Working in the shadows

My Secret Life as a Gig Worker

Professional by day, “dasher” by night

Call it a shadow career. Call it multiple work personality disorder. Whatever it is, I’ve got it.

During a regular workday, I help manage a medical research program at a prestigious university. Grown-up stuff, involving big concepts like “health disparities” and “big data” and “genomes.” Come 4:00? I’m standing awkwardly in line at restaurants with 20-somethings, carrying an insulated bag and consulting the phone app about an order I’ve been sent to pick up, considering such heady instructions as “don’t forget napkins” and “leave the customer’s order at the door.”

It started as a lark during the lockdown. Retirement contributions by my employer have been cut for the year, due to the pandemic. It’s a sizable amount that won’t go into my investments this year, and I’m in striking distance of retirement. I challenged myself to make up the difference on my own…somehow. That’s when a friend told me her husband was making decent money doing deliveries. Hmmm….With freelance writing work tanked and only essential workers allowed to venture out to earn, what the heck?

According to a recent study about by Bankrate.com, about 30% of working adults in the U.S. have a side hustle with an average additional monthly income of $1,122.

I’m no stranger to the concept, as I’ve had a freelance writing business on the side for almost 10 years, but writing is considered respectable and career enriching. Food delivery? Not so much.

Secretly, I love it

The day after signing up to do restaurant deliveries, I flipped on the app and off I went. On my first outing, I made two deliveries — pizza and fast food — and a surprising sum in compensation. Confined to the house for two months (with only weekly stressful and unfruitful trips to the grocery store), I’d become moody, irritable, and unpleasant. Being behind the wheel was instant freedom! And since everyone else was staying home, the roads were blessedly vacant. Getting out of the house and covering ground was salve to my chafing spirit.

Not only that, I found the transactional aspect refreshing. I get a running total of my earnings, and I see them go up every time I make a delivery. Just like a lab rat hitting the button for another bit of food. It’s addicting. Some nights, I have to sternly tell myself, “no…not just one more.”

The work also reminds me of jobs from my youth. Working as a janitor, working at McDonald’s — those were jobs where you FELT like you’d worked when you were done. Expending physical energy instead of mental energy feels great. Simple tasks done quickly. Very satisfying for a task-driven person. An executive friend of mine used to say she often fantasized about having a grocery cashier job — just waving items over the scanner hour after hour. Now I’m doing work with instant gratification, a sense of accomplishment, and more physical activity than mental. After many years of dreary meetings, endless series of unsolvable problems, and managing people, this is bliss.

Secretly, I hate it

Delivery is largely mindless but not without its challenges. The delivery app, which you rely on for every move you make, is imperfect and frustrating. It can direct you to the wrong address, send you to a closed restaurant, or miscalculate your pay. And customers can be horrible and abusive, sweet and wonderful, or just plain invisible. You never know. The one thing you can count on is: the bigger pain the delivery is, the smaller the tip will be. Always. And then there are the customers who don’t tip at all. Harrumph. I try to send them positive vibes but it’s utterly demoralizing — even when the job is just a side gig.

Gig work has been an eye-opening reminder to me about the class system in the US. No matter how friendly I am, many customers or restaurant workers won’t make eye contact with the delivery person. It doesn’t matter that I was a vice president of a division at my last job or that I live three blocks over from their palatial home. Delivery makes peons of us all.

Last night, I was trotting into a restaurant just a mile from my house, where some patrons were seated at an outside table. There, among them, I spied a good friend with a few of her high school pals. I had to make a split decision: speak to them or pretend not to see them. I bucked up, said hi, and told them I was picking up an order to deliver…which was met with confused, blank stares. And instantly, I hated myself for the shame I felt and the burn in my cheeks. I realized in that moment that I fully buy into that class system myself. Instead of feeling good about working toward a goal and doing honest work, I felt degraded. And I did it to myself.

Satisfying…but secret

I haven’t told many people about my delivery gig. Too many people would judge me for it. But I look for moments to celebrate the satisfaction and freedom the job offers.

One of the happiest moments of this adventure took place that very first night. As I tooled down an open country road toward my second delivery, I pondered this foray into the gig economy and burst into laughter at the irony. After years of working in senior management, of sitting in nice offices, of dressing up for client meetings — tasks that are deemed dispensable in a pandemic— for the first time ever, I’m essential!

© Tina L. Smith, 2020

If you liked this article, here are a few others you may enjoy, including a follow-up on what I’ve seen at restaurants: