Have you ever ask yourself who are the people behind the success of every single successful sale and deliveries?
If there’s one thing this past year has taught us, it’s how important food and parcel delivery workers are. From bringing your favourite “tapao” right to your door to delivering your whole cart of online shopping, they’ve always got your back.
Nowadays, you may see a lot of parcel and food delivery vehicles on the road, or may hear their honking sound next door at your neighbor’s on your home street. Mostly travel on motorcycles with boxes, driving under the scorching sun and through horrendous traffic, but being in a light vehicle makes it easier and faster for them to travel.
Those struggles a delivery guy faces are real! From irate customers to long hurdling working hours, and that’s not all.
The fast pace demands and minimum protection may sometimes put them at risk. They need to constantly checking their phones to ensure that the packages are delivered to the correct addresses, and at the same time, to contact the receiver. This is another level of multitasking! To ensure that their delivery quota are met, most of them had to work from as early as 7 in the morning until late night.
“My father has been working as a full-time delivery man since last year’s MCO, just to earn a living for our family. The struggles he faces every single day, including rude customers, long waiting, bad weather and traffic, I cannot imagine that he has to go through that every day.” said one of the netizens, whose father work as a food delivery rider.
Did you know that they could be fined if the seller or buyer reports a lost parcel? Even though sometimes it wasn’t really their fault?
“Some of the recipients who lives in condos told me to leave the parcel on the table at the lobby or guard house. Many times there’s a very high chance the parcel will go missing and they will report to the platform” said one of the delivery men from an online shopping platform.
The delivery guy could be slapped with RM 100 fine if someone reports missing parcel when one parcel they deliver only earn him RM2.
And due to their heavy workload and busy schedule, they cannot be waiting for you to slowly take your own sweet time to come down and grab your parcel. They would be stuck there undecided if they should keep on waiting or just risk it, leave it there and proceed with the next delivery.
It’s also crucial for them to handle deliveries with care, and they need to be careful with the boxes to ensure it doesn’t get damaged on the way. You wouldn’t want to deal with an irate consignee who discovers a damaged package.
The life of a deliveryman is too hard and risky. Braving through the heat, rain, roadblocks, virus, all for the sake of their customers. There’s always a valid reason for their tardiness. Their work is tough and not to be taken lightly.