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Thursday, November 26, 2020, 11:42
Deliverymen ride hard road to dreams
By Yang Zekun
Thursday, November 26, 2020, 11:42 By Yang Zekun

The rise of e-commerce offers many job opportunities, but hours are long and life is often tough. Yang Zekun reports.

Couriers sort packages at a delivery station in Tongzhou district, Beijing, after the Double 11 online shopping day. (CAI DAIZHENG / FOR CHINA DAILY)

Running, fighting against time is what deliveryman Fu Wenqiang does every day. Time is money for the 30-year-old and the more parcels he delivers, the more money he earns.

When the alarm on his cellphone wakes Fu at 5:30 am every day, he drags his tired body out of bed to brush his teeth and wash. After that, he logs on to the food-delivery app he works for to receive orders.

My aim is clear: I want to make money. If I’d wanted a cozy life, I could have stayed at home, why would I have come here otherwise?

Fu Wenqiang, deliveryman who works in Beijing and lives in a 20-square-meter rented room in Changping district

A little later he rides his motorbike to restaurants in Beijing to collect food and deliver it to customers as a new day begins.

Fu is a full-time deliveryman for Eleme, an online food-ordering platform, in the capital. People like Fu are known as "riders", and they usually ride motorcycles or electric bikes and go through streets quickly to deliver goods promptly.

The role of delivery services in improving people's lives has been highlighted in recent years, especially since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Many people stayed home for months and most of their daily necessities, such as food and water, were ordered online and delivered by couriers. However, despite the efforts they made, some of the riders faced unpleasant and unfair treatment.

Earning target

Fu, from Qiqihar, Heilongjiang province, became a deliveryman in October 2018.

He rarely eats breakfast for fear of missing orders on the platform. He hasn't had a day off during his entire time as a deliveryman, and he is extremely busy on weekends and holidays because they are prime times for food-ordering platforms.

Deliveryman Fu Wenqiang. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

He has a daily earning target of 450 yuan (US$68). If he fails, he does his best to make up the shortfall the next day. He earns about 5 yuan for each delivery, and during summer he gets a bonus of 1 or 2 yuan per order to compensate for working in Beijing's stifling heat.

"I deliver about 80 orders a day, visiting different restaurants to collect the dishes, but none of them is for me. I sometimes dream about working at home and placing orders myself, but I still need to continue my current life," he said.

During summer, his face and arms are tanned dark brown from long exposure to the sun. He wears black-framed glasses, and in summer when he stops working at about 10 pm and heads home, they are covered with stains due to heavy sweating.

Fu's dinner is simple: two packs of instant noodles, two steamed buns and two eggs. To save money, he eats a 10 yuan instant meal at a fixed food stand for lunch every day.

Between 2016 and 2018, the number of couriers in China rose by 50 percent, with the total exceeding 3 million. Many had heavy workloads and little rest, with more than 80 percent working more than eight hours a day, according to a survey of express delivery workers conducted last year and published by China Post and Express News in January.

About 75 percent of express workers earned less than 5,000 yuan a month and only 0.73 percent of front-line delivery personnel made more than 10,000 yuan, it said.

To conquer fatigue, Fu smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. They cost 8 yuan, but they keep him awake. Every time he feels tired or has no orders, he lights a cigarette. He said smoking is a significant support throughout the long day.

When he first started delivering goods, Fu navigated via a map on the company's app. He arrived at the wrong address several times, a common problem among new deliverymen, so he had to apologize to clients. Fortunately, no one registered a complaint, which saved him hundreds of yuan in fines. Some of his peers have not been so lucky.

Fu arrived back in Beijing in April after spending Spring Festival in his hometown. It was about two months later than last year as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Despite his fear of contracting the novel coronavirus, he worked as he didn't want to waste time and compromise his plan of buying a home near relatives in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

"At that time, deliverymen were the people most commonly seen on the streets. People bought almost everything online, so we needed to complete the deliveries. Although I was afraid of the virus, I received many orders," he said.

A courier places set meals in insulated boxes before delivering them in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, on June 11. (YANG LEI / XINHUA)

Lack of respect

Yu Tao, a rider for Tiantian Express, has worked in the sector for more than six years. After Spring Festival, he came back to Beijing in February, just as people began to understand the threat posed by the disease.

The 35-year-old from Tai'an, Shandong province, is responsible for collecting and delivering parcels to four communities. From 7 am to 6:30 pm every day, he deals with nearly 200 packages. The express station where he works usually has 12 employees, but only eight worked from February to April because the others were quarantined at home.

In early May, Yu and his peers were allowed to enter communities again. Before that, they had to avoid close contact with people by waiting outside for clients to collect their parcels, which effectively tripled delivery times.

"I had to ask clients' permission to put packages in designated places outside the community, but if any parcels went missing I received complaints and was fined," Yu said.

He recalled an experience in May when a client wanted him to take a package directly to the front door. When Yu arrived and knocked on the door, nobody answered. He heard people talking inside so he knocked several times.

After waiting 10 minutes, he called the client and told him he would store the package for him because he had hundreds of other items to deliver. Yu stowed the package and sent the withdrawal code to the client, but about five minutes later, he received a complaint.

"It wasn't my first complaint, but it was the first time I had met this kind of client. They have the right to complain about problems, but they shouldn't do so without a proper reason. Some clients are quite bossy and feel they are superior, but they should show us understanding and respect," he said.

Staff members sort packages at a warehouse in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on June 3. (LIU XIAO / XINHUA)

Skills

Cao Shaogang, from Xiaogan, Hubei province, manages a delivery station for Yuantong Express. He has been in the industry for more than eight years.

Following Spring Festival, the 44-year-old returned to Beijing in early April as the epidemic situation in his hometown eased.

His station has 47 employees, who handle more than 10,000 packages every day. Those responsible for unloading packages from trucks get up at 4 am, while Cao and other colleagues get up at 6 am to disinfect the working area and packages, and then sort the items.

After most of the employees leave at 8:30 pm, Cao still has to check if any packages remain and whether the station has been cleaned thoroughly.

"The number of packages is smaller than at the height of the epidemic, so we can take a one-hour break at lunchtime, which helps us ease our tiredness and avoid the high temperatures (in summer)," Cao said.

In July, the China Employment Training and Technical Guidance Center released a list of 100 occupations that had labor shortages in the second quarter: store assistants, couriers and waiters topped the list.

Cao said many people born in the 1980s and '90s don't like express delivery and collection work because it is hard and tiring, while those age 45 and older often lack the required skills.

"We need employees to be skilled at using smartphone apps and dealing promptly with problems raised by customers-if not, they may be subject to complaints and fines," he said.

Cao earns more than 6,000 yuan a month. His company provides free food and a dormitory, so he saves every penny he can and sends the money to his family back home.

Before his current job, Cao drove trucks for a company and also ran his own business. He doesn't want to transfer to another sector because he believes the express delivery industry will receive a boost in the near future.

The development of e-commerce in China has seen online consumption rise. Moreover, as an essential part of online shopping, the delivery industry has grown rapidly to become part of people's daily lives.

According to the State Post Bureau, the average growth rate of express delivery was 22.5 percent in the first half, almost the same as last year, as companies provided services to over 370 million customers per day.

Online retail sales, supported by express deliveries, accounted for about 25 percent of total retail sales of consumer goods in the same period.

People collect their orders from a delivery tricycle in Beijing. (FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY)

Ambition

Yu earns about 8,000 yuan a month. About 3,000 yuan of that goes on daily expenses, but the figure can rise to 5,000 yuan during summer as he has to buy more water and soft drinks, and extra use of his air conditioner means his electricity bill rises.

He has lived alone in Beijing for several years. His parents call him every week and, apart from his health and work, marriage is their main talking point.

Although he doesn't want to let his parents down, Yu has no plans to get married. That drives them crazy, because most Chinese parents expect their son to be married and have a stable job by the age of 30.

Yu does not have the burden of saving to buy a home or get married.

Before, he worked on construction sites and installed home appliances. The delivery job is the longest one he has had, as he hates the restrictions imposed by other work.

Now, all he has to do is to get to work on time and complete his daily tasks. He wants to start his own business, so he is happy to work in the sector and accumulate capital.

Fu, the rider from Heilongjiang, worked in a coal mine in Shanxi province for four years. It was tiring and dangerous, and he worked at night, earning 130 yuan per shift.

He witnessed accidental deaths and injuries among colleagues, which changed his career path. One of his colleagues lost an eye in an accident, but was awarded compensation of just 100,000 yuan.

"He was only in his 20s, and from a poor family. The injury ruined his life, and money cannot make up for that. After realizing the possible danger in the work, I headed to Beijing to seek a new career. My aim is clear: I want to make money. If I'd wanted a cozy life, I could have stayed at home, why would I have come here otherwise?" he said.

Fu lives in a 20-square-meter room in Changping district, paying 600 yuan rent per month. He controls his budget rigorously, spending less than 100 yuan a day on things such as food, cigarettes and gas for his motorbike. He can usually save 8,000 yuan per month.

He wants to buy a home and get married. Owning a house or apartment is usually a precondition for a man to marry in China.

Fu plans to save about 150,000 yuan for the down payment on a two-room home in Inner Mongolia, where some of his uncles live. His father died about 10 years ago, so his mother is the only family member still living in Heilongjiang.

Eventually, he wants his mom to live with him and his future wife.

"My mother can visit my uncles and chat with their families, so she won't feel bored or lonely. Also, buying a home is much cheaper there than in Beijing. I could never afford my own place in Beijing. I want to get married, and I will work hard to repay the loan I will need to buy my own home," he said.

Contact the writer at yangzekun@chinadaily.com.cn


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