You may have seen the notices on social media encouraging Dashers to join a strike on July 31.
Should Dashers strike? Obviously that's up to individuals to decide for themselves. But we'll talk about whether the strike can accomplish anything, and we'll get into what I think WOULD make a difference with Doordash.
You can visit the Episode page at Entrecourier.com/s2-e2
What we Talk About
The Strike.
Dashers are pissed. Some started a movement by sharing a post on social media encouraging drivers to boycott delivering for Doordash for one day on July 31.
Two major issues:
The bigger issue to me seems to be a lack of respect from Doordash of their contractors. Lying, spinning and being sleazy in how they deal with Dashers.
Why I don't think the strike will work.
One, it's poorly organized. A strike that's only made up of a few people who started spreading ideas on Facebook has no real chance of making a dent.
A bigger issue is that there's no real commitment in the strike. If people are only taking one day off and then willing to go back to all the things they're protesting, how is Doordash going to take that seriously?
Two, we are not employees. In fact, Doordash isn't our boss, they're our customers. Businesses striking against their customers... just doesn't make a lot of sense.
What's the best way to respond to Doordash?
Treat this like you're running a business. It's as simple as that.
Understand that being an independent contractor has its drawbacks:
The nature of the beast when running a business is that the customer will try to screw you. Doordash fits that narrative well.
Decide whether you want to be an employee or an independent contractor.
As an independent contractor it's all on you. The good news is, you have more control over your success. You don't have to rely on Doordash being fair, there are other options out there.
The bad news is that when running a business, there are no guarantees. Sometimes, the business model doesn't quite work out.
If you don't like the bad that goes with being an independent contractor, don't be one.
If every person who wants the employee protection and guarantees takes that to heart and refuses to be an independent contractor, that will be the most effective way to change how Doordash operates. They won't have enough drivers.
But if you want to be a contractor, take control, and quit relying on Doordash or any other gig to be fair.
Visit Entrecourier.com
Our Podcast page is at DeliverOnYourBusiness.com
Follow us on Facebook
Folow us on Twitter
Connect with us on Linkedin
Follow us on Instagram
You may have seen the notices on social media encouraging Dashers to join a strike on July 31.
Should Dashers strike? Obviously that's up to individuals to decide for themselves. But we'll talk about whether the strike can accomplish anything, and we'll get into what I think WOULD make a difference with Doordash.
You can visit the Episode page at Entrecourier.com/s2-e2
What we Talk About
The Strike.
Dashers are pissed. Some started a movement by sharing a post on social media encouraging drivers to boycott delivering for Doordash for one day on July 31.
Two major issues:
The bigger issue to me seems to be a lack of respect from Doordash of their contractors. Lying, spinning and being sleazy in how they deal with Dashers.
Why I don't think the strike will work.
One, it's poorly organized. A strike that's only made up of a few people who started spreading ideas on Facebook has no real chance of making a dent.
A bigger issue is that there's no real commitment in the strike. If people are only taking one day off and then willing to go back to all the things they're protesting, how is Doordash going to take that seriously?
Two, we are not employees. In fact, Doordash isn't our boss, they're our customers. Businesses striking against their customers... just doesn't make a lot of sense.
What's the best way to respond to Doordash?
Treat this like you're running a business. It's as simple as that.
Understand that being an independent contractor has its drawbacks:
The nature of the beast when running a business is that the customer will try to screw you. Doordash fits that narrative well.
Decide whether you want to be an employee or an independent contractor.
As an independent contractor it's all on you. The good news is, you have more control over your success. You don't have to rely on Doordash being fair, there are other options out there.
The bad news is that when running a business, there are no guarantees. Sometimes, the business model doesn't quite work out.
If you don't like the bad that goes with being an independent contractor, don't be one.
If every person who wants the employee protection and guarantees takes that to heart and refuses to be an independent contractor, that will be the most effective way to change how Doordash operates. They won't have enough drivers.
But if you want to be a contractor, take control, and quit relying on Doordash or any other gig to be fair.
Visit Entrecourier.com
Our Podcast page is at DeliverOnYourBusiness.com
Follow us on Facebook
Folow us on Twitter
Connect with us on Linkedin
Follow us on Instagram
So did you hear about the strike that's supposed to be happening on July 31? We've got dashes that are boycotting and striking against Doordash for one day. We'll talk about that today. Welcome back, my friends. Welcome back Courier Nation to episode two of season two of the Deliver on Your Business podcast. This is where it is all about you being the boss. This is about helping everybody understand. But folks, you're not just some grunt. You're not just somebody who only does delivery. You are a business owner. If you are doing delivery work in the gig economy as an independent contractor for Grubhub or Uber Eats, Instacart, Uber and Lyft even, which is not delivery. But if you're doing any of this gig economy work, you are running a business and this is all about helping you deliver on your business. Well my friends, it is so good to be back for episode two of season two. And before we get into it, we're going to do just a little bit of housekeeping here. So as we get started, the first thing that I want to do is I want to get this little piece out of the way and that is this that I would love your help in helping us spread had the word about Deliver on Your business about EntreCourier.Com. If you find this podcast, you can find the website. Any of those things help for it all. Let people know. Spread the word. Help them share the link to this on Twitter or Facebook. Any of those type of things. Leave a review on this podcast here if you're somewhere where you can leave a review because what all that does is that helps us get found. And if you're finding this helpful, what that means is helping us get found means we can help more people. And so I would love it and I would appreciate it if you can spread the word and let people know about this podcast about Entre Courier. All of that. Alright my friend, just a heads up in that next week there's not going to be an episode. I know I took six months off. Six and a half months, almost seven months off and I'm already taking a week off here. What's up with that? So we're in the middle. I was actually kind of surprised I'm able to get in an episode this week. I was a little worried I wouldn't. My wife and I were getting our house ready to sell and I'm asking myself, what am I thinking? Oh my gosh. Just getting the place ready to sell as I think more packing and more stuff to do than what the actual packing is going to be. But I've lived in this house for longer than I've lived anywhere for in any one place. So I'm not sure what I signed up for, but it's just got us busy enough. And next week is when it all goes on the market, and we're taking off out of town so that we're not in the way of the Realtors and all that stuff. And so I'm just giving myself permission to take a week off. It's not really taking the week off, because, my goodness, if you ever tried to spray painting a patio ceiling with one of those cheap spray guns where you're holding up a half gallon of paint up over your head, it's not taking time off, that's for sure. Anyway, enough of that. So we'll be off for a week. And then when you come back, we're going to be talking about Pro Act. At least that's the plan and Pro Act is legislation that is right now before the Senate or they're trying to get it into the Senate. And it's probably not going to pass. But it's hard to say. And there's a few things about Pro Act that are all about classification and when a company can use independent contractors and how that all applies, especially to labor relations. And so we want to get into a little bit more about what Pro Act is, how can it affect us and and all that stuff? So that's what's coming up next week. And you know, when I started this second season here, and we decide, okay, we'll start with talking about Para because of what's going on with them. And then because the news about this or or or strike on July 31 started percolating around that time. And then with Pro Act kind of coming up in the news, I thought, okay, that makes sense to talk about those. And I hadn't really thought about how connected all of those are. We had last week David Pick roll with Para on talking about their tip transparency, about DoorDash kind of taking that ability to know the whole payment amount away. And then this week, we get into drivers going on strike. And I think some of the anger that leads to this strike for some people came out of this change and with what DoorDash is doing with hidden tips as well as a lower base pay. And then I hadn't really thought about it. That it's like, okay, it goes hand in hand with this thing about the Pro Act, because the Pro stands for protecting the right to organize. And so there's kind of a place where it is a question whether or not should you be organizing in the gig economy, should you be organizing as independent contractors and things like that? And so at least as far as this strike here, that's what I want to dive into today. Now, one last thing, that last little piece of housekeeping, and that is I want to talk just real briefly about an affiliate partner of mine. A while back, I did an article where I just did a full analysis. I just looked at several mileage and expense tracking apps at once, and at the time, I had hardly heard of this one app called Hurdler and they actually came out on top. And here's the thing that I really, really need to stress, folks, as an independent contractor, you've got to be tracking, especially if you drive for your deliveries and things like that. You've got to be tracking your miles. My friends, you have to be tracking your miles and your expenses. Sometimes the expenses aren't nearly as much, but with $0.56 a mile for this year that you're able to write off of your expenses, that's huge. You've got to do it, because if you're not tracking those miles, you are throwing money away. You are going to pay more than you have to pay on tax day. So you've got to be tracking. Okay. Now, some people make the mistake. They say that okay. Hey, it doesn't matter if you itemize your deductions. I'm sorry. They say it doesn't matter if you track because I'm not going to itemize my deductions anyway. I don't have enough deductions to be able to take it. And it's like, no, it does matter because you don't claim your business expenses in your itemized deductions. You claim them as part of listing your income and everything in a different part of your tax form. So the deal is that it doesn't matter or whether you take the standard deduction you itemize, none of that matters. What matters is that you need to claim your expenses and you need to be tracking it and finding some method that works for you. Well, and I found that Hurdler is one great way to do that. Now, if you already have a good option, absolutely continue to run with it. Hurdle is they've got a free plan. They've got a subscription plan. And because I'm talking about them, it makes sense. I make a Commission if you get the subscription, the paid plan off of my link. And that kind of thing supports keeping EntreCourier going. It pays the cost. It helps me keep this podcast going, all these different things like that. But the thing is, even though I can get a Commission when you get the paid version, the free plan works great for a lot of people. It's just the free plan is very powerful in and of itself. It run circles around other apps, like Stride. I think it's better than some paid apps. I like it better than QuickBooks, self employed. And I'm talking about the free version. Now, here's the time that you might do the premiere where you do the subscription. If you're the type of person that tends not to remember to track that you forget to either write down your miles. If you do it pen and paper, you forget to turn on the app. Different things like that. That one thing about the paid tracking apps. And Hurdler is I think the best at that is that it will track automatically once you start driving. It's tracking. And then if you get done, it stops tracking. But what it does is it lets you then go back and look at all your different trips, and then you can say, oh yeah, that one was for delivery, that one was for delivery. And what that does is make sure that you're not losing out on miles, and therefore it makes sure that you're not paying more than you need to be paying in taxes. So if you're forgetful, like, I am an automatic tracker like that will more than pay for itself in that situation. So I really encourage you to give them a look. You can go to Entrecourier.Com/HPro, or H P r o. And there you can choose between the free version or the subscription version. They've also got a pro version that includes your income tax filing, and they do a kind of integration with taxslayer. Check them out anyway. And if you already have something great, that's awesome. But if you're not tracking your miles, you got to do it. Hurdlr's a great way to get going with that. So enough that let's talk about this strike. Have you heard about the strike? Have you heard about Dashers deciding that they want to go on strike on July 30? A while back, I started seeing this post being shared on social media, and it was basically what they want to do is do a boycott or a strike on July 31 to get enough drivers to not deliver to train, get DoorDashes attention. And they were making demands. Their demands are to raise. The base pay is the main thing. I believe up to $5. That's not going to happen. But anyway, if it does happen, wonderful. But the other part is full transparency. I start showing the whole payout. Those are the two main things. And the funny thing is, though, they're demanding, but they're going to go back to work, even if they don't get their demands because they're only doing it for one day. And so the question being, should you go on strike? Should you quit delivering on Saturday for the strike, even if you don't feel like striking, maybe sit out just to honor the strike and not cross the line, whatever they want to call it? And here's my take, in a nutshell, and it is not going to be a popular one with a certain group of people, but that I don't recommend going on strike, even if you believe in organizing. I don't think this strike is the one to do, because ultimately what's happening is all you were doing is you're going to cost yourself. You're not going to be hurting DoorDash in one bit. So it's kind of a wasted strike. I think think about it this way. You've got Saturday is usually the busiest, one of the busiest, if not the busiest days of the week. And then you've got the last day of the month when you get a lot of people that get paid. And so those two things working together, it's just an incredibly busy time to go. Now as part of this strike, I think a lot of them are encouraging people go over to Ubereats or go over to one of these other platforms. Well, you know, what you're going to do is you're going to saturate those platforms to point you're not going to make any money on those. You know, my take on that is this strike cannot work. It will not have any impact whatsoever. And so to me, it is such a waste of a good earning potential that what you're doing is you're hurting yourself and not making a dent with DoorDash. So that's the Reader's Digest version of my thoughts. Break that down a little bit more. I want to unpack that a little more. Overall, it's a waste of your money because you're costing yourself money and you're not getting any return for doing that. So that's my view of it. And now I'll be honest, too, that I think there are reasons that I don't think a strike is a good idea as an independent contractor. And I'll break that down a little bit more as we go. But one thing I am going to tell you is it's not about me siding with DoorDash, DoorDashes scum, and some of the things they've done lately just overemphasize the fact that they're scum. And so I am definitely not on their side. But what I am saying is don't waste your efforts and the business opportunity for something that just cannot work. I mean, if you're going to organize and organize, you know, but anyway, let's get into a little bit more about that strike. First question is, why are they striking? Ultimately, well ultimately it's because DoorDash scum. There's not a nice way to put it. I mean, just the way that things that DoorDash does things and has done things. Ultimately, I think it's been something that has been building. I think there's more and more frustration for DoorDash. Let's be honest, DoorDash just went through a dream scenario with the pandemic with all of the increased delivery opportunities, all of these different things. And they came out of this pandemic with customers, restaurants and drivers hating them more than ever. And it's just kind of like, how is that sustainable? I'm starting to go down a rabbit hole. I won't go down that rabbit hole. But there are a couple of things lately that have really triggered a lot more anger. And two of them are a change in the pay and hiding the tips. So let's talk about those tip. Transparency is the first one hiding the tips. Now, if you delivered much for Door, as you know that there's a lot of deliveries, you don't know how much it's going to pay, what will happen is you might get an offer for $8, and it turns out it pays $15. Or maybe it pays $8.25 or $25. You don't know, they're capping the amount that they're showing on the delivery offer. And usually it is if the tip is $4 or $5, it's like, that's all you're going to see of that portion of it, plus the base. And for the longest time, it seemed like the magic number was $8.50 or $8 or different things like that. And that's fluctuating all over the place right now. But it's just you don't know the full amount that you're going to get. And that is frustrating. A lot of dashes. Last week, we had David Pick roll on. I mentioned that. And with Para. And like I said, how that kind of leads into this in that Para was an app that was able to figure out based on the information the DoorDash sends to your phone when they send you a delivery offer. That information included the final payout amount. They were able to pull that out and then give you a notification. So if that was a $20 offer, but DoorDash is only offering you $8.50, Para could tell you this offer is actually going to pay $20, and they blew up. They got almost 200,000 drivers right away. That's like, I'm sorry, 200,000 subscribers. Doordash has about 2 million Dashers right now, according to an interview that guy did with the ride share guy that their President did with the rideshare guy. And he mentioned that right now they're at about 2 million drivers. So that's, like, 10% of dashes. We're jumping on this. And considering the fact that there was a risk of deactivation getting of your drivers on on an app like that, you know, that this tip transparency thing is a big deal. Okay. But then DoorDash figures out that this is happening and they decide to kind of change their algorithm so that that full pay information doesn't get sent out until after you've accepted the offer. And so now you don't have a way of knowing the full payout amount ahead of time. And that was a lot of what we talked about last week. And that's what David Para talked about as a guest was what was happening with that. But now all of a sudden, it's like DoorDash is doubled down on this fact that they're going to hide part of the tip. You know, they've kind of gone. You know, I said it last week. I called up Pot committed to that, you know, and that has ticked off a lot of drivers. They're already pretty pissed off about the fact that DoorDash is doing this to begin with. But now it's just kind of like rubbing salt in the wound a little bit. So there's a lot of anger about that. So here's my take on the whole tip transparency thing. Ultimately, DoorDash has no obligation to show us anything. It's not required. It's not required in an independent contractor relationship. And I've heard some people say, yeah, but you don't ever see it in any other contractor relationship where people take on a contract without knowing the pay. I get that point, but I think at the same time, it's kind of like, yeah, but in any other kind of thing, would you even get into that relationship to begin with then? I mean, if it's not acceptable in that relationship, why is it acceptable here? And if it's not acceptable in this relationship here, then why did you agree to do business with them? It's part of doing business that if you made the agreement to do business with this company on their terms, then you've agreed to it, even if you don't like the way they do things. And in the end, honestly, it's as much your fault for agreeing to that relationship if you didn't like the relationship in the first place. And so I think the other thing about it is, for the longest time, never knew what I was going to be paid on Uber Eats deliveries. And he never did know what you're going to get paid on Postmates deliveries. And, you know, honestly, I was able to do all right on Postmates. At the same time, I stopped doing deliveries on Uber Eats for the longest time, even though Uber Eats had by far the best base pay. There was a while that the base pay from Uber Eats just ran circles around what anybody else was offering. But you didn't have the information you needed to know what you were doing. Now, for me, with Uber Eats, it had more to do with not knowing where you were going. That was a non starter for me. Like, that was the deal breaker. I was not going to take a delivery if I didn't know where I was going, how long it was going to be. There was just no information on what you were getting into on any delivery, and it just wasn't worth it. So for me, it just didn't make sense to do business with Uber Eats as long as that was the model. And when they changed, when they started showing you a map, when they started showing you cross streets and now showing you more information than even DoorDash. Now, I do a lot of Uber Eats and stuff, so it's kind of like these decisions that you make, but you can still make good money on DoorDash deliveries without knowing that stuff. Could you make more if you know that? Possibly. But to me, it's like, I don't see that DoorDash has an obligation to show us, and I don't see any place where it makes sense to try and force them to show us. But I also get the frustration and ultimately the frustration that I see on this hidden tip thing. It has more to do with the sleaze behind why they do it. The reason that DoorDash hides the tip is basically it's a psychological manipulative type of thing. It is this whole thing that it's like what they do is really it is something that I think gaming does. And sometimes gambling does is what they do is they get you in, and then they sucker you in with a little bit of success. So they get you signed in, you sign up on any kind of game that you download or whatever. And right away, you're getting all sorts of success. You're winning. You're winning. You're winning. And it's like, great. And then you get hooked in. And then even later on, if you're not winning, you're still playing because you were winning before. And that's kind of what this whole hidden tip thing is with DoorDash, really is it is this okay, we sent you an $8 offer, and, boom, you got $20. Nice surprise, right? That kind of keeps you hooked. And I kind of I think it kind of ties into that encourages the gambler mentality out there. And then now you get this $2.50 offer and you're thinking all you know what? Yeah, that sucks. It's not enough. But I might get more. And so that's what it's all about is manipulating people into taking offers that they would not normally take. And to me, it's just it's like if you got to manipulate people into doing things, you know, it's sleazy. That's my take on it. So that's one of the big issues right now that is kind of leading to why people are pissed off at DoorDash. And the other one has to do with the base pay. And I mentioned that I just mentioned the example. Now you got a two dollar and 50 cent offer. It used to be $3. That was kind of what everybody got used to was, like, the lowest you would ever see, at least on a single offer was $3. You know, one of the things that's kind of come up for discussion lately is should these apps start paying us more because gas prices are going up. We're up over 3. 50, I think, on average around Denver right now. And it's been several years since it's been that high. And so there's kind of this gas is going up. And so it'd be nice if they kind of gave us a little bit more. What does DoorDash do is they turn around and they say, oh, we're going to drop your base pay. And they say, you know what? Now it used to be $3, but now it might be 2.50 or 2.25 on the shorter deliveries. Well, that's the way they put it is on the shorter deliveries. So that's got a lot of people ticked off. Our costs are going up and they're going to cut our pay. And so I think there's a lot of anger about that. But I think it's even more than just reducing the base pay. But it's how they're doing it. And this is the part that bothers me. I'm kind of like, okay, you're going to drop the base pay. That's fine. And it might be just more deliveries that I'm not going to take out the part that kind of pisses me off is the spin that they put around it. So to me, the way it's the way the DoorDash goes about this, that kind of gets at me more than the reduction of the base pay. And it's this the best way to say it is, I think, just a lack of respect. Okay. Now, to their credit, they did give a notification of sorts that like I've seen Uber Eats drop their base and they just dropped it. No warning, no nothing. It was just all of us are not their base, but their minimum. I figured out that they're still paying the same, but different story. Another rabbit hole. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but anyway, there's notification pops up and it says updates to how you earn. We believe every order should be worth your time, but up to this point, you were paying similarly for both long distance orders and shorter trips. To make these longer deliveries more worthwhile, we're making an adjustment. So you get paid more for longer trips. What's changing when you start dashing today, you may now earn 10-30% more in base pay on long distance deliveries. For shorter distance dashes that are quicker to complete, you may now see a door dash base pay offer of $2.50 for single order trips. This amount is always separate from any customer tips which will remain 100% yours. You can also earn more with challenges and other incentives which are here to stay. Now, how will this affect my earnings on average Dashers in your area? I'm sorry in your region will make the same earnings per hour on delivery as before. Your individual earnings may change based on how many long and short distance orders you complete. Below. As an example, delivery, one longer delivery, 7 miles, 24 minutes, $4.75 previously, $3.50. So I made the point that this was sent by a notification, and it's like it wasn't sent in an email. And I don't know, maybe this is a small thing, but point that it was sent as a notification in the app. I can pull up all my old notifications, right? That notification has gone away. So it's just kind of like, okay, we put that out there and it was like enough to at least tell people that was there, that it was out there. But we'll take that notification away because we don't want people holding us to that promise of the longer deliveries if I didn't have that screenshot from when it happened. But here's the thing about that was it was they gave the example of seven mile delivery for $4.75. I've been tracking all of this stuff on delivery offers and deliveries coming in and all that stuff. I've got ten different deliveries since this change that were between seven and 7.9 miles. Since this change, you know what? The highest amount was?$3.50, which is exactly what DoorDash said the old amount was, I have not seen any seven mile deliveries that were up over $4, not to mention $4.75. And this is the point that I'm getting at, they're lying. Okay? And in fact, this part that they said, let me go back to the beginning of this where it said that. But up to this point, you were paid similarly for both long distance orders and shorter trips. You know what that is? That is essentially saying that they lied in the original pay model. In fact, the pay model is the same. Nothing has changed on their pay model page, and what they're doing now still fits within it. It's more like the only thing that's really changed is not the pay model, but how they are implementing the pay model. But the thing is, the pay model has always said that your base pay is from two to $10. That means they can still go down to $2, actually, but it's from two to $10, and it ranges based on distance, duration, and desirability. So how far you drive, how long it takes, and how much people want that delivery? Okay, but this is basically. What they've done is they've said, okay, we lied about the distance and duration part of it because you were paid similarly. Okay, so if they lied before, what are the chances they lied now? Well, in practice, they're showing that they lied. So this is the thing you can probably already here. I get a little bit worked up about this where they send out this email and they lead with we're going to pay you more, but they don't pay you more. And it's that kind of stuff. It's that kind of spin. It's this kind of thing that says it's like when they offer the latest thing with top Dasher, where you will now get first priority on higher pay offers, well, they already gave you first priority if you're a top dash or on higher pay offers, because they said they give you first priority on all offers. So it's like they do all this stuff to spend to say, hey, we're giving you something when they don't give you anything. But when they say they're going to take away, they absolutely take away. And that's the kind of thing that's the kind of thing that I think is really pissing drivers off, probably more than just the hidden tips and more than the lower base pay. It's the lack of respect for drivers. And so there's just a lot of anger building up. And now we got drivers saying, hey, it's time for us to go on strike. I get that. The question is, will it work? And I don't believe it will. And this is why there are two reasons really, why. One, it's poorly done, and two, we're not employees. Let's talk about how it's poorly done. Here's the thing. This thing is really not organized at all. Here's the problem. Somebody throws up a post up on a Facebook group, and it's a poorly worded post. It's incoherent. It is misspellings all over the place. And it's like, this is not the thing you want to lead with. It's kind of like I read just a few words into it. It's like, yeah, I can't take this thing seriously, but it gets shared and it gets shared. And enough people say, oh, we should do this. We should do this. But it's just like, okay, let's just get enough people to share it on social media, and we'll go on strike for a day, and that's about it. That's never going to work. Okay. It just it doesn't work, and you're not going to get enough Dashers to make a difference with it, but there's no organization behind it. You will be talking about the Pro Act and Pro A ct stands for the pro is protecting the right to organize. And that's the thing about doing a strike. One of the big things, and the thing that makes it work is you organize it. This is not organized. This is not anything. It's just it's poorly done. It's poorly thought out. So they did not put serious effort into building it up. I'm not sure that you can really organize it well, because it is with independent contractors, and you've got a certain amount of people that are on social media, but a huge percentage that are not. So how do you ever get everybody organized to begin with? But the thing is, they're just not getting enough people on there. And then the other problem is it's one day. I'm sorry, but a one day boycott is not going to do anything. My daughter was just finishing up her degree. As far as for a teacher when they had to strike here in Denver, the teacher strike. And my stepdaughter is a teacher at the time. And I can tell you, that thing was organized. They were talking to people leading up to it. There was all sorts of planning. There was all sorts of work behind the scenes before the strike happened. And the other thing I can tell you is it wasn't like, oh, we're going to take a day off, and then that's going to make a difference. They were committed, and they were going to see it through. And I know from talking to different people around town that we're teachers at the time, they were going to see this thing through. And so the thing is, if you go and you go out and say, oh, I don't like this, and you go out and you sit out for a day, but then you come back to the thing that you don't like, nothing's changed, and you're still going to come back. You're saying that it doesn't really make a difference. So what's happened is poor organization, and that means you're not getting enough people to make a dent. And then on top of it, you're doing it in such a way that you're not really going to be taken seriously because you're going back to Dashing right after that. And it's telling DoorDash that, oh, yeah, you say you don't like it, but you're still coming back. So those kind of things, it's not going to work that way. And that's why I'm even at a point where I couldn't even say, sit this one out just out of respect for the people that are doing the strike, because let me put it this way. I am not going to sit out because somebody did a piss poor job of organizing their strike. Okay? I am not going to pass up on a good earning opportunity when you've done such a terrible job of organizing your strike that there's not a chance in hell that it has making any kind of a dent or any kind of a difference. I am not going to hurt myself because you did a crappy job putting your strike together. So that's part of it. The other issue is you're not an employee. The bottom line is striking is something that you do as an employee. And there's a few things that are related that are involved in this idea that you're not an employee. First of all, the whole thing about unions and how things work with that, it works within an employee context. But you're not employees. You're independent contractors, which means that you are business owners. And in fact, the fact that you're a business owner kind of puts you at risk on something on the other side of it. Now, I don't think anybody's ever going to take it to this point. But whenever business owners get together to try and influence the pricing of their customers, it's called price fixing. It's illegal. It's banned under antitrust laws, things like that. So you can't do that as a business owner. And I know that independent contractors for gig economy are kind of, you know, the reality is, is kind of somewhere in between type of thing. I get that. And I know that organizers Pro Act they make a point that part of what they're trying to do is allow organization within the independent contractor thing. But it's just that the nature of being an independent contractor, it just doesn't work together. Well, but here's the other thing is that when you're an independent contractor, when you sign the agreement or when you agree to the terms of service, it said very clearly, I agree that I am an independent contractor, that I'm entering into a business to business relationship. And so here's the thing. When you're operating as a business, that means you got to have a customer who's paying you. Doordash is the one paying you. They are the one coordinating to pay for you. Doordash is your customer. Where have you ever seen a strike where it's businesses going on strike against the customers, you see. But I think here's the other thing. I think that just stands out to me when you think about this, especially when you think in terms of DoorDash being your customer, here's the nature of the beast. When you run a business, your customer is going to try and screw you. That's just part of being in business. Somehow, the customer are going to try and crew you. They're going to try and talk you down. They're going to try and teach you if they can. They're going to shoplift. If you run a store, DoorDash, DoorDash is the shoplifter of the gig economy. Let's be honest. I mean, they're the ones that are going to try and crew you worse than anybody. But that's just the reality. So in the end, it's just that I don't think it can work, because one, it's not the same kind of situation as an employee situation. And two, it's just so poorly done that it doesn't have a chance to work. And so that's why I'm like, don't waste your time on the strike and don't waste your earnings by sitting out on this strike. Don't reward a poorly done strike. Just anyway, I've said all that already. So what's the best thing to do, then what's the best way to handle this situation if this strike can't work? Is there a way to make a change? And I've already ranched about the sleaziness of DoorDash. But again, I think that's the thing that goes back to this customer. It's like customers will be sleazy and you got to make a decision. Are you going to run business? Are you going to run your business in spite of the fact that your customers can be scum? Now, I know that if you're running a restaurant, you don't just openly put it out there that, hey, all my customers are scammer or not all customers. Maybe in our case in the economy, maybe they all are. I don't know. But the best way to affect change is to take seriously the fact that being an independent contractor means running a business. Take that to heart, understand, live with that. Realize that you agree to contract with them as a business. But beyond that, man, take advantage of the fact that you're running a business and run it like a business. Treat this thing like you really are running a business. And this is going to lead to, I think, a couple of ramifications here, a couple of different things that come to mind with that. So a couple of points that I want to make around that. And the first one is that the real issue here, if you feel like you need to go on strike, if you feel like if you feel like it's not fair, the way that DoorDash is working and something has to be changed, the real issue here is not the base pay. It's not the hidden tips. The real issue ultimately is you feel like you're misclassified because what you're saying is you want the protections that go with being an employee. You want the kind of guarantees that go with being an employee. You want the fairness that belongs to being an employee. And the reality is that none of that, none of that is part of being an independent contractor. And here's the reality. And this is kind of a tough little situation. It's been a debate going on for years now. It was a big deal over in California a year ago, and a big deal that we'll be talking about next week with Pro Act. And this is this whole misclassification thing. But ultimately, I think that is the issue. And it is if you feel like you want those protections and those guarantees, if you want that fairness, all of those things, the type of relationship where you can force them to be doing things that's an employee relationship. That is something where you're giving power away, though, in return for that. But it is it really is something that goes with an employee relationship. If you're a business owner, you're in a relationship of equals, and you can't be forcing that kind of stuff out of your customer. And so you know that's the thing. And like I said, it is kind of an issue, though, that it's kind of hard to flush out because here's the reality. I think DoorDash is abusing the independent contractor relationship. I do believe that there is misclassification going on. Not that being an independent contractor is by nature misclassification, but the way that DoorDash does it. And I'll throw away in grub hub and Uber eats and Instacart, because ultimately what they're trying to do is they're trying to get employees while paying for independent contractors. They're trying to Dodge the responsibilities to go with employees. They're trying to Dodge workers comp and paying for your Social Security or half of your Social Security and for insurance and all those different things that go with having an employee. They want to get out of that, but they still want to have you as an employee. They still want to have you think as an employee. And in that regard, I do believe that DoorDash is abusing the independent contractor relationship. And I do believe that it's that approach by DoorDash, the fact that they're recruiting people as though it's a job, you know, that's contributing to this whole idea. That okay. We should have those protections then, you know, nobody's making you sign up with DoorDash. Just like I started up this website, I started up this podcast. Nobody made me do that, you know, and when I take on advertising, nobody makes any of my customers do the advertising. It's a very different thing when it's a business relationship. But because the way that DoorDash and all these other companies approach it, I think it does kind of fuzzy up the lines, and it creates some confusion, and it creates an employee mindset out there. But here's the thing that employee mindset is what is enabling misclassification. It's the employee mindset that ultimately allows DoorDash to continue to be as sleazy as DoorDash is. Here's the deal. You can go out on strike, right? Go ahead. Go do your strike. What's that saying? When you come back and you continue to take those two dollar and 50 cent orders, what's that saying? When you come back from your strike and you're still taking orders, even though they're hiding the tips, you're telling DoorDash it's okay if you're not committed to it, that doesn't do a whole lot of good. But the whole thing is when you're sitting there saying it's unfair, you're taking on this employee mindset, and you're saying DoorDash is responsible for your success. Doordash is responsible for being fair to you. You're expecting DoorDash to be your employer, but you signed up and agreed to be an independent contractor. And here's what I'm getting at. As long as you are thinking like an employee, but you're but you're agreeing to be an independent contractor, you're not going to get anywhere. You're not going to get anywhere. The law is not behind you. And the reality of the relationship you're in is not behind you. But here's what's going to make a difference, and that is to take that independent contractor role seriously, to really grasp what it is. Let me explain. What this means is if you agree to be an independent contractor, then be an independent contractor, don't be an employee. And that's going to include all the things that are involved with when you agree that you're running a business, and that means you don't get any guarantees. That means there are no promises. That means that your customer will have no promise that they're going to be fair to you. It also means that it is up to you that your success depends on you, not on DoorDash. It depends on how you respond to what's happening. It depends on the decisions that you make. And here's the deal, if the deal with your customer isn't good enough, then don't agree to it. That's your responsibility as a business owner. That is not DoorDash's responsibility. If DoorDash is the customer, they're going to try and screw you. And if you let them screw you, it's your fault, not DoorDash's fault. Here's the deal. Three and a half years, three and a half years I've been doing delivery and base pay on all the platforms, has done nothing but go down. And yet I still make more money than what I did three and a half years ago. I make more per hour. I make more just all the time because of things that are under my control and because I'm not relying on DoorDash being fair or Grubhub or Uber eats or anybody else being fair. So there's the plus and there's the minus. But when you decide that you're taking the business, that you're doing this as a business, you got to take both ends of it. It's all part of the deal. You can't have it both ways. You just can't. You can't open a restaurant and force customers to come. You can't open a store and force your customers to be fair. It's part of running a business. And the thing is, if you're running that business and the customers don't come, or either you don't charge enough, or you just can't get the customers to pay enough to keep you going, you go out of business. And I think that's the tough reality if you're doing the gig economy. Here's the deal. Like I said, I'm making more per hour now than I ever was. But there's a possibility that that could end if things just get to a point where there's just not enough business, there's longer weights that the customers quit tipping or everybody continues as race to zero. So there's no base pay or anything on top of that. At some point, it could get to the point where it doesn't make sense anymore. I'm not making enough money to make it worth doing. And guess what? Nobody says that I have to be that's part of running a business. And at some point the market doesn't support your business model, it's time to move on. You've got to be willing to walk away if it's not enough, and that is part of running a business. But here's the thing. If DoorDash is misclassifying, they get away with it for one reason. And that's because people are agreeing to it. And if you are wanting to go on strike, ultimately, you're still thinking that you should be having the protections that go with being an employee. And and ultimately what you're doing is you're still giving the power to DoorDash because you're relying on them for your success. If you're agreeing to be an independent contractor, you agree to be a business owner, but you expect employee treatment and employee protections. It's just never going to work. Here's the deal. If you're running a business and you feel like the deal isn't fair, you walk away. Or if you feel like you can work around the customer being scum, you walk around the way the customers are being scum, and you still make your profit. I see a lot of times that DoorDash and Grubhub and Uber Eats are all kind of scuzzy because of the way that they want to have it both ways. You know that they want to have you act like an employee, but they only want to pay for an independent contractor. Well, guess what? Independent contractors are not any better. A lot of independent contractors are where they want the freedom of being an independent contractor. They want the freedom of running their own business, setting their own hours, going whenever they want, being able to work multiple apps, all of those things. And yet we still want to be treated like an employee when it comes to forcing the company to be fair. Doordash cannot have it both ways. And that's why I think you can thrive as an independent contractor. See, DoorDash, you can choose not to pay you as an employee. They can choose to bring you on as an independent contractor, but you can embrace that role as an independent contractor, take control, make your own decisions, and control your own destiny. So it's like you get the opportunity with that. Well, the same thing is true that you cannot have it both ways either. If you want the protection, if you want them to be forced to be fair, the only way to do that is to put them in a position where they're your employer. If you want the freedom, if you want all the perks of being an independent contractor, then be the independent contractor. You can't have it both ways. You got to make up your mind. If you choose to be an independent contractor, then treat this like a business and quit expecting DoorDash to be your employer instead of your customer. And I know you're probably asking, okay. Yeah, but how is that going to make DoorDash change? Because I said embracing your role as a business owner is the one thing that can make a change. I'm a little scared of where this is going because of the fact that I prefer to be an independent contractor. But here's the deal, if you want DoorDash to change, you're going to have to do it by forcing them to use employees. And I don't think that Pro Act is the way to go. I don't like Pro Act because I think it it's intrusive in too many ways, and it prohibits legitimate uses of independent contractor and everything. But here's the deal, if you want those protections and you got to go for the employee route. And if that means forcing DoorDash to become an employer instead of a contract relationship, there's really one way to do it, and that is to take seriously the fact that this is an independent contractor relationship. In other words, if you don't like the relationship, then don't do the contract. You know what? If you feel like this is unfair, then don't be an independent contractor, walk away, go being employed somewhere else. But here's the thing is, if everybody who felt that way, if everybody who felt like DoorDash owes them a guarantee, everybody who felt like DoorDash should be forced to be fair. If everybody who wanted DoorDash to be their employer were to walk away and not agree to be an independent contractor, DoorDash would be forced to change. Because the thing is that if everybody who is an independent contractor really took seriously that they were an independent contractor, and if nobody signed on as an independent contractor who wasn't all in on being an independent contractor, DoorDash would be forced to change. Doordash would probably be forced into an employee model, because the reality is that if everybody understood exactly what it meant to be an independent contractor, and if nobody were to sign up as an independent contractor who expected to be treated like an employee, DoorDash would not have enough people to complete their deliveries. And that's what DoorDash relies on. They've got to be able to complete those deliveries or else they won't be in business. So in the end, it all comes down to what is it that you want? What do you want to be? Do you want to be an independent contractor running your own business, responsible for yourself? Or do you want to be an employee? With the protections and the guarantees that go with being an employee, you have to choose. You can't have both. And here's the thing, if you want to be an employee, don't agree to be an independent contractor, because as soon as you agree to be an independent contractor, you give away all your rights to do any kind of organization. And by the way, you just gave up all the guarantees that go with being an employee. So why would you put yourself into a position that you don't agree with? I think I've already said this before. I'm a little nervous about saying all of this because the bottom line is I would never be an employee of DoorDash or Grubhub or Uber Eats. All of these companies are scum as far as the way they treat their drivers. Well, I'm sure as hell not going to put them in a position of power over me. As an employer. I can deal with the crap when they're my customer, because that's just part of the nature of doing business. As part of the nature of having customers as you're going to have that are just going to be that way. But I sure don't want to be their employee, you know? So I'm not encouraging people to go out and try and force it, but the deal is, if you want that employee protection, if you want those employee rights, then be an employee. Go be an employee somewhere else, or quit being an independent contractor and quit enabling DoorDash to misclassify you. If you feel like you're misclassified, but you've got to make up your mind. I don't know. In some ways I'm telling you to leave, even though I'm telling you not to go on strike. But maybe in some ways, what I'm telling you isn't all that far different than a strike, except for it's not organized. It's just that if everybody took to heart what it meant to be an independent contractor and either embrace the role of independent contractor or decided not to be an independent contractor if they didn't agree with what being an independent contractor was, that's the thing that would change DoorDash. Ultimately, it's kind of the same thing as a strike and that you don't have enough people out there for DoorDash to do what they want to do. But that's the only thing that's going to really force them to change. So be real. Do you want to be an employee then quit being an independent contractor? You don't want to be an employee, then don't rely on a strike or forcing DoorDash to change to improve your life because you know what? It won't. It won't change anything because you still gave them the power. That's where I am on the strike idea. And so if you haven't hung up on me and shut this off because of where I'm at, thank you. Thank you for sticking through this. And here's the thing. In the end, I don't believe you need a strike to succeed. I think you can make it and do very well as an independent contractor. You don't even need DoorDash to be fair or anybody else. What you need is to take the responsibility and the success onto your own shoulders meant. The whole gist of this podcast is just to encourage you to think like a business owner. Take control like a business owner, be responsible for your success without relying on the whims of DoorDash, Uber, Grub, Instacart anybody else. Instead, you be the one to take control and be the boss.