College teacher delivering food: writers don't know riders are hard, "what is the value of what is written"
On July 22, 2021, in Linyi, Shandong, delivery workers walked forward in the wind and rain. (Visual China/Photo)
Xing Bin hung the takeaway on the doorknob of the customer's house, took out his mobile phone, and was about to take a picture, when the door "popped" open.
A boy swooped out, grabbed his clothes, pushed him against the wall and scolded: "Why did you hang up on me just now?" ”
On the way to the delivery, Xing Bin had already been scolded - the boy suspected him of running around, and a phone call called him to scold him for "whether he was blind." Xing Bin explained that he was sending another order first, and the other party did not adhere to it, so he could only hang up.
Before 2022, the world of 46-year-old Xing Bin rarely intersected with takeaway delivery. He was a lecturer at Linyi University's College of Literature for 19 years, teaching Chinese modern and contemporary literature, as well as contemporary poetry, and a group of poet friends. But at the end of the year, he had a whim to experience the work of a delivery rider. He registered as a takeaway rider on three platforms and officially took up his post on December 21, 2022.
Within a month, in the severe winter wind and snow, Xing Bin lost 6 kilograms. More than half a year later, on August 20, 2023, he shared his insights and thoughts offline, which quickly caused heated discussions on the Internet.
He said that he sent 2,000 orders a month, and said in external interviews that he worked an average of more than 10 hours a day and earned 7,000 yuan a month. A person in charge of a Linyi takeaway site told Southern Weekend that on the platform, Xing Bin's account completed a total of 365 orders, withdrew 4348.34 yuan, and had an average order length of 5 hours a day. On September 4, Xing Bin explained that 2,000 was an approximate number, and that he could no longer see all the data from December last year to January this year.
Xing Bin's related sharing article shows that after the rider had a car accident, the insurance deducted 3 yuan per day (the company deducted 60%, only 1.2 yuan was handed over to the insurance company) provided casualty insurance of up to 6,000 yuan. However, the aforementioned person in charge said that the rider insurance premium is earmarked for exclusive use, and partners are prohibited from withholding the premium in any form, and the maximum accidental death and disability (including sudden death) provided is 600,000 yuan. In response to the content of the special delivery rider "receiving a fine of 200-500 for bad reviews, and a general fine of 500", the person in charge said that Linyi will change the handling of special delivery riders to receive bad reviews and overtime in 2022 from deduction to deduction of points, and evaluate the service quality of riders according to the accumulated points of the whole month, Xing Bin's registered crowdsourcing riders do not have a high fine of 200-500 yuan, and the maximum single deduction of his account is 50 yuan after investigation.
In a conversation with Southern Weekend, Xing Bin once again talked about his experience and feelings of delivering food for nearly a month: "This is a self-education. ”
Xing Bin, a teacher at the College of Arts, Linyi University. (Photo courtesy of interviewee)
"I reflect too far away from life"
Southern Weekend: Before you experienced food delivery at the end of last year, what was your knowledge of delivery riders?
Xing Bin: I am a college teacher, so I am relatively leisurely. For me, it's still a great barrier to delivery riders. I have had my student's brother and relatives' children deliver takeaways, and I know it's hard and dangerous, but there are a lot of things I don't understand. For example, in terms of traffic, riders like to go against the road; Crossing the traffic light, as long as there is a gap of a few seconds in between, the rider quickly passes through.
Southern Weekend: How did you come up with the idea to experience food delivery?
Xing Bin: At the end of last year, I was about to celebrate my birthday. I never gave myself a serious birthday, I decided to go to the bottom floor to find a job, experience the last month, and give this as a birthday gift to myself. Why a month? Because the winter vacation is coming soon, I just take advantage of the winter vacation.
Southern Weekend: Why would you give yourself a low-level job as a gift?
Xing Bin: This may have something to do with my profession. I reflected on myself, too far away from life, and finally art became a symbolic game. So I wanted to experience it at the bottom.
Southern Weekend: Why did you choose to be a delivery rider?
Xing Bin: I envisioned several roads, such as Kaidi and Lalala. I also want to go to construction sites. Then I thought that food delivery and express delivery were not available before, and they are new formats.
In addition, this generation of young people say that our generation is full of "daddy" speech: many parents say that we were very difficult then, and you are in a particularly good situation now. Young people are very unhappy with the statement of the previous generation. I also want to experience whether the new business format of today's young people is more intense and has suffered more grievances than our generation.
Southern Weekend: How did your friends and family react?
Xing Bin: In this month, except for our family of three, and my good friend and a poet from Linyi, no one else knew.
My partner was very supportive, but at that time, it was snowing several times in Linyi, and she was more worried about safety, and kept persuading me that it was not okay to experience it for a week. The child is also more supportive, and I said you can experience it too. We had an electric car that had not been used for many years, and she changed the battery, rode the electric car, and accompanied me for several days.
Southern Weekend: You mentioned that you have tried all three platforms, Meituan, Hummingbird and Flash, right?
Xing Bin: Right. Originally, I was going to register all three and SF, but I found that SF's requirements were strict, and I needed to go to the site for training.
"Two weeks basically to the highest level"
Southern Weekend: Did you run every day for a month?
Xing Bin: There were a few days when I ran for a relatively short time, participating in online training courses for college teachers during the winter vacation; And twice I drank with some poets and writers; Another time my relative died of a heart attack, and I went back to my hometown to attend the funeral and stayed for three or four days.
Southern Weekend: How many kilometers can you run in a day?
Xing Bin: When my motorcycle is full of fuel, I can run 220-230 kilometers a day, and I can run completely until the (fuel tank) is empty every day.
Southern Weekend: You didn't understand that riders often break traffic rules, do you break them when you're a rider yourself?
Xing Bin: 80% of the time is spent breaking the rules. Because you grab the order to start the countdown, in addition to the distance between the place where you grab the order and the merchant, you also need to pick up the meal time, the merchant's meal time is difficult to calculate accurately, but this pot is completely pressed to the takeaway brother.
Southern Weekend: How many orders can you take in a day and how much money do you make?
Xing Bin: After running for about two weeks, I basically rose to the highest level. What I experienced was that it was difficult for me to exceed $20 an hour on a smooth day, which I verified several times.
Southern Weekend: How many orders does 20 yuan correspond to?
Xing Bin: There are two ways to run. One is to run a long order, each order distance is relatively long, multiplied by the unit price after the delivery fee will come up. Another is the small step I choose to run, trying to stay in the hot area and run back and forth during peak hours. I run a lot of singles, but the distance of each single is shorter. My way of running is about 15 yuan an hour. I have counted all my orders, and 1 single earns an average of 3 pieces and 4 cents, which corresponds to 4-5 orders per hour.
Southern Weekend: How much money do you make a month?
Xing Bin: I don't calculate it very rigorously, it's about 7,000 yuan, and there is no deduction of costs. If you deduct the insurance and fuel costs paid every day, it is about 6,300 yuan a month. After all, I was not very familiar with the business for the first eight or nine days, and if I worked for another month and ran more than 15 hours a day, I estimated that I would be able to earn a net income of 7,000 yuan.
Southern Weekend: Is this delivery intensity high among riders in Linyi?
Xing Bin: Not really. The system tops the single king every day, and the single king often works until 156 or even 1780 a day.
I've never run a hundred and seventy or eighty orders a day, which is unthinkable to me.
Southern Weekend: According to your observations, what is the level of income of six or seven thousand yuan a month in Linyi?
Xing Bin: In 2022, the average annual salary of non-private employees in urban areas in Linyi City will be 94,725 yuan, with an average monthly salary of 7,893.75 yuan, which means that a thousand yuan can catch this level.
Xing Bin's selfie while delivering takeaway. (Photo courtesy of interviewee)
"The break time was very chopped"
Southern Weekend: When you first started delivering food, did you encounter any difficulties?
Xing Bin: The first few days were a learning process, and you still couldn't figure out which place was more and which time was more, I mainly looked up experience posts on the Internet. There is a forum where there are more orders, how to run more orders, how to deal with difficult merchants and customers, and so on.
Again, in the middle of waiting for the meal, I will also pass a cigarette to the veterans, ask for advice, they know everything. The people at the bottom are very simple, not so much wary and repulsive, and they quickly tell you all about the experience.
Southern Weekend: After you have experience, how do you usually deliver food every day?
Xing Bin: Breakfast is from 6 to 9 o'clock, and you can run for about three hours. Lunch is from around 11 to 2 o'clock, but at 10:40 you have to go to the shopping district and keep swiping your phone to get ready to grab the order. Dinner is from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., about 5 hours, if it is a holiday, you can be busy until 3 or 4 a.m. at the latest, and the car runs out of gas before returning home.
Later, I found that this cut the rest time very badly, and I made some appropriate waivers. For example, the first night has more orders, there are some good orders, sometimes it is sent to three or four o'clock in the morning, then the morning rush must be abandoned.
Southern Weekend: Where have you been farthest away?
Xing Bin: I had to travel more than 50 kilometers at the farthest and send them all to the next county. I remember very well that day, it was the New Year, a boss stayed in a hotel in the city, and when he went back the next day, he forgot his bag in the hotel. I happened to be eating breakfast and grabbed the order.
I will continue to try different jobs every year
Southern Weekend: You also mentioned that you have encountered a lot of abuse.
Xing Bin: Once, the customer's garbage bag was very large, with two large bags. I was just running away and was very resistant to this matter, I said that throwing garbage was not included in the scope of work, and he immediately said, do you still want to do it? What do I mean, he said you don't take it, I'll brush you a bad review now, complain about you.
I stood there for a minute or two, thinking a lot in my head. Later, I thought, since I came to experience, I am currently a person who has no way back and relies on this to make a living. If you are given a bad review or a complaint, there will be punishment measures such as deducting money, and I think most delivery workers may be able to put up with it, especially middle-aged people like me. So I didn't say a word and took the garbage down.
Let me drop off the trash or do something else, every day. There are about seven or eight cases of verbal abuse or insults this month.
Southern Weekend: Have you been able to eat well this month of your riding career?
Xing Bin: I am a person who likes to exercise. Usually I go to the gym every other day and play the next day, basically all year round, my physical condition is still relatively good, so I can still carry it for a month, but this month I lost 6 kilograms.
Southern Weekend: Have you ever thought about giving up?
Xing Bin: I didn't feel shaken or give up. It's a self-education. I don't think a writer who doesn't even know how society works and how riders live, can't write powerful and authentic works.
Southern Weekend: At present, some people on the Internet question the data you share, saying that you can't run 2,000 orders a month.
Xing Bin: 2,000 is an approximate number, and earning 7,000 yuan is accurate. That day at the sharing meeting, I was talking about some details, for example, if I ran 30 orders on a platform for a certain period of time, it would reward 25 yuan, according to the average price of 3 pieces and 4 pieces, even if I ran 7-8 more orders... As a result, some listeners interrupted me and directly asked me how much money I earned a month, I said gross profit 7,000 yuan, he said how much is a single order, I said a single is about 3 yuan 5, he said that it is basically 2,000 orders, I said that if you calculate it in this unit, this number is how it comes from. I should have opened the software and added one plus what the total is. But at that scene, everyone is unlikely to wait for me to calculate this number.
In fact, if I work fifteen or six hours a day, I can get 40-60 orders.
Southern Weekend: Your income record shows that your total income is about 4956 yuan, and the person in charge of the site also said that you have an average of 5 hours a day, how do you explain these deviations?
Xing Bin: I remember that I withdrew four times, and the bank cards corresponding to each platform could not be the same, so each time it was taken by three banks, three at a time, and finally the difference was tens of yuan to 7,000 yuan. But I can only find more than 2,700 yuan of withdrawal records at present.
There is also a deposit of 100 yuan that cannot be mentioned. On December 21, my first day of running, but the second day I felt the need to write down the data by hand; In addition, some fines were not recorded. On that day, I could only count how much money I earned, and the fine was not visible, and the ticket would not come out until 24 hours later. Finally, sometimes I am tired at the end of the day, and I may have missed the list of flash and hummingbird. I don't know what it defines as having a single duration. Three hours in the midday rush, after which you rest, lie down, and then run from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., which takes six hours, and these two alone add up to nine hours.
Southern Weekend: Are you planning to experience other jobs?
Xing Bin: Different classes and fields, they are like the famous mountains and rivers of nature, and it is very necessary for us to go from the field that intellectuals are tired of to another field.
Maybe I'll take part of my time every year in the future and try some work. For example, the sorting work in the express delivery, I heard a post-90s takeaway brother say that he came from that industry and was quite tired. I want to walk these famous mountains and rivers in the world.
Southern Weekend reporter Jiang Bowen
Responsible editor: Tan Chang