They "don't care about other people's definitions, just want to be on the road every day"
On this day, follow the takeaway brother to "cross the streets and alleys, connecting the world with fireworks"
Our reporters Bai Jiali, Liu Weizhen, and Sister Liang
Someone asked on the Q&A platform: "What is the experience of having a takeaway rider boyfriend?"
The high score replied: "Looking at the rider outside, I feel that everyone is him. I feel his sadness. I am afraid of rain and sudden changes in the sky. I am also afraid that he will not be able to receive orders. Slow or spill..."
Have we thought about these worries when we received the takeaway?
On the eve of Labor Day, our reporter followed a takeaway guy in Tianjin for 24 hours to truly record this job of "passing through the streets and alleys and connecting the world with fireworks".
"A deduction of 5.48 yuan is equivalent to a free order"
As a rider for more than a year, Peng Hui is more familiar with this city than most people.
He knows what to sell on each floor of a shopping mall, to where the nearest public toilet is, and the house prices in large advertisements have been checked back and forth a lot, and he is very familiar with it.
But he is like looking at the city through the glass. He has never tasted the desserts that he often picks up in the "net celebrity" store, and he doesn't understand the games in the board game bar.
In order to save money, after he rushed to deliver meals, he "housed" in an old shared house of 10 square meters.
At 9 o'clock in the morning, Peng Hui got up lightly, for fear of waking the other three companions.
The day before, there was violent wind and rain in Tianjin. He went to bed early in the morning after running for nearly 12 hours.
A rented house with a monthly rent of 1,200 yuan is located in the center of the city with a lot of money.
The reason why I live here is to receive more orders and to take a break when there are few orders.
He stayed with another takeaway rider and two friends who came and stayed overnight with a yearning for the big city.
Washing his face, brushing his teeth, and washing his hair. In less than five minutes, Peng Hui completed the preparations in the cramped washroom.
In the mirror, a young round face left obvious mask marks.
"It's so dark before summer." He smiled, picked up his mobile phone and helmet, and hurried out without breakfast.
In Tianjin in late spring, pedestrians have begun to put on singles.
Peng Hui stepped into the car and wrapped the greasy thin blue down coat tightly.
Put on your helmet, open the app, scan your face, declare your body temperature... the day's work has begun.
This electric motorcycle is rented from an acquaintance at a price of 360 yuan a month.
While waiting for the order, the 25-year-old Peng Hui talked about his own experience: born in a small village in Heilongjiang; after graduating from junior high school, he moved to Xi’an and Dalian, tried many professions, and dreamed of becoming a chef; after he came to Tianjin, he studied in a restaurant. Yi, left the restaurant last year affected by the epidemic and joined the team of takeaway riders...
Take-out riders are generally divided into two types: special delivery and crowdsourcing.
Dedicated delivery refers to full-time riders at the distribution station, who commute to and from get off work regularly, accept orders from the system, and get a basic salary.
While crowdsourcing is relatively free, one person, one car, low base salary, low threshold, and free to grab orders.
Peng Hui belongs to the latter.
"I have also worked in the Ele.me team. The order is stable and the area is fixed, but the requirements are stricter in all aspects and the time is not free. So after a few months of work, a few friends and I withdrew from the team." Say.
He takes one day off every half month and runs about 40 orders a day. The cost of each order is around RMB 5 or 6 and he can earn RMB 6,000 a month.
"However, the delivery price of the platform is always changing. It is the off-season recently, and the delivery fee is generally not high." He said.
"It is often said that we exchange life for money because the rider has two'fears'." Peng Hui explained that the first fear is overtime. As little as the platform deducts 20% of the delivery fee, and more deducts 80%.
He turned on his mobile phone and showed the reporter a bill that was deducted for overtime the day before.
"Yesterday this shop had a'burst order'. I had three orders from it, but after two meals, the third one couldn't be made." At that time, the shop was surrounded by a group of riders. Peng Hui had to send the first two orders to the customer's home, and then hurriedly returned to pick up the third order. However, he hurriedly hurried, or overtime, was complained by the customer, "The deduction of 5.48 yuan is equivalent to giving a free order."
The second is afraid of bad reviews.
"Why is the bad review now a means to threaten the rider? Customers sometimes remark that they need to bring something else, and if they don't bring it, they will give a bad review. If the store is overtime, we have to "back the pot", and a few bad reviews will deduct 3 yuan. "He said aggrievedly.
Every second of waiting is suffering
Soon, Peng Hui received today's first order.
Baidu map shows that it takes 20 minutes to arrive by car.
As soon as he received the order, Peng Hui seemed to change individuals, shuttled through the crowded areas, and rushed with ease.
The reporter following, but Xin said his throat.
Peng Hui only took 30 minutes from departure, pick-up and delivery. "This single income is 8 yuan. If the delivery is late, at least 1.6 yuan will be deducted. There is no other way except fast."
As lunch time approached, the takeaway orders on the platform increased instantly, and Peng Hui took another order not far from the merchant.
After taking the meal, he carefully put it into the incubator and started to fly away again.
However, he encountered a "traffic jam" for the first meal today-this "net celebrity shop" was full of takeaway orders. He waited in line for five or six minutes before he got the share he wanted to deliver.
For Peng Hui, every second of 5 minutes can be spent by ordinary people by swiping a few short videos.
"This shop clerk often ignores people and speaks not very politely. Sometimes when he meets a grumpy rider, he sometimes starts his hand." Peng Hui complained.
In order to catch up with the delivery time of the two orders, Peng Hui obviously speeded up again. At small intersections with few pedestrians, he slammed on the brakes until the red light on the main road.
"Generally, we don't wait for the red light on the small road, but if the delivery time is not too tight, anyone who wants to run the red light is afraid of an accident." He said helplessly.
Soon, Peng Hui took 8 orders at the same time.
"This is my limit. Some older riders can hold 10 orders at the same time." Before he could say more, Peng Hui glanced at the route planned by the system and started to take orders from one family. Trot all the way.
Picking up the meal is fairly smooth, but delivering the meal is not so easy. After delivering an order, Peng Hui needs to quickly call the next customer to determine the location of the meal. Only in this way can he save a few seconds.
At the end of the 8th order, he drew an irregular five-pointed star on the map, and the reporter was already running for a long time, sweating.
"If you hang 8 orders, there is no idle time. You can't wait for a second. Once you delay one or two minutes in one place, all the rest will be too late." Peng Hui said, once he was waiting for the elevator for a long time. , The remaining 4 orders are out of time.
"The most terrible thing is that I will be restricted from taking orders if there are too many timeouts. I have been restricted, and I have to go to the training again to take orders again. I have no income for several days.
At 12 noon, the sky started to rain, and passers-by were evading, but Peng Hui was looking forward to getting bigger.
"This will result in bad weather subsidies. Each order can earn 1 to 10 yuan more. The day before yesterday’s rain was heavy, I made about 70 yuan for 5 orders. So I ran wildly when encountering sandstorms, heavy snow, and heavy rain. You can make a few days' worth of money in one day."
It is inconvenient to wear a raincoat to deliver meals, so Peng Hui chose to get in the rain.
But in order to keep the food from getting wet, he covered the takeaway with his hands after parking, and took a big step into the office building.
After getting on the passenger elevator, the trouble came again—you had to swipe your card to take the elevator.
Peng Hui called the customer and asked the helper to press the elevator upstairs. He could go up and down several times, but the elevator did not stop on the floor where the customer was.
"There is no signal in the elevator, so I can only do it in a hurry." Nearly 10 minutes later, the meal was delivered to the designated floor.
There was a new order while talking.
As this single time was relatively abundant, Peng Hui stopped when passing by a public toilet.
In the area where he often runs, he remembers the location of several public toilets.
But in order to reduce the frequency of going to the toilet, Peng Hui hardly drinks water.
The customer for this order lives on the seventh floor of the complex without an elevator.
Peng Hui picked up the takeaway and quickly picked up the two-tier two-tier, panting.
"There was a power outage and I climbed more than 20 floors!" Climbing stairs is one of the important tests for foreign riders. "It also eliminated many older riders."
The second peak of food delivery starts at 5 pm.
Draped in the last ray of sunshine of the day, Peng Hui continued to walk through the city.
At night, Peng Hui turned off the automatic dispatch mode, and only had 7 chances to refuse dispatch every day. He usually stayed at night to use it.
"There are many cars and dark roads, and accidents are easy to happen when you are in a hurry." Peng Hui said that when he was delivering food in the suburbs, a weasel suddenly jumped out on the road, and he almost fell in fright.
At the beginning of Hua Deng, Peng Hui's orders tonight are concentrated on Fifth Avenue, a famous commercial district in Tianjin.
The small western-style building lights up, and the shadows of the trees are especially beautiful.
He didn't want to appreciate it, his eyes were either looking at the road or looking at the phone.
Peng Hui received an order to be sent to the board game bar. After the handover, he asked the reporter with some confusion: "It seems that young people play board games nowadays. What is this?" He looked a little lonely after hearing the reporter's account. "I have never played."
I just want to be on the road safely
Peng Hui’s lunch is usually settled at a Bannian restaurant near his home.
"I seldom eat breakfast. I wait until about two o'clock in the afternoon to have lunch if there are fewer orders. Sometimes I go home to make it, and most of the time I eat it here." Peng Hui said. Save money and become a "canteen" for many riders.
After this meal, he will last until 12 o'clock in the evening to "replenish energy".
Peng Hui carefully calculated the cost of eating every day.
In the afternoon when there are few orders, Peng Hui waits at the door of a business with a large number of orders on weekdays, or returns to the rental house to rest, waiting for the arrival of the evening peak.
Peng Hui, who was free, chatted with the reporter, "I don't have a few friends here."
Which restaurant is slow to eat, when there is a traffic police on guard at which intersection... Talking about the experience accumulated as a rider, Peng Hui's chatter box opened.
He said that he likes the order sent to the hotel the most, "You don't have to go upstairs, you can leave it downstairs." And the last thing he wants to send is cakes.
"A cake is more than 100 yuan, the car will break if it bumps, and we will pay if it breaks, which is equivalent to a day's work for nothing."
"Some riders run out at around 5 o'clock in the morning. Once they ran into the middle of the night, they can make more than ten thousand yuan a month." Peng Hui felt that he hadn't worked hard enough. "The capable ones are all in their thirties. There are older children and younger ones. I am alone, and my parents have enough food and clothing, so I hope I will be safe."
Peng Hui counted down the most expensive places: "Earphones are the most often broken, because they always have to make calls. There is also a data cable, which is unplugged when delivering meals and plugged in when receiving orders. It can be used for one month after plugging and unplugging. There are several bad ones. The shoes are also easy to break, buy cheap ones, and they often wear out in a month."
Speaking of five social insurances and one housing fund, Peng Hui said that he couldn't figure it out.
However, if there are more riders in contact, he will also worry about his physical problems. "The old rider in his thirties has a problem with his body. I also have joint pain on rainy days."
In a heavy rain a few days ago, a customer saw that Peng Hui got wet and had no rain gear, so he gave him the disposable raincoat at home and helped him put a plastic case on his mobile phone, which moved him. For a long time.
"Usually, customers say thank you at most. I'm already very satisfied. Most people just extend a hand from the crack in the door."
He didn't talk to his parents-last year, he bravely rescued two people who fell into the water on the way to the food delivery.
But because he had to continue to deliver food, he turned his head and continued on the road after he was wet after saving people. "The customer who received the meal saw me covered in water and didn't ask a question." He was a little disappointed.
But regardless of warmth or indifference, Peng Hui never doubted the value of his work, and even sublimated from it a kind of admirable open-mindedness-"There are always people who complain that our work is not respected, but people only have a dream." He says.
To dream, Peng Hui is working hard.
Two days ago, he bought an old tricycle for 900 yuan and planned to set up a stall to sell fried skewers while delivering meals.
He couldn't hide the joy in his tone when talking about the small business that was about to open.
"This is for me to open a store to accumulate experience in the future!" Opening a store and opening a small store specializing in takeaway is his ultimate dream.
He consulted that this requires an investment of at least 80,000 yuan, but his savings are far from enough.
Peng Hui has not been home for three years.
"I miss home but I can't go back." He explained that it is easy to spend all the hard-earned money when going home to visit relatives and friends, so he had to hide the homesickness in his heart.
On weekdays, his most extravagant enjoyment is to have a drink with a few friends and vomit bitterness.
He looks forward to one day that he can have 200,000 yuan in his account, so that he can return to his hometown, buy a house, marry a wife and have children.
The pointer points to 12 o'clock in the evening, and the city is already asleep.
Peng Hui delivered the last order to the customer's home, dragging exhaustion back to the rental house.
Charging the battery of the electric car, he collapsed on the bed and flipped through the chat records in the rider group. Several older brothers who hadn't gotten off work were chatting about today's income in the group.
There are 23 takeaway riders in this group called "ten thousand yuan households". The name of the group represents their biggest wish-I hope they can earn more than 10,000 yuan every month.
Pillow of the exhaustion of the day, Peng Hui, who had insisted on leaving reporters to chat for a while, fell asleep by leaning against the bed.
At dawn, he will start a new day of rushing.
This is an ordinary 24 hours in Peng Hui's career, and it is an ordinary day for millions of takeaway riders.
Statistics show that in the past year alone, more than 4.7 million riders earned income on the Meituan food delivery platform, and they sent 10.1 billion food and beverage deliveries throughout the year.
Some experts concluded that the current characteristics of takeaway riders are "strong attraction, weak contract, high supervision, and low resistance."
Peng Hui doesn't care what others define him, he just wants to be on the road peacefully every day.