No time or money for toilet, terrible customers, low pay: Delivery worker on 'gig life' in China

Working as a courier delivery person between 2018 and 2019, Hu Anyan earned 1.6 yuan (about Rs 20) per parcel — about a quarter — covering calls, voice messages, and proof-of-delivery photos. Rates could drop without warning. (AI-generated image)

What does it take to keep a job from eating your life? For Hu Anyan, the answer was a stopwatch and a calculator. In Beijing’s parcel delivery circuit, every minute had a price — and even a sip of water could tip the balance.

In his memoir I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, reviewed by the New York Post, Hu writes that he calculated every minute like a ledger entry. To keep his life from running at a loss, he had to earn 0.5 yuan (about Rs 6) a minute. That meant one delivery every four minutes. A 20-minute lunch burned 10 yuan (about Rs 125). A bathroom trip cost one yuan (about Rs 12) if the toilet was free and he moved fast.

“Slowly, I got used to approaching all questions from a purely financial standpoint,” the publication quoted him as saying. “Basically, I skipped a lot of lunches. I also hardly drank any water in the mornings to reduce the frequency of restroom breaks.”

Two decades, nineteen jobs

Hu’s book chronicles nearly 20 years across China’s megacities — 19 jobs in five cities, from hotel waiter to petrol station attendant. Before his courier years, he worked in a southern China logistics warehouse where the interview was just a handshake, but staying hired meant a three-day unpaid trial.

“After three nights of handling the bags like this, the nails on both my index fingers were bent backward,” he recalls. “They turned black some days later and eventually fell off.”

Off the clock, Hu rented a single room without air conditioning, battling 90-degree heat with cheap sorghum liquor to sleep.

The courier grind

Working as a courier delivery person between 2018 and 2019, Hu earned 1.6 yuan (about Rs 20) per parcel — about a quarter — covering calls, voice messages, and proof-of-delivery photos. Rates could drop without warning. One day, the fee fell by 0.2 yuan per parcel.

Customers were their own ecosystem. One scolded him: “The customer is king.” Hu replied, “There should only be one king. I have to serve hundreds every day.”

Viral sensation during Covid

During Covid, Hu used to blog about his overnight shifts. The posts went viral and eventually were turned into a book that sold nearly two million copies in China. Its English versions are now available in the US.