Driver Makes $4,000+ on Grubhub in June 😲 | Uber Passenger’s Nightmare! | Shift Hustle Ep 4

We explore new developments in the gig economy landscape, from testing out Amazon Flex after a long absence to examining DoorDash's push for "portable benefits" legislation similar to California's Prop 22.

• Completed a $107 Amazon Flex route after finding Walmart Spark deliveries too slow
• DoorDash emails promoting "portable benefits" that would provide healthcare, PTO, and retirement options without employee classification
• Introduction to the Gig Spot app for mystery shopping with tasks ranging from $9 gas station audits to $65 apartment shopping evaluations
• Discussion of a California gig worker earning $2,700 in one week, with $1,759 coming from Prop 22 adjustment pay
• Reddit story about a driver holding a passenger's keys hostage for an increased fee, eventually resolved with police intervention
• Brief look at whether mystery shopping gigs provide comparable value to food delivery for similar pay

Join us on Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern for the Gig Economy News show.

Transcript

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Back to Flex: A Profitable Route

Speaker 1 0:11

that's what I like to see . Show the comments . There we go . Bubba , sue , nice to see you . All right , we are live . Live for the Shift Hustle show . Hope you're all doing well .

Speaker 1 0:34

I just got done with a flex route . There we go . Just got done with a flex route . It was pretty good . I haven't done flex in a long-ass time . Uh , it was pretty good I got . I haven't done flex in a long ass time .

Speaker 1 0:49

And I was out doing Walmart today and I was just like Walmart spark and I'm just like , oh my God , it's so . It was just so dead . And , um , I was like you know what I'm gonna ? I'm gonna dabble with flex and if you have a flex alert , uh , which you should from Gary's apps it'll auto refresh for you . And then actually , it's technically not a bot , so don't come at me , because it does not go to a server , it has to ping your phone .

Speaker 1 1:15

But I was in doing a pharmacy order for Walmart Spark and it grabbed a route for me . I put my $25 was my threshold for getting a route and I came out of the pharmacy order and it had a fricking route for me this afternoon and I was like shit . So I just went home . I put in 25 an hour , like I said , and so I think I ended up getting . I got the . What was it ? It was a four hour route for 107 , so obviously a little bit more than 25 . But you know , on this show we don't do math . So , um , I don't , uh , I did it and it was pretty good .

Speaker 1 1:53

Crazy , though , uh , kind of just local to us . I was in the city of Lowell and there was a huge like black plume of smoke and um , I was like , oh shit , like that's a fire , and there was a ton of fire trucks and uh , come to find out , was an airplane that that crashed into a storage unit . So , um , I don't know any about loss of life , but yeah , it was pretty wild because even an hour after I was , I had saw that fire and heard the trucks . I , I was driving home in the highways , are down my route and there was a fire truck coming down the highway so they had called in a bunch of people from all over the place . So it's kind of wild when that stuff happens . Doesn't it feel like there's been a lot of plane crashes lately ? Are we just seeing them more ? I don't know , but that's what it feels like A couple of things before we get started in the articles . I got a laugh .

Speaker 1 2:46

I actually got a little hate on TikTok . It was a video about us talking about Waymo adding the teen account . You know , because I put clips on there and they're just little snippets of the show , right , you don't really get the full picture of what our show is about . And so you know , the purpose of the clips is for you to go check out the show . But and this guy follows me too , like we're like friends on tiktok I can't remember his name and I can't go in there now because if I do , uh , it'll kick me off the tiktok

TikTok Hate and Waymo Teen Accounts

Speaker 1 3:20

that I'm streaming right now .

Speaker 1 3:21

But he had said something like we had said . I think it was like maybe a 30 second clip . It was about , you know , we were excited for the teen account . You know , like we thought it was more safe to , you know , have our own kids go in the waymo account than like some creeper . And he was like I watched this and I don't think you guys know a lot about ride share , you don't know what you're talking about and that I popped back to him and said , hey , what do you mean ? And he said something just like it's against the law to have kids in an Uber . And I'm like , yeah , we understand that , but there are teen accounts .

Speaker 1 3:59

And then I said , well , hey , you know , we've been gig workers since 2016 . Said , well , hey , you know , you know , we , we've been gig workers since 2016 . We have , like god , I would say like between larry and I probably 20 000 rides , maybe 15 000 . And he's like , well , I've been doing it for 10 years . I have 15 000 of my own or 20 000 of my own .

Speaker 1 4:16

I was like , okay , but he still didn't . He still didn't respond back of like what we didn't know , what we were talking about . I'm like we're not the , we never claimed to be the experts , but like I think it's pretty obvious what we didn't know , what we were talking about . I'm like we're not the , we never claim to be the experts , but like I think it's pretty obvious what we were talking about in that tiktok . I don't know . I guess it's good if somebody's hating on you but I wouldn't say he's hating on me , but like questioning it , but just fucking respond . Then , geez , should I send this clip to him so that ? And then , um , I had my list of what I want to talk about . And then I get so many emails from doordash

DoorDash's Push for Portable Benefits

Speaker 1 4:48

. I feel like this needs to be a a trend of what doordash has sent me for emails .

Speaker 1 4:55

So first is this one is interesting and I don't know if you guys got it and maybe it's um local to me , but it talked about tell Congress to support expanding benefits to independent workers . You dash for the freedom and flexibility it gives you , but outdated laws make it hard for companies to offer benefits for independent contractors . Congress can help companies explore ways to provide independent contractors more access to things like paid time off , healthcare and retirement , without taking away your independence . This bill would be a big step toward a future where independent workers can access the support they need . And so it says take 30 seconds to tell DoorDash to support exploring benefits for dashers . So I click on it . I get a 404 page not found , so I don't know if they sent this out to all dashers , and then you know the ones that it doesn't apply for . So they actually kind of explain this a little bit . I have not heard anything about that and in fact even on Steve , with Steve , I haven't heard anything either . But they have four bullet points what are portable benefits . So if you know anything about this rule at all , please definitely let me know . I'll have to do a little bit more research on it . That's one of the things we don't do research on the show , right ?

Speaker 1 6:13

What are portable benefits ? Portable benefits can provide independent workers access to contributions for benefits such as healthcare , retirement savings , pay time off , while maintaining the flexibility that dashing offers , which kind of sounds like Prop 22 in California . Number two they can help make dashers have more support in case of unexpected setbacks like illness or unexpected health expense . Three it fits how people work today , offering real support without forcing everyone into a traditional nine to five . And number four Congress can help with a law that would allow companies to explore providing these kinds of benefits without taking away your independence . If passed , this law would be a big step toward making portable benefits a reality . So that's like a new term , like the portable benefits . I haven't seen that . I do see another button to take action . Let's see what it does . Yeah , it still does 404 for me .

Speaker 1 7:06

I'll probably be diving into this a little more , the portable benefits thing , just to kind of see what it's about . It's very vague too . It doesn't say anything about which state or anything . So if anyone else got this email , bubba Sue says Steve has talked about it a bit . Okay , if anyone else has gotten this and has a little more insight , definitely let me know about that , because I'm interested . It sounds like it really does sound like Prop 22 with a little bit of twist , but it's like they are pushing it , though . So that makes me think it's not , or would that ? Do I have that backwards ? Because usually the gig apps are fighting against that right , like Uber and Lyft paid all that money in California to fight against this kind of stuff . So I find it odd that DoorDash is pushing Congress and pushing us to support expanding benefits for independent workers . Usually it's the exact opposite . So , yeah , I don't know . Seems strange . Okay , I am going to try for the next couple of weeks , too , is to try to highlight a app for a new app that you may not heard of .

Exploring Gig Spot for Mystery Shopping

Speaker 1 8:23

Thanks to Mo for giving me a list of things , and the first thing I want to talk about for this week , or the first app , is called gig spot . Um , I don't know if you have heard of gig spot , but it is like uh , why did it do that ? It is like mystery shopping . So I created account , um , I don't know if you've done any mystery shopping before , but it's , hang on a second , not thirsty , but like have gross stuff . Well , that didn't sound good either . It's like , if you like to do , um , mystery shops and I've never been a mystery shopper at all um , so I I kind of looked at it . So this first one is for sitco gas stations . I don't know if you have a sitco near you , um , so it's like a gas station convenience store and this is nine dollars for compensation . So it's like , oh , okay , and then it will . It will , um , give you up to a dollar to cover your costs , like you know some of those you go , like out to dinner or whatever , and they'll cover up to 30 bucks .

Speaker 1 9:32

But it seems like a lot of work . You have to take nine pictures , you have to go in the bathroom , um , you have to look at the gas pumps , you have to look at all this stuff . So it's , it's , it's not like when it's a mystery shop , it's not like you're just shopping . I don't know , I guess I kind of thought it was more just . I mean more just , easy , easy . You know what I mean , but I mean I guess it . It could be easy if you got good at it . But you have to take a picture of the building and the canopy and the gas sign and the in the gas pumps and then the bathroom , and then you have to answer all these questions and stuff like that . And then I'm thinking and then you have to answer all these questions and stuff like that , and then I'm thinking , well , once you got good at it , I guess you could bang it out real quick and it'd be fine . But I don't know if it's worth $9 .

Speaker 1 10:17

Now this one for me is right around the corner , like it's less than a maybe a mile . No , it's a half a mile from my house . So , so I mean , I guess it wouldn't be too bad . But this is called Gig Spot Check it out , I think it's just gigspotcom , and so there's a bunch of gas station ones . And then there's one on here for an apartment . You have to , like , go in and apply for a for an apartment , but it's $65 . But again , that one's , it's quite a bit of work too . Burlington Coat Factory $20 .

Speaker 1 10:52

That one's , that one's , it's quite a bit of work too . Burlington Coat Factory $20 . That one's new , that wasn't up there earlier . Basically it says sizing audit , no purchase required . So again , you're probably just trying on a few outfits or something like that . But oh , here's Ross Dress for Less . Isn't that a woman's shop ? I probably shouldn't have gone there . That would be a little odd , cube , smart , self-storage $15 .

Speaker 1 11:21

So yeah , if it's something that you know you want to do to make a little extra money , I guess you know , sometimes times are slow and you know here's one there's 1,751 web jobs . I wonder if you have to like this one's in California . I wonder if you have to be . So check it out gigspotcom . I mean , obviously none of these are going to be . You know , I don't have like a referral code or anything like that , but like I wanted to go over each app and try to just get a little piece of what it is , I don't know , I might try it .

Speaker 1 11:58

I'm kind of lazy when it comes to gig work , as you guys know . Not like lazy , but I'm kind of . I kind of want to do to make the most . I mean , I guess that's not lazy , right ? You want to make the most money you can with the least amount of effort , isn't that kind of smart ? And to make $9 , I mean I can go do a Uber Eats delivery and make $9 . And then I don't , you know , I have to basically get out of my car , get the food and deliver it To make $9 with taking a bunch of pictures and uploading them and writing descriptions like that . Uh , I don't know if that's worth it .

Speaker 1 12:35

Uh , going back to , um , the stuff that we talked about earlier , I wasn't . I don't really look at the comments all the time . I don't sign anything . Doordash wants us to sign . Well , I mean , they're , they're , they're pushing to reach out to your , your congressman .

Speaker 1 12:48

Uh , also , she said this is their way of not making us employees , in which way government is trending in some states . But that's the thing . Like , I mean , if we got all those benefits and still got to do the same thing , what would ? What would your opinion be on that ? Because , like I , in fact , one of the stories tonight we're going to talk about is I say we , because it's always usually we is prop 22 . I don't really think prop 22 is such a bad , a bad thing . I mean , it looks like they get to do everything they want and they still get benefits and like extra cash . Uh , I think the only bad part of it would be . You would see more the markets be more saturated than they already are because more people would get on and do it . Because now , if they're going to get extra money and we can just jump into that one right now , let me give me a second to get to the .

Speaker 1 13:45

I want to read the comments too . So , uh , this guy posted oh , I do have a picture , not that it matters that much , but this guy posted not a bad June , I guess Kind of slacked off . In the days I made $1,100 a week due to working only eight hour shifts . On the days I made $1,700 a week . Plus I usually work 10 hours per day easy money . If you look , he made $ twenty seven hundred dollars

Prop 22 Earnings and Lost Uber Keys

Speaker 1 14:10

. But if you kind of break it down delivery pay 650 , uh , tips 293 and adjustment pay is 1759 like damn . So that , I assume , is Prop 22 .

Speaker 1 14:29

Bubba Seuss says Prop 22 is garbage . Make less money since floor meets ceiling . I am not smart enough to know what that means . Some of the comments adjustment pay you can't work more than 11 hours in Cali . Somebody's mad that he's using the double subsidy payout as an example of weeks pay . Yeah , I don't know , it's just prop 22 . Okay , sorry , I'm reading the comments . Yeah , I mean he's . I mean it smells like california adjustment pay is a dead getaway . Yeah , I'm not sure why you like brag about , uh , the prop 22 , like I mean that's not really your , I mean , I guess it is your earnings . Uh , I mean I guess , but I mean that that money probably equals what he can live in , uh , in california with the adjustment pay , because otherwise , you know , although that's a shit ton of money , $2,700 for a week , that's wild . So , yeah , I thought that was funny . See , what else did I want to talk about ? Okay , here's a little Reddit story too . You know I love Reddit .

Speaker 1 15:48

So this was 13 days ago on subreddit Uber help please . I have an Uber and this is for mostly ride share people , but I have an Uber driver refusing to turn my keys . I went through the app process and he told me to text Uh , he said $30 . I said LOL , isn't it 20 ? He ignored and blocked me . I cocked it contact . He ignored and blocked me . I contacted him on my work phone and he was like oh , I have internet problems . I asked again to return my keys and he said no , come and get them yourself . I tried to reach Uber . God , what is wrong with me ? I tried to reach Uber it's all AI , which we know .

Speaker 1 16:21

As you saw that , larry and Gabe last Wednesday . I wish I would have waited for that one because I wanted to do a little skit with it . Last week they this person had a wild customer service exchange trying to get the driver more of a tip and it just went worse and worse and worse . Uh , so it was kind of funny , uh , but anyways . So they said I tried to reach Uber , it's all AA . What should I do ? Edit , got my keys back Hand , delivered by two cops , but keep quacking useless piles of turd .

Speaker 1 16:56

Maybe they're mad at the comments and don't forget to do exactly what we say or you won't get your stars . Oh , fucking losers . Yeah , so I don't understand why people hold on to stuff or like as a as a ransom . And the guy said he wanted 30 instead of 20 . First comment hopefully he'll simply drop it at the nearest police station . They'll contact you . You can pick them up from there . He might also toss them out to be a dick , but hopefully it's not that . Yeah , let's hope he . You know , obviously he didn't do that . Oh , my god , the commas . You left your keys . But he's the asshole you should have to get them yourself .

Speaker 1 17:33

You want a driver to lose money to accommodate your inability to keep track of your property ? I hope that driver throws them out . No , that's not what he said he was gonna do . The 20 tut , 20 bucks , it's fucking wild . Yeah , that's weird . I mean I did always make the joke that said , hey , you know , if you ever get a phone , just throw it out the window .

Speaker 1 17:58

Um , but they do make it really difficult to get your stuff back , uh , in an uber . Thankfully , I've never left anything in an uber , but , um , yeah , that definitely , uh , that definitely is a pain in the ass , because what is Uber supposed to do ? Really , what they should do ? They should suspend your account until you return . That . I mean I know that's against a driver and that's me as a driver , but to get your stuff back , they should . They should suspend your account until you return the stuff .

Speaker 1 18:28

If you threw it out , then I mean mean , it's kind of on you , right you ? Maybe you should be more responsible with that stuff . I mean , again , it's the person forgot it . But , like , how many times have you forgotten shit ? People make mistakes . Like , I don't think we need to hold these people hostage and , and you know if they're the asshole . I mean , I just don't understand that .

Speaker 1 18:50

So , uh , all right , well , I hope you all had a profitable gig day . Uh , I did so . That route paid good and I had a little bit this morning . Uh , that's about all I got on the shift hustle show . So definitely , uh , enjoy doing these by myself a little different , for sure , but I'm getting more comfortable in the seat .

Speaker 1 19:10

I don't have a time limit on these . If I have a lot to talk about or there's a lot of people in the chat , then we can keep going , but I'm just not going to ramble on if I don't have a ton to talk about . I do want you to go if you're listening live , go to TikTok . Go look at Maureen's live stream . She is talking to a tax expert to kind of break down what the new tax law is , if it's legit , if it's not legit , those kind of things . I know she started at seven , so definitely check that out .

Speaker 1 19:42

We will be live again on wednesday for the the gig economy news show . Oh , lala , lala on TikTok wants me to coast . No , I , I don't want to do that . I don't know who you are . I don't like that . Um , tiktok can just do that , it's wild . But , yes , check that out , check out Marine show and then , like I said , uh , we'll be back Wednesday at 7 pm

Wrap-Up and Show Announcements

Speaker 1 20:10

Eastern for the new show . And thank you so much for listening to the Shift Hustle . Come on , you had one job the Shift . That's hard to say the Shift Hustle Show . I appreciate you guys so much and have a great night you .