4 ms·

What it's like to deliver 80 meals a day for a $2500/month paycheck in China

13 points by Mz 10y ago

koolba 10y ago
This article reads like a propaganda piece. I'm not saying the switch from fisherman to scooter delivery guy is a bad one (I can think of a lot of other nice things about it too), but the whole thing reads like an ad for Economy 2.0. It even has the, "And he even lost 70 lbs doing it!" zinger at the end.
- huac 10y ago
  "Summer is the peak season, people place orders late at night, and Jin has to deliver until one or two o’clock on the morning before waking up at seven or eight to start work again."
- vonklaus 10y ago
  originally written by tencent reporter.
huac 10y ago
Like Uber and Lyft drivers who can't take pee breaks, or accept rides after they begin giving birth. http://gizmodo.com/lyft-thinks-its-exciting-that-a-driver-was-working-whil-1786970298 http://gizmodo.com/lyft-thinks-its-exciting-that-a-driver-wa...
- employee8000 10y ago
  If you know anything about giving birth, theres a tremendous amount of time between water breaking and labor. Women and encouraged to go for a meal and take a shower and rest up before the contractions get close enough so that you need to go to the hospital. So it's not like she was in an emergency situation, it really is a fun little fact that she took one more ride before realizing that she was going to give birth that day.
  - shstkvch 10y ago
    It feels to me like she should have been able to rest and prepare for the birth, but instead she had to keep driving because Lyft offers no paid maternity leave for its drivers.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    Having fathered three children I can tell you the later ones come out a lot faster than the first one :-) Our midwife warned us about that and she was absolutely correct.
- greenleafjacob 10y ago
  Uber has implemented a pause button [1]. [1] https://newsroom.uber.com/behind-the-wheel/ https://newsroom.uber.com/behind-the-wheel/
ChuckMcM 10y ago
From the article: “I have to thank Jack Ma for creating all these job opportunities,” said Jin. He insists on believing the person paying his wages into his bank account every month is Jack Ma, even though Feng Niao Delivery where he works is a logistics company supporting online food delivery platform Ele.me, and is not closely tied to Jack Ma. I really admire the entrepreneurial spirit in China, it has a long and enduring history. But it has also historically pitted the merchant class against the ruling class. That is a natural consequence of the different impact on day to day lives of the citizens a businessman can make versus a politician. So merchants develop an aura of being the source of good, and for politicians who depend on having that aura, that can be threatening.

13 points by Mz 10y ago

This article reads like a propaganda piece. I'm not saying the switch from fisherman to scooter delivery guy is a bad one (I can think of a lot of other nice things about it too), but the whole thing reads like an ad for Economy 2.0. It even has the, "And he even lost 70 lbs doing it!" zinger at the end.

huac 10y ago
"Summer is the peak season, people place orders late at night, and Jin has to deliver until one or two o’clock on the morning before waking up at seven or eight to start work again."
vonklaus 10y ago
originally written by tencent reporter.

huac 10y ago

Like Uber and Lyft drivers who can't take pee breaks, or accept rides after they begin giving birth. http://gizmodo.com/lyft-thinks-its-exciting-that-a-driver-was-working-whil-1786970298 http://gizmodo.com/lyft-thinks-its-exciting-that-a-driver-wa...

employee8000 10y ago
If you know anything about giving birth, theres a tremendous amount of time between water breaking and labor. Women and encouraged to go for a meal and take a shower and rest up before the contractions get close enough so that you need to go to the hospital. So it's not like she was in an emergency situation, it really is a fun little fact that she took one more ride before realizing that she was going to give birth that day.
- shstkvch 10y ago
  It feels to me like she should have been able to rest and prepare for the birth, but instead she had to keep driving because Lyft offers no paid maternity leave for its drivers.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Having fathered three children I can tell you the later ones come out a lot faster than the first one :-) Our midwife warned us about that and she was absolutely correct.
greenleafjacob 10y ago
Uber has implemented a pause button [1]. [1] https://newsroom.uber.com/behind-the-wheel/ https://newsroom.uber.com/behind-the-wheel/

ChuckMcM 10y ago

From the article: “I have to thank Jack Ma for creating all these job opportunities,” said Jin. He insists on believing the person paying his wages into his bank account every month is Jack Ma, even though Feng Niao Delivery where he works is a logistics company supporting online food delivery platform Ele.me, and is not closely tied to Jack Ma. I really admire the entrepreneurial spirit in China, it has a long and enduring history. But it has also historically pitted the merchant class against the ruling class. That is a natural consequence of the different impact on day to day lives of the citizens a businessman can make versus a politician. So merchants develop an aura of being the source of good, and for politicians who depend on having that aura, that can be threatening.