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The U.K. Gig Economy

Cheers Marty1

How many miles a day do you average do you know?

Are your routes mainly urban or rural? (I certainly remember you posting some pretty nice rural pics before which were presumably off your round). I'm trying to get my head around 170 drops in what, 10 hours? 17 an hour?? One every three minutes? Just wouldn't be possible where I live.
 
planetgeli said:
Cheers Marty1

How many miles a day do you average do you know?

Are your routes mainly urban or rural? (I certainly remember you posting some pretty nice rural pics before which were presumably off your round). I'm trying to get my head around 170 drops in what, 10 hours? 17 an hour?? One every three minutes? Just wouldn't be possible where I live.
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80 - 100 miles per day.

Teeside area.

63 drops to do / 84 parcels, 2 reattempts left.
 
nick said:
Should you be interested in (or fearful of) IR35 reform:

This seemed the most likely thread upon which to post this

Lords call for complete rethink of IR35
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End zero-rights employment

Throughout the report, which IPSE described as a “much-needed dose of sense in the IR35 fiasco”, the issue of ‘zero-rights employment’ was focused on. The Lords made a point that many contractors tend to agree with – that individuals operating inside IR35, where they pay employment taxes, must receive employment rights in return.
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Doubt anyone would disagree with that?
 
FridgeMagnet said:
Possibly overwhelmed with traffic as it's going around a lot on social - a bit ironic for someone who worked on Amazon's flexible on-demand storage systems....
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It finally loaded - very interesting and Bray does suggest racism involved with the sacked whistleblowers, which before reading I wouldn’t have thought would be the case as Amazon seem to exploit all colours and creeds equally - but Bray thinks so and his opinion holds a lot of weight.

I found this quite saddening (even though I knew it anyway), but especially now as the aftermath of this pandemic is going to result in even more unemployment for Amazon to exploit without mercy.

What about AWS? · Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the company), where I worked, is a different story. It treats its workers humanely, strives for work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity needle (and mostly fails, but so does everyone else), and is by and large an ethical organization. I genuinely admire its leadership.

Of course, its workers have power. The average pay is very high, and anyone who’s unhappy can walk across the street and get another job paying the same or better.

Spot a pattern? · At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker, what with mass unemployment and (in the US) job-linked health insurance. So they’re gonna get treated like crap, because capitalism. Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength.
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Edit: well done to Tim Bray for calling out Amazon, he didn’t have to do this as he explains but had the moral fortitude to do so. I hope more follow in similar position, the more the better to keep pressure and focus on Amazon’s vile de-humanising practices.
 
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Marty1 has there been a change in protocol with social distancing. Is it not a case of drop and photo? If so, I guess it's much easier than waiting for the door to be answered and faffing around with signatures.
 
Marty1 said:
It finally loaded - very interesting and Bray does suggest racism involved with the sacked whistleblowers, which before reading I wouldn’t have thought would be the case as Amazon seem to exploit all colours and creeds equally - but Bray thinks so and his opinion holds a lot of weight.
Click to expand...
If you give people the ability to arbitrarily exercise power, they will often do so according to their prejudices. Amazon as an entity isn't going to be super bothered either way but will approve of picking the targets with the most prejudice against them, because it makes them easier to attack.
 
hash tag said:
Marty1 has there been a change in protocol with social distancing. Is it not a case of drop and photo? If so, I guess it's much easier than waiting for the door to be answered and faffing around with signatures.
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Yes, no signatures at all.

We put parcels on doorstep, knock on door/ring doorbell then step back at least 2 metres. Once customer has opened door we wave them off and move onto next drop.

Face masks whilst delivering are mandatory now.

The most stupid process is AVD’s (age verified deliveries) - it used to be the case that the driver could use their discretion on whether the customer was over the age of 25 - if they didn’t then we’d ask for photo ID. Then they changed it so that it was mandatory for drivers to request ID no matter how old the customer looked.

During this pandemic you’d think Amazon would have reverted back to the original driver discretion procedure - but no - we have to ask for ID - get the customer to put their ID on doorstep and ask them to step back 2 metres for us to then hover over ID and enter their DOB and name - it’s a total fuck on and very time consuming but if you get caught not following process off Amazon - you’re gone in a heartbeat.

The other day I delivered a bottle of wine to an address - the customer took a while to get to the door - she apologised as she’d just got out of hospital from chemotherapy and felt weak and out of breath - I had to ask her to produce ID which was heartbreaking as she said she had to get it from her bedroom upstairs which was a struggle for her :( I empathised with her and she understood I had to follow thru procedure but still - felt terrible having to enforce Amazon fucking cunts gestapo orders.

On a different note - I was asked by my boss if I could work 6 days a week for the next 3 weeks - I stupidly said yes as he called when I was in the middle of a drop and instantly regretted agreeing to it as I need 2 days off the physically recover.

Today I was support - where I don’t have a route but take excess drops off other drivers to help anyone struggling or just wants less pressure. I took 42 drops off one driver but felt absolutely exhausted so called office and explained and they let me go home for the day - I also asked to cancel my 6 days and go back to 5 which they also agreed.

After the lockdown is eased and some sort of normality returns there’s going to be a lot of unemployed people - I pretty much know that Amazon will already be scheming on how to maximise this opportunity (exploit the fuck out of it), knowing full well that with so much unemployment, workers aren’t going to complain about work load as there will be a queue off into the distance of people looking to step into their shoes.
 
Someone ordered a single bottle of wine from Amazon
:facepalm:
there are local independent offlicences and major chains all open and delivering. I guess they will charge for delivery though. Majestic themselves deliver and one of the local uses Uber.
 
Saul Goodman said:
It's madness, isn't it.
I've just ordered a tube of superglue :thumbs:
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Please ensure you are home to receive it or have a safe space notified on your account as drivers can’t leave parcels with neighbours due to the pandemic.

Otherwise the poor sod delivering it will have to make a reattempt at the end of his/her route.
 
Marty1 said:
Please ensure you are home to receive it or have a safe space notified on your account as drivers can’t leave parcels with neighbours due to the pandemic.

Otherwise the poor sod delivering it will have to make a reattempt at the end of his/her route.
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The postman leaves everything in the porch, and signs for anything that needs signing for. A bottle of whiskey at Christmas goes a long way.
 
Saul Goodman said:
It's madness, isn't it.
I've just ordered a tube of superglue :thumbs:
Click to expand...
I ordered three balls of string a few weeks ago. I did add some extra random shit on top of that to make it seem like I wasn't just ordering string, but due to various fuckups with the order, all the random shit arrived in separate deliveries anyway.

It's good string. Probably. I've not used it yet. I did need it though.
 
FridgeMagnet said:
I ordered three balls of string a few weeks ago. I did add some extra random shit on top of that to make it seem like I wasn't just ordering string, but due to various fuckups with the order, all the random shit arrived in separate deliveries anyway.

It's good string. Probably. I've not used it yet. I did need it though.
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I like to get the most out of my Prime membership. I used to make a list of everything I needed, and buy it all at once, but if I'm getting free shipping, might as well make the most of it, and buy stuff as it comes into your head.
 
Marty1 said:
:facepalm: :mad:
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It depends how you look at it. A common or garden postman delivers most of my stuff from Amazon, and he's here most days anyway, so he might as well drop off something from Amazon while he's at it.
And he does get a bottle of whiskey for his troubles.
 
Marty1 said:
Please ensure you are home to receive it or have a safe space notified on your account as drivers can’t leave parcels with neighbours due to the pandemic.
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That's a positive pre-pandemic I used to work from home once a week and there were endless delivery drivers wanting to leave stuff with me, I don't mind the immediate neighbours but one guy wanted to leave a parcel for someone on the main road 100 yards away, he must have gone along looking for a house that looked like it had someone home.
 
Saul Goodman said:
It depends how you look at it. A common or garden postman delivers most of my stuff from Amazon, and he's here most days anyway, so he might as well drop off something from Amazon while he's at it.
And he does get a bottle of whiskey for his troubles.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I’m looking at it from the POV of Amazon delivering. If it’s a postie then I see your point.
 
Fucking great - the van takes about 20 times of turning the key in the ignition to start :facepalm:

I’ve managed to get it running but I’ve got half a route still to go - rang office and waiting for them to get bk to me. Clearly I can’t complete the route as there’s a strong chance it won’t start again if I take keys out to do a delivery - so either parcels go bk to Amazon or they get drivers to come out and take them off me.

Luckily my amazing gf has already called Ford for recovery at my home and they’ll be providing me with a courtesy van:):):):)

My vans warranty expires in June - so I think I’ll pay to extend it.
 
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