Gig – personen bakom appen

1. I believe that nobody is perfect in anything. And… And sometimes I met customers that was so, so nice. And I met customers that was so rude. And some customers that could understand the situation, and some that couldn’t understand. They did not care about it, all they wanted was their food. 

Because one time it was snowing, like it was too, too cold and the snow was a lot and I was on the bicycle. Eh, I’m gonna first tell you the good side of it, the positive customers, and I got five different pizzas, they went to a family. At Norr, no, no, no, Linköpingsvägen. And eh, the snow was almost like here it was really really really snowing and very cold and that night I didn’t have gloves with me, I, I’d lost my gloves. But I would just like ride my bicycle and put one hand in my, my jacket then, like, go on and ride my bike until this one is too cold and I, I’d change like this, you know [shows how he put one hand inside the sleeve of the jacket and the other one on the bicycles handlebar] because I used to put my phone on my, on my bicycle like this, so I could see the address [inaudible] to touch it. 

And when I reached the customer, the lady opened and she was like, “How did you get here?”, I was like “On a bicycle”, she like “What?! Oh my god, it’s too, too windy, the snow is, I mean, it’s too cold and the snow is [inaudible], oh, we are lazy people here just ordering food and” and I was like “No, you’re not lazy. This is my job. I was paid, I’m paid to do this”. She felt so sorry for me! She was so kind. She was like “Oh, I’m so sorry”, like, no, you don’t have to be sorry because when I signed a contract with the company, I signed, when we talked about the weather, whether the weather’s good or bad. So, she was like “Oh yeah, but, yeah but, I think, no, no” and then the husband also came out and the kids and, and the pizzas were really warm. And they were happy and then she, when I was to leave she was like “Wait a minute!” and she went into the house and she took out 100 crowns and she gave it to me. As a tip. And I was like, oh. This was worth it.

2. But one time, it’s a scenario I’m gonna tell you that I forgot to tell you, my phone blacked out. And, I was like three mins, two minutes to the address. And I thought my battery was gonna get me there. The phone died. That was a really, really, really sad situation for me. It was in the night. It was around eight to nine. And there was in these villa places, expensive houses. But the address was just around that area. But I had to get the address through my phone. 

So it was like, what, I don’t have a charger, I don’t have a power bank, I was like “What can I do now?”. Situation become a bit complicated for me. But I took a very strong breath and I was like, I’m just gonna ring a bell at someone’s house. And I would just tell them the truth. And I went. This beautiful house. And I pressed the bell. And they opened. It was like okay. “Can we help you?” I was like “Yeah”. But they saw the bag. Probably they, they knew the whole idea because maybe they had received food before there. I told them actually I, “I’m delivering food to, to one of your neighbors here, but unfortunately my phone has blacked out. And the address is here [points to the phone]. I don’t know how to charge it, I don’t know where to charge it.” But even if a get two bars or even one bar, or I just put in the charger and I just look at the address. 

The gentleman and the wife were so kind, the were like “No it’s okay, come in”, they’re kind of like “Yeah, it’s okay”, they had the charger already. Put it like “Oh, so you’re delivering food, that’s nice, yeah we see guys with those blue bags, we don’t know what they do and” like “Yeah we usually bring food to the addresses, some customers don’t wanna go to the restaurants and we are, we are like Superman, we just [swoshing sound] we’re just here, just order and we just ride to you”, they’re like “Okay cool!” 

Sometimes I would make fun out of the whole thing you know and, and just make people laugh and “yeah, so”, it’s like the Ghostbuster’s movie, you know, like when you’re like, the ghosts are coming, who you gonna call – the Ghostbusters. So I would say “Okay, if you want food and you’re hungry – who are you gonna call? Wolt”. “I would just right there at the door”, I would just make those funny jokes and stuff and they would laugh and, so we started talking for like two minutes, it was an, an elderly couple. And they’re like “Yeah, yeah”, the battery actually got, I got some, some battery and, and they said “Yeah yeah that’s our neighbor just two houses from here”, and they knew even the guy! And they’re like “No it’s okay, let’s just call him on our phone and”, and they called the guy, the guy came and picked up the food from the house and… So that was a funny thing as well and, I got saved that day. Yeah and it was actually my last order that night. Yeah. So…

These guys were really so kind, I thought maybe I was gonna be like… shushed away or something or… It’s night, in this, this neighborhood, white neighborhood and you’re a black dude and, you ring a bell at someone’s door, someone’s open and goes like “Okay. You’re the last person I expected at my door so what are you doing here man”, it was like… So anyway, it was really a really good thing, I didn’t, I didn’t see what I expected. I just saw love.

1. Man hade ju med sig utrustningen hem, så att, eh, det var bara att man hade ett pass, och sen fick man en påminnelse alltid av appen. Så den kväkte till, med ett skränande ljud, som den alltid gjorde. Och så var det där, eh, det påminde alltid en halvtimme innan. Och sen så, var det och ta på sig grejerna och cykla in till stan. Och sen, påbörjar man sitt pass, eh, måste man cykla till en viss punkt, eh, Dragarbrunnsgatan, och där, får man liksom kontakt med deras, nät på nåt sätt. Och så loggar man in. Om det krånglade så, om man, om man inte, man fick ju vara där i god tid för det kunde krångla ibland. Och då fick man genast liksom, var är du nånstans och sådär. 

Men då så loggar man in och så får man ganska snabbt ofta sin första beställning. Eh, och beställningarna kom ganska löpande, det var, inte så många dar med dödtid utan, man får en beställning, man ska åka till en viss restaurang, och när man kommer dit så, får man vänta lite, och sen tar man emot maten och när man, då, kan man bekräfta att man tagit emot maten, och, och då får man upp, var, kunden bor nånstans. Och lite portkod kanske och såna där saker. 

Och så cyklar man dit, och lämnar av maten, och så, åker man in mot centrum där de flesta restaurangerna är, och hoppas att man inte blir liksom haffad av nån, restaurang ute i, eh, längre ut. Eh, utan att man hinner ta sig in innan nästa beställning kommer. Eh, för man vill helst få en beställning inne i centrum, för då, eh… Ja, det är lite trevligare miljö, men sen så… cyklar man också lite, kortare sträckor och sådär. 

Annars är det mycket byggarbetsplatser och sånt, om man kommer längre ut och lite mindre, vad ska man säga, lite ogästvänligare miljö. Så det, man kan ofta fastna vid nåt McDonalds som, som är längre ut i stan. Men det gällde, man kände alltid lite sådär att, det gällde och skynda sig, för att om man, om man stannar nånstans så frågar de direkt varför man står stilla. Eh, och om restaurangen är lite långsam så kan de börja undra också, vad som, vad som händer.

2. Jo man känner, man känner ju lite sådär, när det är väldigt styrt av, av, eh, maskineriet, alltså mobilen sådär, då känner, man känner ju ganska mycket att man är liksom ett kugghjul sådär. Det är ju inte så mycket ens liksom eh… mänskliga, jag vet inte, förmågor som liksom i många andra jobb, som förskolevikarie till exempel så är det ju väldigt mycket ens liksom mänskliga förmågor som är viktiga. Här är det ju mer… Eh, eh att man liksom, är en förlängd arm av det här liksom, man behöver liksom inte tänka så mycket. Det är bara du, ”Du ska göra det, du ska göra det”. Det är inte så… Kreativt. Eller socialt, utan… Ja, det är ju väldigt styrt av tekniken.

1. It is more like a question from vegetarians. Can we stop eating meat? Yeah we can stop but the others will be continue eating but, I know, I can’t really tell that, on the bike courier, yes, sometimes I feel this like, ah, exploration of labors. They don’t really pay out enough. But it is more about me, if I don’t like this job then why do I continue? Well I can not find a new job of course but…

2. And eh, during the first months I lived here I had some kind of financial problems, I was looking for a job. And it was like terribly hard to enter the Swedish market without knowing Swedish language and I was trying almost any kind of the job and this courier advertisement, I don’t know where did actually saw it, on website or social media. I, eh, registered, applied for that and got feedback from them that they want to do some, eh, online sessions. They were just introducing the company and all the works. And eh, I was expecting more of like a job interview or something but it was nothing like that. It was a Zoom meeting and there was another guy just explaining what they do, what is, and eh, he was just talking about the overall picture of their company. And it was about an hour, and that was all. And afterward they send an email asking for our documents and when I send back they send us the contract. And everything was digitally, I have never seen anyone from the company.