Elbow Grease
Jayden White is currently employed as a delivery person for the food delivery app Uber Eats. After spending a shift shadowing Jayden on his deliveries, we sat down to talk about his experiences. The following quotes are excerpts from our conversation.
“That day you caught me, I was actually outside for like two and half hours with no order. Yeah. So, you know, that could really get kind of like, I guess you could say, depressing, discouraging.”
“I had to learn, drive like [cars], and they leave you alone… You saw I was going between cars, I'll cut them off, just drive like them and they'll respect it all the time. But yeah, I almost get run over like a hundred times a day.”
“Yeah, when the weather's nice, it's like, I don't know, it gives me a sense of not just freedom but some air. Like, I feel like nothing could stop me. I feel like nobody could control me because, again, I'm working for myself. Don't get it twisted, there’s times I get tired of it. Like, I'm not in the mood to deliver.”
“It is so fucking hard to work in the cold. Hard. Like, when I tell you—and I'm telling you—they may be bundled up, but they can't feel their hands and their feet, and they work 14 hours straight.”
“If we need money, I'll just hop back on my bike for another hour or two, even if I'm already home and just did 20 hours. I don't care. I'll just hop back on.”
“I don't know, I just feel like a lot of people should have more respect for drivers in general—not me specifically—but a lot of them really do work hard. A lot of them actually come here; they leave their families. You have to think about that. Like, they leave their families. Sometimes a lot of them have kids back in their country. They leave their families to come here and work, to better their whole family. Who's doing that? Who the fuck is leaving their whole family to come work to make sure that they're good for the next few years? And that shit is heartbreaking.”
“The guy who lives next door to me in the next building, he works 14 hours straight, and I have so much respect for him. But that's also because he got kids… You're already going through hardships, you don't speak English, you're going through all this toughness in the world just so you can live that 'American dream' and do right for your people, and all you do is get pissed on. That shit is aggravating.”
