Episode #153 B-side: Jeff's Journey: From DoorDash Driver to Gig Economy Critic

Jeffs Links:
1) "Full Dashclosure, Awakening from the human exploitation of DoorDash Singularity,” on Substack: https://jeffthomasblack.substack.com
2) "The Full Dashclosure Audiobook & Podcast," on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
3) Twitter: @LRBitisnot
4) YouTube:    / @jeffthomasblack 

Have you ever wondered what it's like to work in the gig economy? Welcome to our latest podcast episode where we dive into the raw, unfiltered realities of gig work with our insightful guest, Jeff. Starting his journey as a DoorDash driver during the pandemic, Jeff's story takes us through the challenges and triumphs of navigating the gig economy in small towns. His experiences shed light on the fluctuating earnings, the hidden expenses, and the looming uncertainty that characterize this new world of work.


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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

the next episode of the day. Hi guys, welcome to the gig economy podcast. Thank you so much for joining us a day late, I see.

Speaker 1: 0:09

Yes, already threw me under the bus that of course of us technically it was my fault lost some power and of course I didn't think about hey, jesper, can you go ahead? And you know, make sure that you that intro is way too long, I gotta get back to you so well, I didn't even know I could reschedule it like right from stream yard. I was able to change the date and time because I hadn't gone live yet there we go. I was pretty excited about that and thank you, jeff.

Speaker 3: 0:41

So much for uh rescheduling I appreciate that my, my pleasure, summer is all about flexibility and fun. So, yeah, yeah, it will be. It will be fun and flexible. In fact, flexibility seems to be the reason for the gig economy, so we must be ready to get started.

Speaker 2: 0:57

I'm gonna be a big winner.

Speaker 1: 0:59

It's a pro.

Speaker 3: 0:59

here it's a pro.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Yeah, we've been doing this a little too long. Uh, as everyone knows, on the opposite Wednesdays of the new show we interview a gig creator or a gig worker today is a gig creator.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Well, actually the creators are usually gig workers too, so it's kind of like both. So that's called the B side. So we have Jeff. Well, I know absolutely 100% nothing about that. I'm very prepared. So I know Jeff has written a book. But before we get into that, let's talk about your gig life, what you do if it's a full time gig, part time gig, what's your main gig and when you started all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:38

Okay, so, um, we can say past tense, because since I've intensively been researching DoorDash, um, after the end of my gig economy career I could not possibly get into that. So, so there will never be another one. But my, uh, my start in the gig economy came almost exactly three years ago. All, right. Uh, we were during the pandemic and there was no work there were. Most of the stores were not open. Yet, you know, going to the store felt like going somewhere to the to the moon, maybe you know.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:16

So, uh, you know, it was a relief just to get the hell out of the way. Um, I had to get myself a little bit of freedom while while we had so little freedom, that was good too. So I started doing that pretty much, uh, you know, full time. In fact, when I started, I think I knocked off like 21 days in a row from from my first dash, because that was just well, literally hungry, right, literal hunger, not metaphorical hunger. So, uh, I did that and I realized I was, like, you know, kind of what I rarely talk about, which is what it was that really like dashing.

Speaker 3: 2:58

So I started dashing in a town, uh, that I was actually born in called Salem, oregon, and Salem is a fairly small town. Um, it's, you know, a couple hundred thousand people. It's the state capital of Oregon, it's it's fairly conservative, lots of state workers, um, the whole Willamette Valley where we live in, the state of the valley Okay, that supports most of Oregon with its, uh, with its economics and and Paul's viewers. Now, in Salem there happens to be the Willamette River that runs through the town and there is one bridge. There was a bridge, one bridge when I was born and there's one bridge now, that was 55 years ago. So delivering Doordash in Salem is a gigantic pain in the ass. You just can't get across the town. You can't get across the town, you can't get, maybe even for a few days, and I just went holy crap, if this is the way it's working, like this is. This is the apocalypse.

Speaker 3: 4:00

So I headed. So I headed about 20 miles north to a little town that is filled with Hispanic migrant laborers, uh, old believer, russian immigrants and retired people. Now, that's a heck of a combination. Right now, there's a lot of immigrant labor and then, uh, a huge, huge community of Russian old believers. Okay, so, yeah, there's three languages on the firetrucks. I learned while I was driving around there there's Russian, there's English and there's Spanish on the firetrucks. Now, that's pretty cool. I don't know what city you go to, where you get Russian and Spanish on the firetrucks.

Speaker 3: 4:38

Oh, it turned out right. This is a. This is a small town, gosh, you know, 50,000 people may be in this in this central area with a few small towns around it. So I realized this was easy pickings. They got the big outlet center that's got restaurants and everything that's right on the big freeway between Salem and Portland the big, you know, the big city in the state. And then on the other side of town they've got the, you know the more Hispanic old woodburn that has a cluster of, you know the other McDonald's, the, the other McDonald's right, there's one, oh, wow, One side of town, there's the other, or between the McDonald's. So they got the typical, the typical fast food yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:24

Yeah, and Wendy's and so forth, yeah, and the good pizza places were kind of running north, south from from that. So you kind of got, I mean you've got a nice little grid right. You start on one side, you go to the other side and then you can go up and down for pizza and to deliver to the communities. So you know, I was a newbie but I figured out real quick, right, that if, if driving, if you can't drive, there's no hope, right, and and and for Salem. I just thought that was, it was just, it was just horrific.

Speaker 3: 5:53

And and all the deliveries, because Salem doesn't really have a, you know, a populist part of town. It's everywhere. You don't know what direction you're going or how many miles out that direction you're going. It's a nightmare. So in woodburn I actually moved up there. I thought, well, you know, first of all I spent a few months because I was living in Salem, driving back, crashing and then commuting another half hour home. But again, compared to doing Salem, that was a party. I was fine, right, because I was dashed in like 10, 12 hours a day.

Speaker 2: 6:26

Oh, okay, I would get there.

Speaker 3: 6:29

I'm a hard worker, I'm an old guy, right we don't? I mean, come on, I started working when I was nine years old man yeah, dordache did not throw me, right, yeah. So so I learned that this was pretty cool because I could really chill out, man, I mean, there's no traffic jams I, you know, get out and sit in the Sun by the outlet mall. I subscribed to Panera ship for their coffee plans.

Speaker 3: 6:56

Oh yeah they're all day long and drink coffee. I was hopped up on goofballs more than anybody could be, so you know, I mean it was going and it was such. You know, desperation is so interesting, right yeah, when you're desperate, it's amazing the things that you can do.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3: 7:14

So that desperation, you know, waned over time to the point where I just, I like, hit that, I think, right around the holidays of 2021. I Hit the wall. Man, I had just been going to you and I just and you know I've been doing, you know, 20 day runs in a row, that kind of thing Because my kids are grown right, they weren't in school, they weren't living with me during the pandemic and so and I'm a single guy, so that. So there's just me, right, and you know I, like many other drivers, because I had a flexible personal schedule, I could have a flexible or, you know, highly manic work schedule, either one, however you want to describe that.

Speaker 3: 7:57

Yeah, so I really burned out and I just crashed and I think I went, I think I laid in my house in my bed for about three weeks over the holidays and I just couldn't do anything. I think I made like 400 bucks on Christmas Eve or something and I just that was it, man, I didn't drag, I didn't dash for another like three weeks and I, you know, and I didn't want to ever do it again, but I did, yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:17

I got back to it, did it again for another few months, kind of figured out some more ways to do it.

Speaker 3: 8:23

I kind of dipped up into the metropolitan area of Portland, beaverton, into the Beaverton area, which is a very populous suburb, and so it gave me just kind of another I don't know, maybe maybe just another view of the world, just for a burnout, driving the same routes back and forth in a small town, sure. So it gave me something else to look at and I kind of bounced back and forth between small towns and then sometimes I go to Beaverton if it was really just dead, and I thought, you know, I could make some money. So that kind of ran its course to the point where, where I needed a break and and a friend of mine, an elderly friend of mine, needed help in Washington, and so I said, hey, I'll come up and help you. She was moving into an assisted care facility. I needed somebody to help her for those last few weeks and get to the house, and so we've been close friends for a long time and I went up there to help and so I door, I door, dashed there and lived in Bellingham, washington.

Speaker 3: 9:21

So I've really done this a number of places, yeah that's that's northern Washington and, and if you guys know, zach drives fast, zach drives in Bellingham. Okay, that's, that's where he. That's his market. Now, bellingham's an interesting market. That's Western Washington University, it's a.

Speaker 3: 9:38

It's another college town, small college town, but definitely a college has right up there by the Canadian border. I mean you drive 15 minutes, you hit the Canadian border, so you're way, way, way, way up north of Washington. I mean your hour is north of Seattle. So that was really interesting. Right, it's on, it's right on the ocean. So there's there's lots of different small communities up and down there. There's, there's the major freeway, I five and so running up and down from those communities and down to Western Washington Was pretty much you know highway miles.

Speaker 3: 10:12

So that was an interesting you know Difference, because there was, you know you could do some pretty good highway miles, but do it fairly quickly. Yeah, it was. It was tough though, because there is a lake, there's neighborhoods you go up and so you could really get. You know, you could really struggle to get enough time in and the traffic was bad and it was. It was frustrating, it was very and I think at the same time and this is the, this is the double whammy we get. At the same time I think the door, dash peak of the pandemic, was waning.

Speaker 3: 10:51

Yeah, I think I was feeling both that and a new market. But you know, one of those things I learned and and if I, if I could say one good thing for door dash is that when you move to a new area, if you door dash for a few weeks, man, you're gonna know that town and so yeah, right, and and it's actually kind of. I don't want to encourage anybody to door dash, but it's actually kind of fun for the first few weeks because you see where all the neighborhoods are, you see where the people live, you see where the restaurants are. It's kind of like you get your own tour of of the city, of the merchant base of a city, and so so I did that up in Bellingham. I really it really wasn't great, it was. It was just kind of a survival thing on the side.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So that was. That was towards the end of your door. Dash career right. Well, I know you know?

Speaker 3: 11:37

no, I still got another year to go buddy.

Speaker 3: 11:40

Okay, oh yeah, I did this. So all together I calculated, though that over a 24 month period. So it's been almost exactly here since I did my last door dash. Out of a 24 month period, I think I worked 16 yeah, 16 months. So there was a number of times, like that Christmas of 2021 where I just crashed I couldn't even sure.

Speaker 3: 12:00

For three weeks or four weeks, right I actually in Bellingham I started to get Physical injury on my left hip because, getting in and out of my low sedan 100 times a day, go figure on a 55 year old body all of a sudden I found I couldn't hardly walk. So I thought, well, before I'm crippled, I might need to take a break a little bit. So I took a break a little bit the pandemic is open a little bit. So I drove down to Oregon and visited some family and I had an opportunity to do some nonprofit work in Indiana. So I moved to Bloomington, indiana for two years. Okay, hang For that. First year in Indiana, about six months of that, I door dash in Bloomington, indiana. That's another college town. It's not a huge college chance couple hundred thousand. It's south of Indianapolis and it doesn't have really any big cities around us you got to drive up to Indianapolis to hit a big city or your Cincinnati's are there and all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 12:55

So so what, what? What did you do to like wrap it up, like when you you've got all these cities under your bell? And then what kind of? Was the, the what's the word? The, the camel break, you know?

Speaker 3: 13:08

yeah you know what and there what there was one, there was one. So in Bloomington it went pretty well. I enjoyed you know I'm not from Bloomington, indiana's you, I enjoy right in the city and you know, got out and around and everything. And of course it got old, but I was still. It was all I had and I and there was no my nonprofit consulting job was done and I didn't have anything else. So I was still working at it and about almost exactly a year ago today I was delivering. Door dash was somewhere around 102 and my check engine light came on.

Speaker 3: 13:40

Oh yeah and my water pump and timing belt blew. Oh, that was, that's a $2,000 repair, ladies and gentlemen. Right, that's $2,000. So, if you're, if you're a dasher and you have an extra $2,000, I don't believe you.

Speaker 2: 13:59

But, jeff, when you first started out, I mean and this is obviously when you first started out this was in the city north of Salem where you were yeah, I know, I know at least for the dashers here in in our area they were all kind of doing really, really well, doing the pandemic. I mean you must have. I mean how, how was it Income wise for you? I mean I know you were working.

Speaker 3: 14:23

if you were working 20 or 20 hours at 20 days in a row, you were making bank um, well, I mean, that's, that's kind of that's kind of always the the challenge of the big economy, because we bring in cash, we bring in income, but we don't, we can't and we don't really track our, our expenses accurately. They make it impossible for us to do that, and so I would argue that, just like most people, I think there were a lot of times when I thought I was winning. But when you think you're winning, all you need is a traffic ticket or a an accident, and you're not, and so I'm gonna. I just pulled up my sheet here. Would you like me to share the screen with you and show you all my earnings? Yeah, if you want to.

Speaker 3: 15:19

Sure, yeah, yeah, okay. So let's see Present Share screen. So so here we go, so 2020. This was Salem and Woodburn. I made $15,840. $19,990. Oh look, and I even gave you. I'll send this to you guys if you want, so you can see this was a commute from Salem Oregon. Nope, no, I screwed.

Speaker 3: 15:39

Undo, undo, that's undo is our friend Right. So commute from Salem, oregon, and local Woodburn, oregon, commute or local Woodburn, oregon and Bellingham and then commute Bloomington and local Bloomington. So those are all my, all my little moves. So I made in this weird I made almost $16,000, exactly every time.

Speaker 2: 16:01

But, year.

Speaker 3: 16:02

I mean, I didn't, I was not endeavoring to do that, it just kind of evened out that way. Now, if you look at my mileage the first year, because I was commuting 14,744 miles, right. So 2021, 8,516 miles and 2022, 12,970 miles, so you can see the difference, sure, in whereas living so 2021, when I was in the small town and living in the small town, I really was able to keep my mileage down. I really focused on that. So my gross, my gross earnings per mile, so before my expenses, in 2020, I made $1.07 a mile. In 2021, which I would say was kind of the strongest part of being in that Woodburn area I made $1.89 a mile and then 2022, I did $1.29 a mile for an average 134.

Speaker 3: 16:52

So then I did a few other calculations. I have a diesel Passat. We get pretty good gas mileage and it's pretty efficient. So I did all those things. I know what my expenses were. So my cost per year estimated of gas you can see that right here. So I spent $1,290 on gas, $1,000 on gas and $2,100 on gas in 2022.

Speaker 3: 17:13

Because gas prices really went up when in 2022, didn't they Like that? Diesel went up from $2 or $3 or something to six bucks, right. So here I am now. So I'm in 2022. Now I'm in Bloomington in my water pump and timing belt blow up, so that's $2,000. Now it's not only $2,000. In the city of Bloomington, there was not a single mechanic that could even look at my car for a month, because Bloomington is very short on mechanics and there's not many, many people that do that kind of thing. So there's a month without wages, minus $2,000. And even at that month, there's no guarantee. I still had to find somebody to do it and come up with the $2,000 pen. So that was the straw that broke the Jeff's back.

Speaker 3: 18:00

That was the end of my dashing career because I really had no other. So first I had to get my car back on the road so I could literally survive. I was 2,000 miles away from anybody that I've known for most of my life, and so I was able to do that. But I started researching the book that I had been pondering for the two years of dashing while I was driving around and taking notes on. So I started that in earnest a year ago and I have been working on this ever since and taking that experience and those writings and sharing them with other people.

Speaker 3: 18:36

Because the thing I think you guys nailed it, the thing that you have is you have lots of reports, you have lots of stories around the world, but almost nobody that's ever written about the gig economy, except for a few guys like Sergio Vidian, the writer guy. There's a few people that cover the industry for you know, for us you know, and you guys do, but in general, for the general public, any reporter that ever writes about the gig economy has no idea how it actually works.

Speaker 3: 19:01

They don't know how they actually get paid. They don't know how the customer you know if the customer is tip or don't. They don't know how much they're earning. They don't know the expenses, they don't know anything about it. And this is intentional, right? I mean, this came in in the pandemic with the corporations because they figured out they could fleece our pants off if they could, you know, introduce us to corporate AI and not tell us how it works, right, and so they. So they did. And also, you know, when we're, when we're desperate, we're the people they want to take advantage of, right? We're the roofs. Yeah, I mean, I coined the term app slavery because we do not have any independence. And when you, when you're on DoorDash, you may think you're making decisions, you may think you're independent, just like I thought I was making at least some. Well, all the apps are like that, though.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Yeah, I mean we're not truly independent contractors. I mean I call myself an independent contractor, but if that was the case and I would be able to set my own prices, like a drywall or you know what I?

Speaker 3: 19:58

mean right.

Speaker 1: 19:59

I'm not that we do have, you know, the flexibility to decide what we want to take, but that's about where the buck stops for independent contractors.

Speaker 3: 20:07

Right.

Speaker 2: 20:07

And we can log off.

Speaker 3: 20:09

Yeah, exactly, we could log off, but you know when you're on. One of the things I learned by by Running all those days in a row is that it couldn't be organic, because the numbers would come out the same for the same Efforts in different days. I'm like, do these guys have me coded in to make, yeah, 61 cents a day? Because I think they do yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:33

Yeah, don't think absolutely cap you, right, you have. You. You start off an hour and you make. You know, you make one delivery and get 12 bucks, and you make another delivery and 13 bucks and you're 25 minutes past the hour and then you sit on your ass for 35 minutes, right, you think, oh, I'm gonna get it this time. I want to make, I make 35. You can't. And that's what people don't understand is that hard work is not rewarded by door dash. No, that's just a dirt ashes, a scan. Door dash is gaslighting. Door dash wants you to think you're working hard. In fact, they even talk about keeping drivers busy. Because you, because you guys, don't have enough to do, we need to keep you busy. Yeah, right, that's why you door dash, because you need you. Just you want to be busy.

Speaker 1: 21:10

So do you have that same philosophy? I mean, you obviously wrote a book looks like you got a podcast about that too, but like you, do you have that same? I mean, you've only done door dash, so you've not. I assume you haven't done any other gigs, right?

Speaker 3: 21:22

Nope, so would you not even on?

Speaker 3: 21:24

I mean, you obviously are knowledgeable in them if you haven't done them but you've talked about, I'm sure yeah, I mean, especially in the last year, since I've been doing the research to the book and I've gotten to know People and I watch all the gig creators, I watched you guys, I I'm intimately aware of right trip but I do not consider myself. You know, I Go to people like surgery or I go to other people for yeah right, sure questions, because I don't know for door dash man I can tell you probably anything you want to know and probably a million things you don't have you heard, like, what about like the other apps like shipped or Instacart or I mean I think they all, for in a certain degree have an algorithm to control you?

Speaker 1: 22:00

a hundred, they all do they have to.

Speaker 3: 22:02

So so just you know, the quick math is if we had 15 merchants and 15 drivers, that's the math on that, for the number of options is 15. Factorial, that's 15 times 14 times 13. Yep, well, 10, right, that's over a trillion. So anybody, if you guys, can figure out a trillion combinations your head, which one you're gonna be getting and how to scheme the system. I you know, I'll call you, but so you can't right people. It's an illusion, this is all an illusion.

Speaker 3: 22:28

And and so, so shipped. I think I even signed up for shipped at one time and I don't think they ever gave me, or I mean, shipped is kind of spotty. A lot of those right, you have to be in an area of the country or you have to be in a city where they're actually operating. Yeah, and so the one that that I am more familiar with, instacart. I had friends and and relatives that had tried Instacart over time Kind of a similar story that they had Somewhat of a good experience for a few months and it went downhill very quickly. So do you recommend?

Speaker 1: 23:01

like do you tell people not to do door dash, but do you say don't do any gig work in general, like is that your idea or what's your thought about that?

Speaker 3: 23:10

So it's not that it's don't do, because because this is, this is an industry that was based upon desperation, like like I was facing. So it's not don't do it. I think we always do what we have to do to do that. We always do what we have to do to survive. But just because this gig economy came into being during the pandemic, when we were in a unique situation people couldn't travel and get out.

Speaker 1: 23:37

It didn't come in during the pandemic. I mean, yes, bernadette, been driving since 2016 right, but but it exploded.

Speaker 3: 23:43

It exploded during the pandemic, particularly last mile delivery, yeah, and then and, and also with the employment that what happened in the pandemic is people needed money and so all of a sudden you had a flood of people who wanted Some work, but maybe not 40 hours in a factory right, so you wanted something between some work and too much work, which is always the which is always the sweet spot.

Speaker 3: 24:06

So, um, I think every single one of these is a direct replacement For something that existed before. Before rideshare, there were taxis, there were buses, there were town cars, there were limos and everything else, and and people got around and before door dash and before uber eats and everything else, 99 percent of retailers and 85 percent of restaurants in the united states never had delivery options prior to the pandemic, so somehow humanity survived without the gig economy. Then the gig economy came in. Why did it come in? As the question, and, and I think my answer here I know my answer is that it came in to, uh, exploit human beings and end employment as we know it on behalf of corporate america, so they could put all the risk on us and take all the profit. So it's a horrible deal, it's a scam, it is a blight on and a stain on humanity, but it's also the landscape that we have today.

Speaker 3: 25:06

So so my argument and and what I truly believe, is that the fraud of the gig economy, the fact that every offer a ride share driver Gets, is obfuscated from some key information that they could, could use to make a real independent contractor decision. Every offer a door dash person gets is an unsolvable equation you can't possibly know. Am I going to profit, am I going to lose money, am I going to break even on this, on this offer? And what door dash does and I know what the others have done too Is they use coercive Damblified gamification to force people into taking non economically viable jobs, because if they don't, then they're not being a good team member and they might not, you know, get better offers in heaven.

Speaker 1: 25:49

But why, why, why, what? But who cares? Like if someone decides that they want to do that, like that's their decision. I mean, if they have the knowledge, and again I would say 98 percent of the people probably won't seek that knowledge out.

Speaker 1: 26:01

You know, Like you know, research it and stuff like that. So I know what you're saying. You feel like they're taking advantage of them, but I mean like they kind of make their. I mean they got to know that they're spending gas, like they got to know they're not making the money that they're supposed to. I mean even you know.

Speaker 3: 26:18

Well, so I think rideshare is a little bit different, because the bar is higher. You have, you're carrying human beings, so you have to have an approved vehicle, you have to have, you have to have, not much higher, not much higher but a little higher.

Speaker 3: 26:30

You have to sign off in a little bit of an agreement. You actually see your customer face to face. They see you. There's a lot of different things going on in rideshare. Door dash is a black box. You put it order, doesn't matter, they don't even care. They don't care if somebody that's not you picks it up and takes it with, they don't care. So door dash is the bottom, bottom, bottom of the barrel of what they're trying to do, and so the the scam is that this is a huge tax on society. Door dash is jacking up the prices of food, you know, 20, 30%. Then they're taking another 15 to 20 30% from the retailer. Then they're taking another 15% from the consumer. This is, this is international corporate fraud.

Speaker 3: 27:15

So there's a yeah, I mean don't do it, it's bad for humanity. You want your kids to be able to have employment. We're going down the wrong path, but it's also what we have today, right. So if people are doing it, I use, I think, corporate AI. The best, the best analogy I can use is human sexuality. When human sexuality, people talk about informed consent. Right, we can all do whatever we want as adults, but we should have informed consent right. Before I do it, I should know what's going to happen to me. And is it fair, is it not fair? What are the dynamics? And then, if I have informed consent, I go yeah man, I want to do it, I want to. This sounds fun. Then I'm making a decision. 99% of the gig workers on planet earth have not given their informed consent. They do not know the level at which they're being used by corporate AI to slave for for global corporations. Take all the risk, maybe make some money, maybe don't. But door dash brags about the part that their.

Speaker 1: 28:14

Their average dasher, you know, works like four to ten hours a week yeah, but that's the economy was set up for us for part time work.

Speaker 3: 28:22

Well, it was set up to fleece you, but it was set up also to get suckers in that could work a very few hours. And so, yes, suckers, but but you got to realize to when those people work four hours. Let's say that somebody works for door dash and they last for nine weeks working four hours. Right, that's nine, nine, eighteen, that's thirty six total hours. So door dash will have just labor laundered. They don't have to give that person any 1099, they don't have to report it to the IRS. That is under six hundred dollars. So they just laundered labor. That person work for thirty six hours. They may or may not have even made a profit after their expenses, we don't know. Maybe they wrecked their car by distracted driving and they filtered out, but that is so.

Speaker 3: 29:02

The average door dash, dasher, that's who they are, right, they're the person that never makes anything out of us.

Speaker 3: 29:08

There's a few people like us that get into it full time, that learn how to work the system, that have it, that are informed, that see, like, wait a minute, twenty two dollars and sixty one cents every day is not a random event, right? You can't know that if you're working four hours a week as a stay at home parent for nine weeks. So this is what, when door dash Tony, tony shoot, said we've had 13 million dashes all time. What he was telling you is we have enough jobs for free for for to take care of all of you. We don't need full time driver's, we don't care right, that, jordan Ash, is the only thing you'll ever do, where the more experience you have, the less they want you manipulated by the, by the AI, anymore, and you don't want to lose money, and so so people, I mean, you see, right now I think you're seeing even people that have been fooled very, very long time waking up to what the gig economy, and particularly last mile delivery or doing well, what about what John said?

Speaker 1: 30:09

he actually made a comment that I was gonna say. The same can be saying about corporate America and their employees. Like they're all doing stuff behind the scenes that we don't know, their, their. They have algorithms there, maybe not as sophisticated as the A I is you're talking about where they've coded something and like whatever but like even them trying to force people to come back to work. I mean that's a manipulation to be like hey, we want you back. Why? Cuz? So we can control you. You know what I mean. So right?

Speaker 3: 30:33

well, we were essential. Ai level right, we've never been so essential. Well, right we were, they missed us, they missed us, and so so john's say, john's point again, just said the same can be said about corporate America and their employees like they're, but it can't thing.

Speaker 3: 30:54

Okay, but it can't. So let's let's talk about the two different types of employment relationships. In an employee relationship, I work at a company. That company employs me. That company has risk and expenses and overhead and capital and all those different things that an employer has to have, and it trains me and it has safety procedures and it does all the things that we people worked and unionized and fought to receive for safe employment. Right, right, that's what employment has. Because as an employer let's say I run a factory if I have an employer and I've got 50 workers on the factory floor and those 50 workers are all being unsuccessful in in making my products, how successful my company be, it won't be successful. Okay, it can't be. So the only way I can be successful if I'm a, if I'm a company owner of a factory with 50 employees, is if those 50 employees are successfully performing their tasks, if they're trained, if they're safe, if I can retain them, if I can do all the different things.

Speaker 3: 31:57

Keep employees now, let's imagine those are gig workers. Now, I don't value them, I don't want to keep them, the only. I don't care if one of them shows up one day and then somebody else shows up the other day and sits in the seat and then somebody else. I just want butts in seats, right, that's all. I want butts in seats. If they get injured, well, it's not my problem if they, if they're not trained and they're not smart enough to do the job, maybe they won't come back tomorrow. If they injured themselves, maybe they won't come back tomorrow. If you know, if, if one of them starts making too many demands, are making too much money, I can just tell him I don't need you anymore because they're not employed. Well, yeah, I let me just, let me just finish real quick. Teach so as if that's if I'm a gig employer, I have no stake in the employees sitting in those 50 factory seats making, have no stake in that. In fact, the less money they make, the more if it's if I can get the task done, the more money I take home. So so for me, I want the least experienced, newest rubes in all 50 of those seats making me money, and so the there's a completely different relationship that's built with the gig economy, and I would argue that.

Speaker 3: 33:14

You see that in uber lift door dash, uber eats grub hub, the Corporations have. The only incentive the corporations have is to minimize the pay of the labor. That's the only incentive. And you see that right. They don't train, they don't, they don't make it safe, they don't give you contract Conditions that stay consistent, maybe one week. You're not supposed to take underage miners. Now You're supposed to take it. How did they keep you safe? How did they? How did they make? Are they giving you vetted Passengers that are actually the person in name? I mean, what are they doing that shows that they have the same common interest with you, and that's why I think John is wrong in in the game. In the gig economy, corporations figured out a new system where they can use humans without responsibility, and that's what they're doing. Yeah, let them use us without responsibility. That's not. That's worse than the rest of corporate America.

Speaker 1: 34:08

This is right. Well, I guess I guess, to back up a little bit, I think he meant that they do control you. Yes, the workers are not the same. You're right, they're not. That's what I I don't think he was saying. I just think the corporation Typically doesn't have their employee in mind.

Speaker 2: 34:23

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 34:24

They're doing things behind the scene, maybe not AI created, but you know, like I said, they manipulate you in a certain way to get your mother work done.

Speaker 3: 34:32

So so my my educational background is I have a master's in business administration from Duke University and it's a that's a top business school, and I worked as a C level Executive and an executive in the corporate world for big companies that you would know the names of, and so I'm very familiar with those boardrooms and how those things work and the privileges and and liberties that people take. And, yes, that happens in the world. But those people that are doing that in the corporate world, those are all two employees, just like I was. So you know when you go out for your $300 steak dinner, who's paying? Not me, yeah, not me. I ate like a king man, right? So so you know that's the difference between being an employee and if I was a gig worker. They would have just taken my work but they wouldn't have bought me dinner. Right, I shaved for. I shaved for this.

Speaker 1: 35:22

All right, so let's take a pause here, since we're definitely bumping up on time. Let's talk about you switched into the creator mode. So you've obviously wrote a book. You know what inspired you to write the book, but but you wrote the book for just because you wanted to reach people, to not do gig work, because obviously I haven't read the Booker or anything like that. So just talk about that a little bit and then we'll wrap it up.

Speaker 3: 35:47

No, so I wrote the book. The book is called full-dash closure and I'm ed. I'm editing the book for publication later this year, right now, okay.

Speaker 3: 35:55

I wrote the book and I started a podcast. The first four chapters are on Substack so you can actually read the first, you know 20% of the book or whatever, and. And chapter two is a doozy. That's my, that's my Open letter to dashers, where I talk about my own experience and and what life is like. So it's very personal to me because I did this for 16 months out of 24, 5,521 deliveries is not a few deliveries, and so that's a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of thinking, a lot of a lot of learning, a lot of a lot of frustration. So the book is called full-dash closure because I realized Nobody knows the truth of what's going on here and right. And so, yeah, full-dash closure actually came back, came to me During a bout of depression, waiting for my car to be fixed so I could actually move again, right. So so the reason I wrote that book, a reason I wrote this book, is to tell people the truth of the gig economy. Nobody cares about my opinion. My opinion is immaterial. What I have is proof. I have.

Speaker 3: 37:02

I studied the, I Studied the, the data science, I studied the app design, I studied the architecture and the inside of what door dash does, where it came from, how they do it, and and all of this applies to the other kid companies too lucky for me, right that that? As as I learned door dash, I learned oh well, obviously these guys are doing the same thing. You're actually the Kings. Door dash has 65% of Market share in the US. They're the gorilla. Whatever they do, they're setting the market.

Speaker 3: 37:34

Yeah, so I wrote the book just to tell people the truth, and my original concept, funny enough, was neither to take a pro or or a composition. I knew it wasn't gonna be tips and tricks, because I'm not advising anybody and how to go out and make money. And door dash I don't think you can make good money in door dash. The risk is too high. You might make some money, like I did, but you're also gonna do $8,000 of damage to your car, like I did, and use $5,000 of gas. So do the math. Once I got done, I didn't do as good as I was hoping I did. Yeah, so so I wrote the book just to tell the truth. But once I started researching the data, science and everything and you'll see these in the book I just kept screaming out loud because it was so horrific. I'm like. No way, no way. I kept on Layering these layers at the onion of something.

Speaker 3: 38:16

I've been doing for two years and so everything that I thought might be the case it was a hundred times worse. A hundred times worse, like these guys. Door dash, they're evil geniuses every single way that you could fleece a human being gaslight them, use them, deploy them, fleece them, enslave them. Door dash does it man. They are really good and I even had some anonymous Contact from inside door dash. People are terrified. The people that work there know they're doing evil, they know they're fleecing the world and so scams don't last forever. Remember, enron existed, then it blew up Right. And then FTX existed right, then it blew up.

Speaker 3: 38:56

I'm gonna tell you, as an economist and as a business person, I my prediction is for the big gig economy is that that these leaders, they're committing too much fraud and it's going to catch up with them. This is not a legitimate. It's the gig economy is a lot. There is no gig economy. There's a world economy. The laborers there have been around that are doing this work, have been around since the beginning and will be around after the gig economy. But the gig economy is live. There's just an economy because if you hire a rideshare driver to come take you from your house across town, that's a substitute for hiring a taxi to take you from your house cross down, or a substitute for a bus across town. This is not. This is not innovation. This is just corporate predation upon both, both people and and and communities, and and then also upon merchants and retailers.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Well, I don't 100% agree with you. Obviously, that's not the, the what we take. Now, the only thing I do agree is they're all scammy and I don't trust any of them. But I don't. I don't believe all of that, but I you know this is a good conversation. I think it's good for us to hear different sides and what we think. I mean. We think some of the same, but you know what I mean. So this is the question.

Speaker 3: 40:09

I would ask you guys, and I would ask anybody that believes that the gig economy is a legitimate form of business why is it that in the gig economy, deception and obviuscation and material information hidden from every individual contract is okay? There is no other workforce or independent contractor on the planet besides the rubes of the gig economy. They made us app slaves. There is nobody else in the world that would sign fraudulent contracts every single day, all day, and that's what we do. So my argument to John and my argument to you is even if this is what you want to do, it's illegal. We made labor laws in this country to protect people and this is going around every labor law, every protection for humanity that was ever created. And even if we think it's okay, it's not because it's fraud and we can't go back right.

Speaker 3: 41:00

I mean, people do a lot of hand waving and a lot of excuses for the gig economy of why they have to do fraud, why they have to deceive every dasher on every offer. Why did they deceive everybody driving Uber and Lyft and not tell them where you're going and how many miles? Well, you wouldn't do what we want you to do if we told you the truth. Yeah, okay, that is not right. So we I mean, this is the end of the conversation this is not a legitimate business model. If you come to me with that business model, I'm going to throw you out of my bank. That's fraud. You're telling me you've got a fraud scheme, not a business model.

Speaker 1: 41:29

Well, it's not that fraud, because it's been going on for this long.

Speaker 3: 41:33

Well, no, it is. It's just not prosecuted yet. I mean, FTX was fraud and it went on, and Ron was fraud and it went on and it exploded. And I think that's what's going to happen to DoorDash. At the very least, the rideshare companies maybe have a little bit more squish room because there's there's more involved there, but but these last mile delivery companies are DoorDash. Doordash is a blight upon humanity.

Speaker 1: 41:55

Well, you heard it here from Jeff DoorDash is dead. Tell people how they, how they can find you. Obviously I'll put everything in the show notes and stuff like that, but so.

Speaker 3: 42:04

So you can find me very easily if you put in full dash closure DASH closure like disclosure, but dash closure, clclos URE into Google, or put Jeff Thomas Black into Google, you'll find all the different, all the different places I am. I'm on sub stack If you want to read the first four chapters of the book, and on your local podcatcher you can even listen to the audio versions of the first chapters of the book. So so, yeah, check it out, I'll read it to you, you can read it yourself, and it's all. It's all free. I wanted to do this to teach people and to tell people the truth, not to attempt to to make money off people suffering in the gig economy. So I want people to share the information and then they can make their own decisions. My thing is informed consent, as long as you guys know what you're doing. If it's legal, you can do it, but I'm still going to go back and say these corporations are going to get their come up. They are All right. Well, okay.

Speaker 1: 43:01

You have so much.

Speaker 2: 43:02

Pleasure. Thanks for having me. So all right guys, have a good night, have a good night Everybody.

Speaker 1: 43:07

This podcast is produced and edited by hey.

Speaker 2: 43:09

Guys, media Group Want to start a podcast.

Speaker 1: 43:14

Check out hey guys media groupcom. Hey guys, hey guys.