Ever wanted to be your own boss, call the shots, and navigate the exciting twists and turns of gig work? Enter Faith – a seasoned gig worker who's dashed across the U.S, delivering with Door Dash, Uber Eats, and other apps. She pulls back the curtain on her experiences as a gig worker, revealing what it's like to dash out of a city for gas money.
But that's not all. Faith opens up about the less glamorous side of gig work – vehicle maintenance, shifting gig economy landscapes, and the transition from being her own boss to having one.
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Jason:
Go yes for you, Troy.
Jesper:
Thank you for throwing me onto the box. Good evening everybody. Tonight we have. You're such a jerk. Hi guys, welcome to the Kig Economy podcast.
Jason:
Thank you so much for joining us Tonight. We actually have a B side. We have Faith from Dash or Pass. Thank you guys, so much for joining us. Yeah, it takes. It started out easy when you started doing these interviews and then all of a sudden it dried up a little bit and then we're like Faith out of the wilderness said hey guys, I'm alive.
Jason:
I'd love to come on so anyway, yeah, thanks for joining us tonight. Faith has a YouTube channel, dash or Pass Isn't currently doing a ton of gig work, but has a couple of years of grinding, so we're going to talk about that today. First, faith, where did you primarily drive for your gig when you were doing it full time?
Faith:
So primarily I like to say the outskirts of Boston, but because I don't live over there anymore, specifically the Worcester area, if anyone's familiar with Massachusetts.
Jason:
Okay, I think I've definitely heard of that.
Faith:
Yeah, but I mean I have dashed all over this country at this point for various situations. Some you know me naively taking a road trip and not realizing how much gas costs and getting stuck in a city and having to dash my way out of it.
Jason:
Seriously so you've traveled doing Door Dash.
Faith:
Yeah, when I was younger and stupid, I was like, oh, I can fucking, I can do that. And you know, you realize you have $10 in your account and like 600 miles to go and you're like, oh, I can't actually do this. I might live in Ohio now, so gotta figure that out.
Jason:
Do you know if you can Door Dash anywhere in the country? If they have that service?
Faith:
Yeah. So before I even started that road trip I was like worried. I knew Door Dash I was probably going to be able to rely on, but at the time my favorite was like Uber Eats and so many things I was reading online and, you know, maybe I just got lucky with the states I was crossing, but so, like I was saying so many things online said, you can't, you know, use the same account and different, and I'm sure probably for like insurance reasons, like car insurance, I would assume. But no, I didn't. At least at the time I did not run into that situation and every state I crossed I was able to dash and Uber Eats was no problem to just relocate me and gave me, you know, the new markets to go for.
Faith:
Now, I can't say the same for where I'm at right now, but there's just like. I mean, if I was a little more responsible and my phone wasn't at 1%, I would Door Dash right now and show you there's just nowhere to dash over here, absolutely.
Jesper:
But you can dash, but there's nobody who's using the service. Is that what's going on?
Faith:
Yeah, I think it's a good combination of the population out here just not really being familiar with it and the fact that you know there's one gas station in the town I live in and I have to drive like 45 minutes to even go get my groceries. And that hub that I go to. I was like two restaurants in it, so it's like there's really not a lot out here. I'm like deep in the wilderness, which.
Jesper:
I love.
Faith:
It's very quiet and peaceful Everyone. I think one of my favorite things about Vermont is like especially having driven in Massachusetts for eight years people like drive two miles behind each other. It is astounding how respectful people are driving out here. Miss Little Betty, she'll give you like 10 minutes of space between you. Everyone is just so chill. They're relaxed. They got nowhere to be. The vibe out here is immaculate.
Jason:
That's amazing. So when you were in Massachusetts you did full time, and obviously your YouTube name is Dash or Pass, so I'm assuming you just did Door Dash or Uber Eats too. No, just food delivery.
Faith:
Yeah, just food delivery, especially when I first started.
Jesper:
Yeah.
Faith:
I did start with DoorDash and that alone and I'm sure I'm not alone in this either but very overwhelming when you first open the apps right and you don't even think about bringing other things into that situation. But once I got comfortable with it, yeah, it was Pandora's box. So I just kind of downloaded every delivery app I could. I did try like Amazon Flex it was the other one I just I never could get into the grocery shopping. I don't even like grocery shopping for myself. I'm definitely not grocery shopping for anyone else.
Jesper:
You just talked about shipped.
Faith:
Yeah, shipped Instacart, anything like that. I just, I just could not do it. I've seen the past.
Jason:
They look good, but Was there a unique app over there you think that was unique to your area for delivery that maybe we haven't heard of before? Unique.
Faith:
Like, I'm for it If.
Jason:
No, go ahead. No, I was just going to say because, like a lot of times, people come on and they they talk about this app and I'm like, oh my gosh, why isn't this? Because we're from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'm like, why, why is it here? And then they're like no, it's the suite just in our area.
Faith:
So I was just curious if yeah, no, I wish there was something like that, but no, at least not to my knowledge. I was just kind of so, so dead on the food delivery and it was working out so well for me. I didn't really, you know see, I didn't research anything beyond that, to be honest. So there, there probably was, but I wasn't aware of it.
Jesper:
Ok, OK, so when you were driving full time Faith, did you kind of have a schedule. You were kind of trying to drive all the time, or how was that.
Faith:
Yeah, I I wouldn't say I definitely Was more laissez with it. I didn't have so much of a schedule, Just like OK, I need this much, you know, to pay rent this month.
Jesper:
So it was more of a. You had like a budget you had to get to. What was, what was your best days? You kind of have, you know, I have to. Like I say I only drive, I only drive passengers, right. I know when I drive I got to do Friday, saturday, right, otherwise it's not worth it. So did you have days like that for that? Oh yeah, absolutely.
Faith:
Like always, friday, friday, saturday, sunday honestly the only bad day in my market, I think, just because of how congested you know that that metropolitan was. It was really just like, I think, tuesday that I really didn't bother going out, but most of the nights were I was sitting, you know decent numbers, but I think like probably the best I ever had. I want to say it was like too and I'm pretty sure it's on my channel, but I think it was somewhere between 200 and 300 within like a 10 hour day, I think, and that was just that. Never happened again. It was just a one off. You know like, hey, very lucky on that.
Jesper:
So so about how much were you making an hour average?
Faith:
I would say on average between 16 and 18, which sounds like a lot of maybe to some people, especially at that time, you know, and a minimum wage has gone up a lot, at least for the Northeast States. But at the time when you like, you know, looking back on it, when you factor in, like the taxes and the gas and everything that probably brings it down to like 1415, you know, so decent for the minimum wage in the area.
Faith:
But no, I think I'll leave it at that. It was decent, you know, and it's worth not having a boss, right?
Jesper:
I mean, yeah, exactly Work whenever you wanted to and yeah, so that's good.
Jason:
When, before we started, you had talked about back in the two years when you were grinding it and you talked about, like how, how hard it was to do that and how stressful. What are some of the things that really stood out about the gig work that was like, I mean, other than the money, right, of course, obviously Right, and that's what we all do it for. I mean, we don't do it for fun, but I mean sometimes it's fun but like, what part of that work was just like just tough for you that stood out. That that was that was hard to do.
Faith:
I think it's probably the main thing for a lot of people too. But, you know, after working a full-time job again W2 and just having that steady paycheck come in bi-weekly and knowing I'm going to get this set amount, I don't have to take all these taxes, I don't have to worry about gas, I don't have to worry about putting a ton of the money I make for that week doing gig work towards a brand new car that I know I'm going to need here in the next few years, just because of how much I'm driving this thing into the ground right, and then also stressing about possible repairs and I became like so numb to that stress. So I would say the main thing was definitely just making sure I'm hitting the numbers every day, you know, having expendable income as well, and not just, like I said, constantly putting money away to repair my car, to buy a new car. And yeah, honestly, I think the vehicle maintenance was probably like the biggest stress for me, like just worrying. Is it gonna break down today, am I like?
Jason:
you know At least you were doing some work on the back end to save money for that. I mean, it's probably not as much as you would have liked, but-.
Faith:
No, absolutely not.
Faith:
And that's like, like I said, with the W2 I'm working now like it's a five minute drive to where and I just, like I said, I got so used to it and I only really started thinking about this because anytime I'm back in Massachusetts, I still take the opportunity, if I have time, to like because my market is still amazing.
Faith:
I didn't think it was gonna be as good, especially like just I still keep up a little on the back end of like I don't know like gig politics. I guess just like what's going on with the apps and like what they're, you know, like the hourly stuff that they're trying to push, just all these like guardrails they're trying to put up for something that was just so free before and you know like I could play the game the way I wanted to. So not to get off topic, but I think even at the time, if I didn't move to Vermont, it wasn't desolate with all these like changes rolling out and going into it. I think I would have stopped anyways because, like I said, I just can't play the game the way I want to. They're forcing me to play it a certain way.
Faith:
And that was not the reason I got into it to begin with, you know.
Jason:
Yeah, I've even. You know I joke about it, but, like this summer, I am a school bus driver and so I had off. In the summer I worked, more gig work. I couldn't even get on DoorDash Like it's gone away. It used to be like you could just pop on and now, if you could get on, it's busy, they only give you one hour and it's just like if you're not a top dasher, we don't want you and I get it. But I also love the. I call it being pirate. You know what I mean. Where you're just like like Uber Eats, you just throw it on, like you get what you get, and if you don't get anything, fuck it, you move on, and if you do, great. But DoorDash is like they have all these walls built up and you have to jump into all three of these boxes before you can even get a chance at it.
Faith:
Exactly and that like that kind of ties back. I'm lucky because and I just dashed like recently, it was just nice to like have I'd honestly A wanted to see what it was like like if they had rolled out a lot of those changes in that specific market which they haven't for some reason. I don't know when they're going to, but I was just like, okay, well, maybe I'll just give it a shot, and it was still like really good money.
Faith:
I'm not even gonna lie like very enticing, but you know, it's not worth the four hour drive that I now live.
Jason:
Well, yeah, I mean, I think, I think, if you lived in a market let's say you had the W2 back where you lived before I think you'd probably do it for some extra side money. I mean everyone, absolutely. I mean, yes, we're does. I do it like it's nice every once in a while to go, you know, kill it on a weekend and make an extra 500 bucks or 600 bucks like shit like that was easy.
Jesper:
Yeah exactly.
Faith:
No, that, like that ties into the other point we were talking about. Like you know it, doing that again just made me think like, wow, I'm like actually enjoying this again, like I didn't realize how much I hated it. You know cause you just get so numb to it and just like it's another day, whatever, but I was just like man. I don't care that I'm sitting at Papa Geno's for 40 minutes right now, waiting on 40 minutes you know what pizza I'm like.
Faith:
You know what? Take your time. I was just such a happier person you know, it was just.
Jason:
Yeah, I totally get it. So let's jump into the creator part. Obviously, you have a YouTube channel Originally. When you started out that channel, what was your goal by doing that? I mean we all like to create, for obvious reasons, that people that are on YouTube. But is that wasn't an outlet for you? Were you trying to become monetized? Were you just trying to connect with people?
Faith:
Yeah, I think it was more of the ladder A and outlet and definitely connecting with people, because when you do this it's a very lonely job, right, and honestly, when I did first start, it kind of transcended into that, because when I first started, as I mentioned, when you're learning to use the gig apps, it's very overwhelming. They don't like, especially during the pandemic, they were not giving you any information on how to use them.
Jesper:
Oh no.
Faith:
And so, like I think like a lot of people, I turned to YouTube right and started looking up tutorials and we use the term again but like somehow got into like the political side of gig work, which for me is like the right belongs and people's opinions and stuff. Youtube just started feeding that to me and as I was like getting more into that side, this one name kept popping up, which was a gig insurance company Cover.
Jesper:
I don't know if you we talked about them before.
Jason:
But weren't they a sponsor, jesper, for a little bit.
Jesper:
Cova was a sponsor, yeah.
Faith:
They were for like a lot of people I don't want to say like 90% of the gig tubers. I was watching I just kept seeing Cover and Cover and Cover and as a new driver, I was like, oh, I want to be responsible, like I want to have gig insurance, whatever the hell that means, I want to have protection. And so before I give anyone my money especially growing up with the internet, like I researched how to make sure I'm not like in, screwed over for what I'm giving them and it just kind of like led me I don't even.
Faith:
I think it was like one in the morning too, and it just led me down this.
Faith:
Really, I started going down this really deep rabbit hole where things were just smelling a little fishy and I was like you know what?
Faith:
I think it'd be cool to record this and have an authentic reaction before even really diving into it and realizing that, yeah, I feel like this is a scam and so and so. So I just turned on the camera and just recorded my entire deep dive into them, posted that and edited it and I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually kind of fun. I wasn't even thinking about monetization or anything, but it was just really fun to do that. And I feel like I don't know. I started a little conversation about it and, yeah, like Steve linked it down there, that was literally my first video and somehow, I don't know, I think I got picked up by the algorithm just a little bit and then I just started having all these content creators reach out to me and start a conversation and I was like this is freaking cool and I just kept going with it and tried to make things that were interesting to me, not always deep dives like that, but it just jump started it from there.
Jason:
Basically for me, so what was your synopsis of Cove?
Faith:
I did not like them at all, oh my gosh. No, the whole thing with them, too, is they make it seem Okay, let me put it this way right, when you have car insurance, we all have deductibles we had to me, right? But after that they pay for it. You don't have to pay that money back to them, right? But, cove, I couldn't find any reviews online about people actually getting payouts from them. They would just make it so hard. And if they did pay you out, you wouldn't get that check for like three weeks well passed, when you actually needed it, and unless you were paying $70 for like their highest tier, you had to pay that money back to them that they lent out to you.
Faith:
And yeah, and you can. And to cancel the cherry on top, if you wanted to cancel it, you couldn't even get into the website unless you gave them your phone number and your email. You couldn't even see the information on there.
Jesper:
So you had to give them personal information.
Faith:
And yeah, if you ever wanted to cancel it, you couldn't just go into the website and cancel it as you normally do. You had to send an email and I tried doing this. I had to call my bank and be like I think this is fraud. But you have to send them an email and they reply to you back and they're like oh, if you could just find this 20 digit ID code that we sent you six months ago and send that to us, then we can start the two-week process of canceling your subscription. I was like, oh, hell, no. And when you look up, when you look up the IP to and again, this isn't, this isn't a video like I did, probably way too much Diving into them but when you look up the IP I can't remember, but it was like some offshore island.
Faith:
Mmm that has no laws basically. So if you want to come at them, you are getting any help.
Jason:
I'll give you an update. I just googled them and then it brought me to the rideshare guy and said that this was last updated on February 7th 2023. And you click on cover and it says website expired.
Faith:
Yep, that makes sense.
Jason:
So Burned, burned hot and fast didn't work. I mean, I Understood. You know you're gonna have that in a new Thing. People are gonna come out of the woodwork. I think there was an insurance company for a while that was specifically focused just on gig workers. That was out for a bit and then they pulled it back. I don't think they went under, but they decided.
Jesper:
Yeah well, and this was before all the insurance companies starting adding writers.
Jason:
I mean, I think there is a place for that out there. I know we're kind of getting off topic big time, but that's okay. That's what the show is about.
Jesper:
It's called. What's the color of those fast loans?
Jason:
Payday loans. But I think you know wrapping it up. I think there is a place for that out there because you know gig work can be so well like you know it's like you're worried about car repairs and stuff like that, so it can be. I think it's out there, but it is. It can be a something that could take advantage of people really easy and obviously didn't.
Jesper:
But but I think I think you faith you touched on a little bit about you know, and I think it's you know good on you for actually doing the research, because how many drivers out there, how many gig workers, don't do any of that? They just kind of Know, dive head first into things and just do it right but, that's that's. That's that's the. I guess the good and the bad about the gay economy is is there's very few requirements.
Jesper:
You have to do it to become a gig, gig worker, and so it's harder to protect yourself because it's so easy to just begin to stuff, and so we are so hungry to have Services that protect us, and so it's easy for Services like this and probably a hundred other ones out there that we don't know about, that is just. You know, they're kind of scammy. They're not really. They always they started with a good idea but then they're turning to some scam thing, whatever and exactly. And so that's where I think that's part of why there's this big discussion about, you know, 1099 w2 and I'm not getting any of that. But it's the protection of the worker too. Right.
Jesper:
I had, I had a question, faith, and so I know we were talking about your Um, you're creating or you're being a creator, but I wanted to touch Little bit about. I asked you a question. So you're living in Vermont right now. You're saying in your area you don't really have there's no, really there's no. You know, people, dashing is not a thing or whatever, and there's not a market. Say that. Say, some fancy new gig app appeared and and it was a good market. Would you see yourself doing that more regular next to your w2 job? I mean, are you just done with dash? Are you just done with with gig work because it's too stressful, or do you see yourself kind of possibly taking that on? If something and new and new, because that's the thing about the gig economy is, it's always changing right?
Faith:
No, that's like. That's a great question. I absolutely would like Do it for side money, you know, just that extra expendable and income and um, that's it. It did click for me. I went back to mass and was I was like, oh wow, it's still like, it is still really good money as long. My only contention is if they did roll out those guardrails that we were talking about, where they're forcing you to do the hourly or whatever else. It may be like the top, like even that top dasher thing. Um, I'm not fully caught up on that quite yet, but I've seen that they're like forcing people to have certain stats right to get bigger orders.
Faith:
That wasn't like if that stuff got fully rolled out, yeah, I would just completely leave at least a food delivery behind. But you know, I still have like the gig worker in me, you know like the drive and everything. So if, if the criteria was met, there wasn't guardrails, I could play that game the way I wanted to play it. Absolutely I would continue to do it. Um, just on a much less stressful front because, like especially with the way inflation is going, you know I'd like to own a house before I'm 75 yeah just like.
Faith:
I'd rather be putting the money you know towards something than just like, oh cool, all my savings is going towards a new car that I'm gonna need, you know, and the nice, however, may so well, as we wrap up.
Jason:
Steve had sent me a text and wanted to do an intervention on this podcast about your content creating and how he thinks that you should switch over to doing snowboard content instead of DoorDash content, and that he wants you to do that, and he will be your biggest cheerleader and help.
Faith:
Steve, oh my gosh, the backcountry king. This is an intervention I have with myself every day.
Jason:
Yeah, yeah I mean, if you that's the thing, like you, you gotta, you gotta say to yourself I like creating the content, you got to make time for it, you got to do that. I mean, I'm just, you know, I was totally joking, steve didn't text me.
Jesper:
I do think I do want to. I would like to add, though, real quick faith, that I think you're proven that you're really good at creating content. I mean, let's just say that no, I mean, and definitely it's very interesting. I mean I I mean truth. I've only watched a couple of your videos, you know, and it has been a while, but what I saw was really good and and just honest and raw, and I like that and I think a lot of people like that as well and so.
Jesper:
So I think that the side of this, I guess is I wanted to create more content, right, because it's not just you know all the, it's not all the fake videos that's being posted everywhere you know all the time.
Faith:
Oh, you know, yeah, this is you talking about real stuff, difficult decisions and stuff like that, and so I think that's that's something people actually want to see and and and does add value yeah, I think that's just something I need to be like honest about, like obviously the gig part of my life is kind of done yeah for the most part and I'm so happy with the new chapter I have and there's like so many you know adventures that I've gone on, that you know, I have like compiled a ton of videos and, like I was telling you before we even got into this, it's just like I just have not been able to decide, like do I just force this onto the dash or past? Channel or just go ahead and send it, and which is not a big deal to start over. You know, it's really not.
Jason:
I think if you're just honest with them, I, if they love you, if they were there for you, then I think they'll transfer over. I mean, if they were there just for gig stuff, well, it's part of the deal like yeah, I don't think I'd ever force it on somebody.
Jason:
For a quick example and this, and then we'll wrap up. I had a podcast for four or five years, roughly it's. It ended and it was hard and it sucked and a year later we started something else with the same people, but we're not putting it on the same channel, we're creating a new one, but on that channel I did run an ad for 30 days that we are starting a new one and then, after that 30 days, I'm gonna shut it down and be like I'm done with it. So I think there's room for that kind of stuff.
Jason:
Like I said, if they liked your content or like that liked you, I think they would jump over for sure absolutely yeah well, any closing thoughts for your super fan, steve, as he just loves you so much and and I love when Steve gets in here, it's just the best.
Faith:
I know Steve makes great snowboarding videos as well, and I hope I can follow the King up, because that is the direction I would like to move in for sure yeah, yeah, for sure and I wait to see you in Colorado again, steve so obviously you can see hi, hannibal and John, sorry yep.
Jason:
John and Hannibal. We're on. Thank you guys. Obviously dash your pass on YouTube. Look for her new content, possibly, but we won't hold her to that because I know it's a big decision to do so don't. Don't feel like you have to do it, but I think people would enjoy it. So, absolutely, all right, we'll see you guys next week 8 pm. Eastern for our regular show and Faith. Stay on the line and yeah, see you next week awesome thanks guys, bye, bye.
Jason:
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