn interesting knowledge. Moreover, the position of petty bourgeois intellectuals and democratic petty bourgeois is unstable; they seek personal liberation and social liberation, so I, as such a person, have the material and ideological conditions to come into contact with Marxism.
However, whether it’s the safety net of mental work or the willingness and interest in studying social knowledge, along with the large amount of time this learning requires, these are not things ordinary workers can have. My access to these conditions is merely because, under capitalism, the division of mental and physical labor has created huge disparities; as a mental worker, I naturally have privileges that ordinary people don’t. It’s only because I’ve benefited from bourgeois legal rights—these rights that block workers’ access to knowledge—that I can freely vent my heroic spirit.
Ask yourself, which worker with a family can recklessly confront like me? Which worker has the freedom to humble himself and endure all the trash and insults thrown by people like the “Aiyuan” woman?
In the imperialist society of China, ordinary workers have no such freedom.
As bourgeois intellectuals, we are inherently privileged over the working class, and before studying Marxism, we already assumed this privilege in our daily lives, consciously or unconsciously wanting to expand it further. Even now, this privilege still brings us convenience (though bourgeois legal rights also oppress us—discussing that is beyond scope here), making us unconsciously or consciously align with bourgeois ideology.As the saying goes, “What is learned on paper is always shallow; true understanding requires hands-on experience.” Although I had learned early on through studying various knowledge what bourgeois legal rights are, the feeling when they come vividly to life before my eyes is something no book can provide. It is precisely because we have destroyed the bourgeois legal rights that hinder the people’s learning and struggle that we have gained the conditions for our own learning and struggle. If we do not persist in ideological struggle, do not actively approach the masses, and do not make ourselves into proletarian intellectuals, then how can we be qualified to be called “learners” of Marxism?
My first day delivering takeout ended like this. But the struggle is like an undercurrent beneath the surface of the sea—it will never stop. As long as we are involved in wage labor, the struggle against the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois right-wing will never cease. As for the later encounters with more difficult customers, shop assistants, and related struggles, that will be a story for another time.
(to be continued)
