Luo Yi/Wen "A delivery machine with an hourly wage of 30 yuan"
Every day, more than 350 million parcels are on their way to other parts of the country. The average daily handling volume of China's express delivery industry has exceeded 700 million, ranking first in the world for ten consecutive years. In the first two months of 2024, China's express business volume increased by about 23.7% year-on-year, and business revenue increased by about 13.5% year-on-year. Behind these impressive figures is the hard work of 4.9 million courier workers.
Hu worked as a courier in Beijing from April 2018 to November 2019. At that time, he probably never imagined that he would become a best-selling author with the title "I Deliver Couriers in Beijing." This job as a courier is actually Juan's 18th job. Prior to that, he had a variety of work experiences, including picking goods at a logistics company, working as a waitress in a hotel, working at a gas station, working in a fast-food chain and delicatessen, and even branching out into the comics industry, working as an apprentice in a comic club and an art editor for an anime information magazine. Some of these jobs lasted only a few months, and the longest jobs lasted for two and a half years.
In all the jobs he has done, he once thought that the picker was the hardest. In the year when the logistics company picked goods at night, he had to work a 12-hour night shift every day and night, carrying goods all night without eating. This intense work has led to a noticeable decrease in his emotional control, sluggish reflexes, and a decline in his memory. However, when Juan switched careers to become a courier, he found that he had stopped feeling hard for more than a year. He described himself as having fully adapted to this high-intensity work rhythm, completely becoming "a delivery machine with a salary of 30 yuan per hour", and "angry and angry" when he failed to reach the rated output value.
Professor Zhang Yangbo of the Department of Sociology of Wuhan University once went deep into the grassroots express delivery site in a city in central China in 1998 to conduct field research. He noted that whether it is the idea of focusing on improving logistics network technology in logistics management science, or the analytical framework of economics dedicated to innovating express delivery models, or the in-depth theoretical discussion of labor processes in sociology, each perspective has its own uniqueness and limitations. None of these perspectives can independently provide a comprehensive answer to explain: how do couriers perform their tasks in the "last mile" of courier services? In the process of receiving and delivering express mail, what kind of operating mechanism is hidden? Further, how do actors effectively accomplish their tasks in the face of the constraints and uncertain risks of the formal system?
Couriers and food delivery workers who work and live in the same area as Hu Anyan earn an average of about 7,000 yuan a month if their wages do not include room and board. If incomes fall below this level, the workforce may move to other regions or switch to other occupations. In fact, the cost of living and the intensity of work in Beijing determine the formation of this market. According to the calculation of 26 working days per month, the monthly salary of 7,000 yuan for couriers is equivalent to 270 yuan per day. During their 11-hour working day, one hour is spent arriving at the station for unloading, sorting and loading, and another hour is spent on the way to the various communities. Excluding the "fixed cost" of the two hours, in the remaining nine hours for delivery, Hu Anyan calculated that he had to generate 30 yuan per hour, an average of 0.5 yuan per minute – this is the cost of his time. He earns an average of 2 yuan per express delivery, in other words, in order not to lose money, he cannot deliver each express for more than 4 minutes, otherwise he may need to consider changing jobs.
Hu Anyan had to look at time from a purely economic point of view, from a cost point of view. Because it is worth 0.5 yuan per minute, even if the public toilet is free, the cost of urinating for two minutes must be counted as 1 yuan, and it takes 20 minutes to eat lunch, which is 10 yuan when converted into time, and the price of a rice bowl is 15 yuan, which adds up to 25 yuan, "This is too extravagant for me!" ”。 His "rational" choice as a courier is to skip lunch often and drink as little water as possible to reduce going to the toilet.
But there are more situations in this job that he has no control over as a courier, especially as "about half of the homes are empty during the day on weekdays". Even if the courier only spends one minute making a phone call and spends 0.1 yuan on the phone, he pays 0.5 yuan for the time cost; if the recipient asks to put the express mail in the express cabinet, the courier pays more time cost, and the courier charges 0.4 yuan on average for putting an express mail in the express cabinet, "I will lose money on this transaction." If the recipient asks for another delivery to their home, the courier will lose even more – extra phone costs, airtime costs, and double the amount of labor time.
What's even worse is that if the phone is not answered, waiting for a minute in vain is equivalent to wasting 0.5 yuan. Some calls are still difficult to hang up after getting through, customers are indomitable to put forward a variety of difficult to meet the requirements, after the phone call has spent time cost has exceeded the delivery fee, but the express mail has not been sent out at all.
Hu Anyan believes that no one likes to deliver couriers from the bottom of their hearts. It's only when wages are paid, not when customers show expressions of gratitude or verbal expressions of gratitude, that "I feel like my work is worth it." So much so that when customers criticize and complain, "It's really not good for you to work like this, the customer is God, don't you understand?" Juan Yan instinctively defended himself: "But there should be only one God, and I have to serve many of them every day." ”
"The fish of the deep sea are blind,
The animals in the desert are very thirsty."
In the book "Familiar Strangers", Zhang Yangbo adopts the method of writing hidden relationships, and one by one "couriers with blurred faces" are presented. He sorted out the various ideal characteristics of the courier, such as "rational but warm, principled but flexible, reasonable planning of routes, appropriate softening of service contracts according to familiarity with customers, and negotiation and settlement with customers as soon as possible in the event of damage to the shipment, delay in the delivery of the parcel or loss of the parcel".
There is a certain gap between the real life of couriers and their ideals. In practice, negotiations with customers are often challenging, and compensation issues have become almost the norm for couriers. For example, a delivery boy drove a tricycle too fast in the community and caused the vehicle to roll over in order to avoid a pregnant woman. In order to repair the damaged front windshield and compensate, the courier brother had to pay nearly 2,000 yuan, which also made him immediately decide to resign, "The fright may not be less than that of the pregnant woman."
Hu Anyan also heard of a huge and bizarre compensation case: a courier accidentally damaged a water pipe joint when he stuffed a shipment into a fire hydrant, causing water to gush out and pour into the elevator shaft, causing damage to the motor, and finally had to pay 30,000 yuan in compensation. Therefore, couriers often laugh at themselves in private: "Do more and pay more, do less and pay less, and don't do it and don't pay".
There was also a courier who was annoyed by the driver of an Audi sedan behind him one day on the road, so he took out an iron rod and completely smashed the front cover and windshield of the Audi. In retrospect, he himself had a similar impulse more than once, "like a steel cable that bounces back frantically after it is broken, desperately reversing the pressure behind it and venting its dissatisfaction with the world."
There is also a zero-sum game between couriers and co-workers – "it's either you or me, it's impossible for everyone to be good". The delivery fee for each express is uniform, but some communities are easy to deliver, and some communities are not easy to deliver. The newcomers in the group are all sent from the most difficult community, and they don't care much when they first arrive, but they will gradually realize the injustice. Everyone can only line up, and everyone is boiling. If there is no improvement, someone will leave. In the end, the people who get the good delivery community will stay, and the bad community will let the newcomers send it, "so half of the people in the group can't move, and the other half of the people keep changing."
There are also inconsistencies and even conflicts of interest between couriers, online stores, and companies. The first express company that Hu Anyan joined in Beijing has a good reputation in the eyes of outsiders, and can be called "Haidilao in the express delivery industry". However, this kind of quality service is built on the basis of high costs and high fees. Supervisors often ask employees to offer to help customers take away the garbage when they deliver parts, and also ask customers to give five-star reviews, and then reward and punish them according to the number of good reviews in the online store.
In addition to the morning meeting, the courier also has to attend two or three times a week for an hour or two of the party, "no subsidies, no benefits, just training", usually until 11 or 2 o'clock in the evening. Most customer service will punish the courier when the customer complains. This kind of excesses and "unfair, unfriendly, and inhumane rules and conditions that I don't agree with but have to accept" make it difficult for the introverted Hu Anyan to adapt.
Hu Anyan found that what kind of person he becomes is largely determined by the environment in which he lives, rather than by the so-called human nature, "just as the fish in the deep sea are blind, and the animals in the desert are thirsty." The second courier company he joined in Beijing ended its operations at the end of 2019, and all the more than 40,000 couriers across the country were dismissed. In the last few days, as the pressure of work was all gone, and the rush of work was no longer there, Juanyan began to look at the job from a new perspective without purpose. "It turns out that as long as I don't care about my own productivity, that is, I don't care about the pay-for-return ratio, then almost all of my customers are very easy to get along with and know how to smile at me." Correspondingly, Juan Yan also found that most of his feelings became more positive, positive, and beautiful, and he became gentler, more plain, and more patient. This may explain that when forced to work, "I am easily irritable, resentful, grumbling, and always unjustly perceive the clients I serve every day as more selfish, unreasonable, and insatiable than they really are."
When Hu Anyan sent a WeChat circle of friends that was only visible to customers, many customers left messages praising his service attitude and thanking him for his previous efforts. One of the customers said, "You're the most conscientious and responsible courier I've ever met." So, he thought to sum up the experience of delivering couriers in Beijing in a sentence that is not an exaggeration: I have done better than all the couriers that some customers have ever met.
"The last mile"
"There is no area that is good to send, as long as the customer answers the phone, it is easy to deliver" "The courier is most afraid that the customer does not answer the phone, does not answer the phone, I dare not go, but I can't wait to die" "Send the express mail as much as possible not to go back, you don't just walk away and someone comes to send" "Just do this express mail for 20 minutes, how do you say to be happy?" ”…… The feedback collected by Zhang Yangbo from these couriers during his fieldwork is no different from Hu Anyan's personal experience and feelings.
Compared with the three major problems of the extremely fierce competition within the express delivery industry, the heavy load of front-line couriers receiving and delivering express mail every day, and the civilized sorting system formulated by express delivery companies are often mere formalities, the "last mile" of running a good express delivery is actually the most urgent task for the express delivery companies at present - due to the uncertainty of the customer's location and the complex and changeable delivery conditions, the "last mile" has become the most difficult section of express delivery.
At present, with the help of mobile Internet technology, express delivery companies have promoted the self-pickup mode of smart express cabinets in large and medium-sized urban residential areas in a large area, so as to effectively avoid the time difference between couriers and customers handing over express delivery. However, from an economic point of view, the landing of smart express cabinet self-pickup needs to fully consider the distribution of local customers, concentration and express business volume in the region, and cannot be simply replicated and promoted in any region. On the other hand, if it is necessary to continue to develop the innovative distribution model at the end of the express delivery service, the profit model of the express cabinet operation must gradually shift from the past to the development of community service platform and upward integration from the past to the courier fee-based, supplemented by advertising revenue. In addition, the Cainiao Station, which is based on the electronic and all-round monitoring of express handover, has become an important interface for the "last 100 meters" of express delivery of various express companies, realizing the connection of delivery ends and providing another solution.
In Zhang Yangbo's view, in addition to science and technology, the "acquaintance relationship" generated by couriers through long-term interactions with customers in their region is the key word to solve the "last mile" collection and delivery problem. When a courier receives and delivers a shipment, he is faced with both a formal service contract and real-world conditions. Couriers have to develop three modes of conventional paths, exception paths and circular paths to optimize the path, and often through the establishment of informal relationships, acquaintance relationships, etc., to appropriately soften the relevant terms of the formal service contract, and entrust part of the express labor to the customer in the formal collection link, so as to achieve improvisation, optimize the process, improve efficiency, reduce costs, and avoid risks. Zhang Yangbo referred to this behavior of the courier as "softening of service contract constraints", that is, Party C (courier) changed the formal service contract with Party A (the courier company) and reached a new contractual arrangement with Party B (the customer).
In an ideal, well-conditioned scenario, where customers are relatively concentrated and determined, the reality is often incomplete – customers are relatively dispersed and uncertain presence. In the case of complete conditions, the courier can take the form of formal delivery (face-to-face delivery of the express mail and complete the customer's face-to-face signing), which not only ensures the delivery timeliness, but also controls the delivery risk; In the case of incomplete conditions, if the courier complies with the provisions of the contract, he will not be able to deliver the express mail, which prompts them to develop reverse delivery (the customer goes to a designated location to find the courier to pick up the package), virtual delivery (the customer later picks up the parcel at a safe location such as the property designated by the customer), managed delivery (the courier cooperates with the third party by directly giving profits to a third party such as a post station or convenience store to assist in the custody and/or delivery of the express mail) and escrow delivery (the courier indirectly gives profits to a third party to help deliver the express mail. The third party is not liable for the loss of the shipment because it does not receive a commission).
The latter four delivery modes overcome the problem of the customer's absence, and the acquaintance relationship between the courier and the customer is formed. To a certain extent, it can effectively resolve customer complaints caused by risks such as delayed delivery of express mail, damaged or lost express mail. Similarly, when the customer is not present, the courier has to develop four modes of receiving the shipment: reverse collection, virtual collection, escrow collection and escrow collection. The acquaintance relationship between the courier and the customer can not only transfer part of the labor such as filling in the form, packaging, and online payment for the customer to complete by reaching a tacit understanding with the customer, but also effectively reduce the customer complaints that may be caused by poor communication during real-name authentication and unpacking inspection. The keyword "acquaintance" helped us answer more questions. For example, in response to the question "Why are most of the couriers who leave their jobs junior employees?" Hu Anyan's answer to this question "Hello or I" actually stems from the evolutionary equilibrium perspective of zero-sum game, while Zhang Yangbo gave a different answer: if a novice can't do "familiar roads", "acquaintances" and "familiar things" after a few months of entry, it means that he has not fully figured out the trick of receiving and dispatching express mail, has not yet learned to properly soften the service contract with the tacit consent of the customer, and still receives and dispatches express mail in accordance with the formal regulations, and the working hours and work intensity cannot be continuously reduced with the learning curve. Earnings are not improving, and resignation is inevitable.
A robot in a race against time
"Couriers are far more time-sensitive than most customers...... 1 minute may be 5 minutes for a courier. Many customers will have this experience when dealing with couriers: it is only a matter of minutes, but the courier says that they have waited for a long time. Zhang Yangbo's summary of the couriers' concept of time in the book coincides with Hu Anyan's personal experience.
In China, 84 million new forms of employment, including couriers, food delivery workers, and ride-hailing drivers, account for nearly 21% of the total number of workers. The new form of employment has a low entry threshold, high work flexibility and autonomy, but according to the main goal of "the relevant system and mechanism for the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of the courier group is basically sound" established by the Ministry of Transport, the State Post Bureau and other departments, we still have a lot of work and tasks to complete in terms of benefit distribution, labor remuneration, social insurance, working environment, enterprise responsibility, standardized management, network stability, career development, etc. As Hu Anyan wrote: "In order to achieve the growth of the overall good, there will always be some people who have to temporarily give up their dignity and rights." ”
According to the International Labour Organization, 60%-75% of new jobs in the global economy over the past three decades have come from precarious, informal, fragile employment and the gig economy. Over the next decade, vulnerable employment and gig economy groups are expected to grow at an average annual rate of more than 14%. As the share of labor in the U.S. national income continues to fall to its lowest level since the Great Depression (58%), the wages of workers without higher education continue to fall, meaning that they have fewer job options within their skills and have to compete for low-skilled jobs.
How to race against time in vicious competition? Through the planning of technology and algorithms, large enterprises have made these workers almost part of the machine system.
Amazon, for example, has more than 750,000 robots deployed in its global warehouse and fulfillment network, and that number is growing by about a thousand every day. When the slogan "Work hard, have fun, make history" is written on the wall of the warehouse, every move of Amazon workers is tracked by sensors, and the route of the order is re-planned and optimized by the algorithm system. Paradoxically, technological innovation still can't get Amazon out of the flexible human labor force, "technology is important, but it is not omnipotent, and the manual work and repetitive work of the warehouse still need a large number of workers to complete." And exhausted workers can only choose to launch "We are not robots" protests on "Black Friday", the peak of sales throughout the year.
It's not just Amazon's front-line workers who are stuck in the algorithm, but managers are constrained at every turn. According to a Bloomberg report, Amazon warehouse managers are sometimes nothing more than "a face hiding behind a computer." One manager at the Oregon warehouse complained that he had little "rest" — after a 12-hour shift, he occasionally took a nap in his car so he wouldn't be too sleepy to drive home.
Work autonomy refers to the right of workers to control their own time and activities, including who decides the pace of work, working hours, workplaces, and who maintains discretion over the work they undertake, but this can give them a "false sense of freedom". When researching delivery riders in Europe, Phoebe Moore, a professor at the University of Leicester, and Jamie Woodcock, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex, found that the app controls the labor process finely by managing orders and estimated delivery times, and deliberately minimizes the rider's discretion so that the rider becomes a screw that can be replaced at any time. Interestingly, some of the delivery riders, who are also flexible workers, see themselves as "just a point of tracking on the platform" rather than a real person, but miss a certain social intimacy in their early days working in the delivery service industry: "Working in many delivery companies has taught me that relationships are extremely important. ”
The dazzling changes of the times, the rapid technological progress, and the logic of competition in all spheres of social life place unequal and unbalanced pressures on individuals, groups, and generations. When we witness couriers maneuvering with customers, negotiating with companies, entangled with capital, coexisting with algorithms, wrestling with efficiency, and reconciling with life, we may forget that we are still being overwhelmed by the system, and that work should only be a means of survival, not the purpose of life: "The so-called freedom is actually about what you can be aware of, not what you enjoy." ”