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Comment by sleavey | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, a few motorbikes/bicycles temporarily waiting next to each other is not such a big deal to me in comparison to the fact that roughly half of every street in every big city in the UK is dedicated to parked cars. Putting aside the apparently shitty working conditions at gig economy companies like Deliveroo (which I dearly hope will be resolved with all the recent bad publicity around Uber and co), I like the idea of sharing the delivery services previously provided by individual restaurants between all. This is at least one positive aspect of the "sharing economy", which will hopefully also reduce the number of parked cars clogging up our roads.

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You say that Deliveroo has shitty working conditions and I probably don't disagree (I know nothing of them), but I'm a second year university student and I'm being pressured to find a job by my parents while I'm here; Deliveroo seems like my best bet at the moment with flexible hours; I probably wouldn't be making any more than minimum wage elsewhere anyway.

I hope that's some insight as to why it's attractive to some people. If you know anything more about Deliveroo or other places I could look for jobs I'd be grateful, as it would really aid my search.

As a side note, I despise the way it is called the "sharing economy"; it's no sharing at all, and I wish this term were reserved for ideas I regard as more noble, like the gift economy, or a model in which people chip in a certain amount to a shared product on a large scale (such as democratic management of the economy).

That's the crux of this whole gig economy debate - for some people, these kinds of jobs are ideal: zero hours contracts, with the ability to work more or less depending on what else is going on in your life.

That being said, some people take these jobs because they're the only ones they can get. I don't know your circumstances, so I'm going to guess here, but from what you write it sounds like you have the safety net of your parents if things go wrong. While you study you may also have access to a student loan and/or support from your parents mandated by law (let's not get into an argument about how crappy student loans are, but at least they're an income during your studies). Since you're attending university, I might guess you're at an age where you don't yet care about paying into a pension. Again - making wild assumptions here - but if you don't have kids, you probably don't care if your work-life balance is skewed heavily towards studying and earning, at the expense of sleep and general health.

For some others, though, their job is all they have, and "gig economy" jobs are the only ones they can get. This creates the perfect environment for exploitative working practices, where dodgy loopholes are used to underpay and overwork staff, who can be dropped at an instant if the company needs to save money or if workers start to complain about conditions.

If Deliveroo and other gigs were worked by students in their free time, I don't think this would be such an issue. The problem is that, increasingly, people without safety nets are joining these companies and working effectively full time, and no longer just for occasional "gigs" a few times a week. That, in my book, requires that they are given the same rights as any other full time workers: holidays, sick pay, pension contributions, grievance procedures and other benefits.

Companies like Uber and Deliveroo have become a full-time job of last resort for many people, even though they may have been intended only as part-time gigs. Isn't it technically society's fault, and not Deliveroo's or Uber's, that no other full-time employment exists?

People working in the gig economy deserve a safety net and also deserve better pay, but you can't solely blame Taskrabbit, Uber or Deliveroo for these issues.

That's true, I have my parents if things go wrong; the thing is that before I started university last year my parents convinced me not to get a student maintenance loan (i.e what pays for my living expenses and rent). Instead I get a sum of money at the start of each month and that's supposed to subsist for the utilities in the house where I live and any other expenses I have, except rent which my parents pay. I have no children or dependents nor do I pay any taxes.

It's also true that I don't need a job, but I'm being pressured to get one for the idea that my parents will at some point stop giving me money, and that I need something to put on my CV/resume (I don't think Deliveroo is all that impressive personally).

My other options are things like working in a fast food joint, or something like a cinema. But I don't know if I can do that and fit in my education at the same time plus have some free time to relax myself, play a video game or whatever. It's honestly worrying and I feel pushed into a corner by all this.

I was in a very similar situation to you a few years ago when I went to university. I had a summer job working in PC World before I started, and I was lucky enough to transfer to the shop in my university city. I worked Wednesday evenings for 4 hours (16:00 to 20:00) and Saturdays (09:00 to 18:00) which gave me 12 hours income a week at a little above minimum wage at the time, or about £300/month. Essentially, it paid my rent and my student loan could cover everything else. Later when I entered my honours year I dropped down to just Saturdays.

The job was shitty in the sense that you had to try to sell junk computers and software and insurance to unsuspecting people for what felt like long hours and not much money, but I feel like the experience was ultimately worth it in many ways. I gained a work ethic, having to get up and be on time, wash and iron a uniform and take responsibility. I learned what it was like to be someone working there full time (and how it can destroy your soul). Again, for some people these jobs are all they can get. I also learned about the attitude of the average member of the public, which I think has given me some small insight into recent election results. I've got 5 years experience in retail sales in a complicated field (not just selling coffee or clothes) to put on my CV, which shows to employers in my profession that I have actually had what some call a "real" job, and all the life experience that goes with it.

I think it's worth judging a sales/delivery/misc job at such an early stage in your career as beneficial life experience, instead of only trying to find something relevant to your future career (if you can find a job that has both, though, then great!).

Seems like you are interested in programming. Why don't you try some job in that lines, like an internship or if that's too early, some freelancing like in upwork?

If you feel you aren't ready for programming professionally, you can try taking up SEO, content writing etc..

I don't know which subject you are pursuing but it might give more weight to your CV.

Btw, if you think of doing your own startup at some time in the future, then try to gather as much of sales experience as possible, even doing a door to door sales. I really wished I had done that in my student days..

If you've got any experience or interest in programming, I'd recommend having a stab at Google Summer of Code[0].

[0] - https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/

  "Deliveroo seems like my best bet at the moment with flexible hours"
  "I probably wouldn't be making any more than minimum wage elsewhere"

I wonder - and I'd be interested to hear your experience in this - how in-demand you end up becoming. Do your available hours coincide with other students, in which case, is your time mostly spent sitting around waiting, competing with a number of other people for a small number of deliveries?

Do Deliveroo guarantee minimum wage for your time spent available, or do you effectively earn less than minimum wage, because you spend the majority of your time waiting for an order?

I can see why Deliveroo may appear attractive, but wonder whether the appeal might wear off once you have first-hand experience of their operation.

(Situation in Germany) It depends on whether you are driving for them as a self employed driver or an employee. As an employee you earn 9€/hour minimum, some get 10€/h .. tips are an extra of 0-5€/h .. you are required 60 hours minimum per month.

As a self employed rider you get 5.50€ per delivery, but have to pay health and social insurance yourself. Employees have to pay less than half of the total cost.

How much you sit around or compete with others depends on the shifts you take ..

It could be a pretty attractive job for someone that likes to take off-peak shifts and read or work on something else while having to do the occasional delivery in his home neighborhood.

It can get even nicer if one can log in from home. It does happen frequently, that no deliveries happen at all during shifts, so one really can focus on other projects while getting paid by deliveroo.

I honestly am surprised how deliveroo manages to keep the restaurants on board. They have to give more than 30% of the earnings to deliveroo, most restaurant owners are extremely annoyed and frustrated with the service and are already playing with the idea of pulling the plug again. Since recently deliveroo tries to force the cost for the paper bags onto the restaurants(13cents), which exacerbates the situation...

From an environmental perspective they are contributing to an enormous amount of garbage, the majority of containers are plastic and in the worst case styrofoam. As an example, riders sometimes have to drive by car for 5-8km because someone ordered a soup for 5€ (Plus 7€ to reach the minimum of 12€ and paid 2.90€ delivery fee on top of that).

This business model contributes to the convenience culture that we in the western world are celebrating and which is part-responsible for quite a few serious issues that we are now facing..

One thing deliveroo has going for them is that the people in charge are always very reasonable and friendly, treat their employees with respect and are quite forgiving. But I assume that this is simply because the whole system is very fragile and they know it. In my city there are always way too few drivers. It is apparent how desperately they need the drivers.

I was surprised to read about the funding, because i assumed the whole thing can't be sustainable in the long run.

They used to work on an hourly rate plus per delivery rate, which was most likely simply funded by VC capital and never sustainable, and they always intended to move to a per delivery rate. Legally in the UK, they have always claimed their riders are "self employed" meaning minimum wage laws don't apply.

They are now moving to a shift scheduling system which prevents too many riders being online competing for a low demand ("too many" being Deliveroo's definition, of course) and shifts that uncertainty to the riders, who have to log in at a specific time each week and try to book their desired shifts.

From what I've heard, they require you to accept a certain amount of shifts of certain types (like weekday afternoon shifts, or weekend night shifts which are the busiest) and they have a very excessive mandatory "equipment deposit charge".

It also looks like they're implementing a new scheduling system in a week, which will prevent there being too many riders active in an area, but that means they'll decide which riders get the first pick of the time slots they want.

As with any "sharing economy" company, expect to be "employed" on capricious and arbitrary terms. Go to some Deliveroo rider-specific web forums and you can understand a bit better.

Look into work-study opportunities on campus. You may be able to find a job which is connected to your major.

this can also be a really good opportunity to develop a relationship with interesting faculty.

i spent so much time in college working to cover living expenses I had to drop out. thats a pretty stupid result.

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