Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - Instaserfs (II of III)

Episode Date: June 24, 2015

Instaserfs II: “Chipolte Strikes back” or “Seriously, in the sharing economy no one can hear you work”  Either tagline works for our second installment in our future of work series. Andrew (our ToE instapoder) continues with his task of working for as many San Francisco sharing economy companies as he can stand this month. Plus Susie Cagle (cartoonist, journalist, and freelancer) explains why the tech community prefers not to talk about the worker. Also: In two weeks, after part three of Instaserfs drops, we’re hosting an online discussion party for ToE fans. You can join me, Andrew, and a special guest as we dig deeper into the sharing economy and talk about some of the questions the series raises. For more info on that, go to spoken.am and be sure to sign up, invites are limited.  

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Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. You are listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called InstaSurf's Part 2. Here we go. Back to Chipotle. God damn it. Yeah, I'll accept it, because what else am I going to do? All right. Today is June 15th, and I'm driving around making deliveries for Postmates. It's halfway through the month, and so far I've made $696.81 from the sharing economy.

At least, that's what's been deposited into my bank account. I haven't really worked out all the expenses yet, but it's at least 100 for gas mileage alone. How you doing? Hey, good, Jonah? Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Yeah, for sure.

All right, have a good one. Yeah, you too, you too. These interactions with the customers are all super quick. It's really hard to make yourself tip worthy. But I did hand this one group of girls their order. I was standing on the sidewalk, and I handed it up to the second story terrace. And they said, extra points for you.

But I don't know if that means an extra tip. All right. And accepted. The onboarding session people called that the sound of money. But I think they should call it the sound of Chipotle. The agreement I made with Benjamin was that I would only work sharing economy jobs this month, so we could present a first-person view of what it's like to work in this thing that people call the sharing economy. He likes to call it the on-demand economy, and I think that's okay.

But if I was in charge, I would probably call it the pyramid scheme economy. I've kept up my end of the bargain. But the only reason I'm going to survive this month is because I finally got some checks from some film jobs I did in April. So I can make my quarterly tax payment. As for Benjamin, what the hell is he doing? Lounging around in France? I'm like making his podcast for him. I don't even know how to do this.

But I do hope that you can all hear how much better I am with the mic this time. Can I get an extra scoop of the spicy salsa? Technically, you can get anything you want delivered via Postmates. As a customer, I used it once to get cigarettes delivered to me on set. But here in San Francisco, people mainly use it for food deliveries. No, no, rejected. Like many sharing economy businesses, the Postmates worker-facing app totally sucks compared to the customer-facing app totally sucks compared to the customer-facing app. I can really only accept or decline jobs, and it's never clear what kind of jobs they are. And today, I seem

to be getting all the shitty ones. Postmates lets customers track you on the GPS, which is great for them, but it's kind of weird for us. Like, I imagine this guy who just ordered this burrito from Chipotle, he's probably staring at the app fuming, deducting a percentage point for my tip every time I circle the block. But this Chipotle is on Market Street. Does he think I can just pull up and walk inside? He probably does. I'm just gonna call customer support. Hey, sorry, I'm just having a really hard time finding parking.

Do you have any recommendations as far as parking or anything? Off of, I would try to find parking off, like not on a main street, like in an alley or something. That might be the best way to go. Okay, you know what like what the smallest ticket offense would be like a hydrant or something? I have no idea Okay, thank you so much. All right then, yeah, have a good one.

You too. Okay. So, no clear answers from Central Command. I hope at least they aren't deducting points as they watch me drive around in circles. Also, I wonder if they track me when I'm not working. I should make sure to turn off the app when I'm not using it. Okay, yes, I submit. I submit.

If you stack your orders, the app does stop beeping, but that can be stressful too. Like, I have no idea how big or complicated the orders are when I accept them. And now I have two. Customer service has only placed one of these orders ahead of time. But if there's a long line, I'm gonna be fucked. Okay, fuck it.

I'm double parking. Hello? Hey, Joy? Oh yeah, hold on, hold on one second. Thank you very much. Okay, for sure. You too, have a good night. Have a good one. Oh, thanks.

I can't believe how many people are using this app to get one burrito from Chipotle delivered. I mean, the whole point of Postmates is that you can get anything you want. You know, are these people unaware of the amazing Mexican food in the city? Or do they just not care? Or do they actually prefer Chipotle?

One day I should pick up a real burrito and deliver it to somebody and just say, sorry, the Chipotle burned down. I suppose that could go either way. I could get somebody who just moved here and is really, genuinely grateful that I turned them onto a real burrito. Or, I could get some tech bro who freaks out and threatens to sue me. Wow. Another Chipotle order.

Alright. Wow. Another Chipotle order. All right. So now I'm at Sam Tong's, a real Chinese restaurant. Fortunately, customer service put the order in ahead of time. So all I have to do is wait in line. The line at Sam Tong's was insanely long. It went all the way to the sidewalk. The waiters were all pissed and constantly asking us to move back and forth so they could squeeze by us.

But there was very little forward motion. We were in it for the long haul. The guy in front of me was wearing a DoorDash hoodie. I said hello. You from DoorDash? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm Postmates. Oh, really?

How's DoorDash? Sometimes I'm just waiting all the day. He told me he likes DoorDash because he gets a base pay of $15 an hour. As a Postmate, I'm only guaranteed $4.80 per order. But he said he spends a lot of time waiting around, and he was super nervous because he was parked illegally, so I saved a spot in line while he went to check on his car, as if that would keep him from getting a ticket. That's a very long line.

After about 15 minutes of waiting in line, I realized I need to call Postmates and let them know that I'm running late. Oh, okay. Alright, then I'll just run and do a reassign here, then I'll work on that thing. Okay, thank you. It was actually really stressful just standing around, knowing that the people in Postmates Central Command and the customer were both unhappy. When I got close to the registers, I noticed another guy frantically looking from his phone to the kitchen and back.

Postmates, I asked? Nope. It was another door dasher. What? This one told me that they were actually getting rid of the hourly pay. You see, these companies change their policies They were actually getting rid of the hourly pay. $15 an hour base pay? Something like that. You see, these companies change their policies like all the time.

There was probably an app update while we were waiting in line. On my way out, I took one last look at the line, and about half the people were staring at their phones, sweating bullets, waiting for that call from customer support, telling them that it's going to be okay. You know, paying somebody to do your waiting in line is like paying somebody to turn you into an asshole. All these tedious, boring, unpleasant things are reminders that we're all in this together and that we are members of the same team. Waiting in line with each other is one of those things that keeps us human. Of course, the people who use all these apps, they believe that the people who wait in lines are suckers. They probably even like watching us on their app, doing nothing.

It's probably what keeps them coming back to Postmates. Postmates should change its slogan. Instead of delivery in less than an hour, it could be, watch some poor slob whose time is less valuable than yours stand around in line for an hour from the comfort of your own couch. But seriously, I think I had it all wrong about this sharing economy work. Sure, these companies are trying to turn its workers into robots, but it's the customers. They are the ones who have lost their humanity. And to tell you the truth, I kind of feel sorry for the customer,

because he is depriving himself of a human experience that allows him to feel empathy, not just for their girlfriends or boyfriends or kids or coworkers, but for all of us. For every man, woman, and child on the street. How can you be truly empathetic to your fellow man if you can't even bear to wait in line with him for a burrito? Okay. So I finally got the food, but it's an hour and 20 minutes after the order was placed.

And I'm only guaranteed five bucks for this delivery. Okay. Decline. Okay, fuck it. It's time to take control here. Not only am I going to shake this customer's hand, but I'm going to make him invite me in. And I'm going to tell him about all the people that I met in line. And I'm going to explain to him how Postmates is putting his humanity at risk. Okay, that didn't quite work out.

I mean, even the shaking his hand made him pretty uncomfortable. Okay, next time I'm going to start by asking if I can use the bathroom. That could work. One of my favorite books ever written about work is Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. This is the one in which she goes undercover to learn what it's like to be a low-wage worker in America in the late 1990s. Pushing brooms, running registers, But she goes undercover to learn what it's like to be a low-wage worker in America in the late 1990s.

Pushing brooms, running registers, and stocking shelves, Ehrenreich blazes past all the polarizing debates about unskilled labor. She exposes the real humiliations and hardships millions of Americans face every day working low-wage jobs. I've been waiting for quite some time now for a nickel and dimed about the sharing economy. And while there have been a number of really great undercover exposés about Uber and other platforms, I've yet to come across a serious piece about the workers of the sharing economy itself. And trust me, I've been looking.

Most journalists, when they do write about the sharing economy, tend to obsess on the customer experience. For example, a few months ago, the writer Annie Lowry conducted an experiment for New York Magazine. For two weeks, she fobbed all of her chores and errands on services like Instacart, Postmates, and Washio. And while I'm by no means critiquing the value of her experiment, I do find it puzzling that the outcome surprised her. Of course, her personal productivity soared. What did she think was going to happen? She had people doing her cooking, cleaning, shopping, and washing. It was this article that made me decide to do something about the sharing economy for the podcast.

And while it was easy to find my own Instapotter and set him loose, it's been difficult actually to find people to talk about the workers of the sharing economy. I think probably the biggest reason that we aren't talking about the workers and we aren't acknowledging the workers is because these companies have told us they aren't workers. Susie Cagle is a Bay Area journalist, cartoonist, and freelancer. She writes a lot about labor issues and sharing economy workers. I focus so much on the worker because, at least in the Bay Area, I feel like everyone is focused on the customer. It is much more rare that I hear anybody talking about the worker. I went to a sharing economy conference last spring and at one point it was a rare question

about the workers and a guy at BayShare, it's kind of a sharing economy booster organization in the Bay Area, said, well, you know, I know that a lot of people are talking about how taxi drivers are losing their jobs because of Lyft and Uber, but I really care about the customer's experience. And that was it. Nobody else wanted to talk about the worker. That was it. It was shut down. So I think that I haven't thought nearly as much about the customer's experience as a kind of a reaction to that. When I went out to San Francisco last month to get Andrews started on this project, we visited Susie at her place in Oakland. She's just beginning a night fellowship at Stanford, where she'll be doing a long-form project about the sharing economy. She says it will most definitely feature workers, but she also hopes to tackle

the ideology driving these businesses and the people who use them. I think there is this other layer of kind of an ideology around the sharing economy. It's a weirding of labor. It's changing what work is. When Lyft first started, it was drive and meet new friends. That was it. And then I think they realized a little later on, oh yeah, we have to motivate people with money because that's the only reason they're actually going to do this. But the ideology, I think they realized a little later on, oh, yeah, we have to motivate people with money because that's the only reason they're actually going to do this. But the ideology, I think, behind a lot of this stuff is still this isn't really work. This is fun. You're doing this because it's fun.

Or you're just between things and this is just to tide you over for a little while. It's not really work. It's not really a job. It's a philosophy, I think, on top of all of these other things where everybody's an entrepreneur and they tell you, you're just using our platform. We're partners in business. This is kind of the whole idea that fuels the sharing economy. You need to make money. Well, what do you have that can derive income for yourself and for your family?

You have a home. Rent out your home. You have a car. Drive your car. Drive people around. You can cook meals in your house and have people come and pay you as though you're a restaurant. These are all really kind of sad and desperate things that are not what any of

these people would choose to be doing for work, which I think gets lost in this kind of sharing economy idea that it's all about the service, it's all about sharing with friends, it's about meeting people. But the only way that you're going to get people to do this is if they really need money. And so many people are doing this because they do really need money because our economy is in the trash and we won't acknowledge it. Companies like Uber, businesses that depend on independent contractors to do business, will most likely have to be forced by governments to call their workers workers. And this could happen.

In California, there are cases being argued in the courts right now regarding these very issues. But Susie, who's a freelancer herself, believes the problem we need to solve is systematic, not semantic. Because the sharing economy just might be the future of all work. I think that the solutions are not nearly as obvious. It's not super clear what there is to fight for. The first thing is, well, you could fight to be an employee, and people are doing that. There are these class action lawsuits against Uber and Lyft for them to classify their drivers as employees. But beyond that, I don't think, I think there's kind of this kind of crisis of imagination.

That people are having a hard time knowing what it is that they need or what they would want because we haven't ever really figured out what to do about freelancers. Either freelancers like me or freelancers in this sharing economy. I can rely on myself and my hustle far more than I think I can rely on someone else to have my best interests at heart. And so in a way, I am very bullish about the future of freelancing. I just think that in general, all work is moving toward a more precarious kind of setup. And I don't think we can effectively push back against that. I don't think that we can fight that in a way that's really going to make things better

for people as soon as possible. And it really needs to be as soon as possible. Alright, that's it. Thank you. Hey, how are you? I'm well, yourself? Good, good. Alright, thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. Have a good one. Oh, thank you so. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. Have a good one.

Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. I really appreciate it. Have a good one. Yeah, you too. Hi. How are you? Thank you so much. The people who use Washio are hands down the nicest group of customers I've dealt with so far. Although, maybe friendly's a better word? Or, actually, they might just all be ashamed. Hey, how are you? Good. Alright, thank you. Have a good one.

Thanks. Washio is an app for having somebody like me pick up your dirty clothes and return them washed and folded. They call us drivers the Washio Ninjas. I don't do any washing, though. That happens in their headquarters, which are right across the street from the courthouse, in between all the bail bondsmen. That's where I pick up all the clean clothes at the beginning of my shift. But I've never even seen any of the washers. They are on an even more secret, hidden level of this whole sharing economy pyramid.

I wonder if they're employees. I've been trying not to be judgmental, but some of the people at the top of this pyramid are kind of ridiculous. Like the guy who lives next to the laundry room in his building? Maybe that's why he asked me to leave his clean clothes outside his door. Ever since I started doing all this work for the podcast, I've been realizing that I run into sharing economy workers everywhere I go. On my last Washio order, I arrived at the customer's door at the

same time as the middle-aged black guy with a white paper bag. 36? Alright. You with JBR too? No, I'm with Washoe. What the hell is that? It's for laundry. I'm picking up somebody's laundry. Then, a shirtless young guy opened the door, took his food, and gave me his dirty laundry. And he thanked us both profusely.

The thing about Washio, though, is it's actually one of the best companies I've worked for this past month. It's not very stressful, there are no lines, and it's all residential, so usually there's parking. And it pays pretty well, $10.10 per stop. So with 14 stops in five hours, I made $28 per hour before expenses, and that was on my first day. But the real reason Washio is so great for us is because there's no illusion of choice. There's no accepting or rejecting jobs. There isn't even an acknowledge order button. You are assigned all your drop-offs at the beginning of the day. And then you are told every single thing to do after that.

By the app. The idea that I'm an independent contractor is a total joke. This is work work. This morning I was doing some drop-offs for Washio and I had the strangest encounter. I ran into this guy wearing a bright cyan jacket. He was a parking valet working for a company called Lux. The one sharing economy job I told Benjamin I just would not do. You working for Lux?

Yeah. How do you like it? It's cool, it's cool. Yeah? Yeah, it's a very flexible schedule. I mean, some people work 10 hours a week, others do like 60 hours a week. Yeah. I like it? It's cool. It's cool. Yeah, it's a very flexible schedule. I mean, some people work 10 hours a week. Others do like 60 hours a week. Yeah.

I like it. Nice. I'm with Washio. What is Washio? Oh, it's like picking up laundry. Laundry service? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, cool, man. Okay.

I'm terrified of Lux. I heard the pay was good, but I'm just terrified that I'm going to scratch somebody's car. Yeah, exactly. I can fuck up my car. I had a dinger the other day, man. It was like on my second day alone. I was so bummed out. It was like a brand spanking new Toyota Tacoma.

I felt so bad. It was this parking lot right on, I think, 55 Pine. You go up to the top, and it's so fucking small to get out of that damn thing, man. And I just was was so so worried that i was gonna hit the front right that i ended up hopping the thing and did the front the rear left instead you know it yeah oh yeah but so what happens is it okay well there's there's a million i think it's like a million dollar coverage per per driver uh that covers like the umbrella uh but what happens is if the damage is over 500 then we have to pay the five that's okay we have to pay the 500 deductible out of our own pay uh they take like increments of it each week

if it comes down to that if it's less than 500 then they do the same thing they'll just say hey you realize what happened you admit to it you can contest it if you want but your higher own is an independent contractor so it's you know you're kind of on your own so you have anything happens and it's over 500 I got to pay the 500 deductible and that's it if it's under then whatever that is so yeah yeah it could be worse it is scary I'm gonna tell you man I'm not gonna sit here and go I'm gonna do this I'll be straight I'll do this 50 hours a week and I'm good no man like you know I'm saying like I'm trying to do this and do some other things,

but it's cool money for now. Yeah, were you doing any other of the apps? Like Lyft driving or anything like that? No, no, no. Actually, I haven't even played around with the app. I mean, Lyft, can I use that with this job or is that something separate? Well, I mean, if you used it.

Oh, use it myself. Yeah, or no, I mean, yeah, I think you could do it on the side, you know. Really? Yeah, yeah. For a second, I thought about trying to get the guy signed up for Lyft. If he did 50 rides in 30 days, then we could both get

500 bucks. That would cover his luck spill. But I decided against it in the end. This poor guy does not need any more of the sharing economy. He's shared enough. You have been listening to

Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called Insta-Surf's Part 2. This episode was produced by myself, Benjamin Walker, with Andrew Calloway. And we had help from Celeste Lai and Mathilde Biot. Special thanks to everyone we talked to this time around, especially Susie Cagle. You can find all of her work at susie-c.tumblr.com.