The gig economy has allowed many people to work from any place they want to be, whenever they would choose to.
However, as some have gained a kind of freedom to travel or create their own schedules by working for these delivery services, others have had less positive experiences. Some delivery runners working for services like DoorDash and UberEats have taken to TikTok to share that they have been banned or otherwise cut off from working for the apps for a variety of reasons, warning viewers to be wary should they choose to pursue it as a kind of employment.
A former Instacart shopper who says he worked for the company for a year as his full-time job is advising viewers not to follow in his footsteps, as he did not have the best time. Robbie Scott (@robbiesmoonmusic) shared his experience in a post to TikTok.
“As someone who did Instacart as his full-time job for a whole f*ckin’ year a couple years back, my mental health got so bad doing Instacart as a full-time job that I have never been lower in my entire life,” Scott says. “I always see these people on this app who show that they’re making $250 a day doing Instacart. You can do that, that was me, I was happy to do that just to get by. But it would take me eight-plus hours to do that. I was working more doing Instacart than I ever had to do at an actual nine-to-five job.”
He says that not only did he work harder doing Instacart than a conventional job and was without any benefits, but there was nothing to protect him from having his work taken from him. On one occasion, he says his entire Instacart account was deleted because a customer lied and claimed they did not receive their order.
“Rent was due, it’s my only source of income,” he says. “Instacart doesn’t care, they’re like, ‘Sorry, bye.'”
The job also put a large number of miles on his vehicle, Scott says, which was later stolen during a delivery. He adds that he experienced a variety of issues, which the delivery service’s customer service team was unhelpful in resolving.
Scott shared his experience as many other Instacart shoppers are rallying against the company due to the lowering of base pay. The Daily Dot has reached out to Scott and to Instacart via email regarding the video.
@robbiesmoonmusic #stitch w/ @Sara Amber Victoria … if you’ve been on their waitlist, babe… that’s a BLESSING!! #instacart #capitalism #storytime #gaytiktok ♬ original sound – robbie scott
In the comments section, several viewers shared that they had also tried working for Instacart and would not be repeating the experience.
“People talk about living paycheck to paycheck, with instacart your living batch to batch,” one commenter wrote.
“I did one order for instacart and nope never again,” another said.
“I was DONE after some order 5 cases of water (40 pk) from Costco – AND they lived up on the 3 fl w/ no ELEVATOR,” a further user shared.
Many specifically pointed to issues with pay as their biggest reason to avoid working for Instacart.
“I’ve had so many slow days where I sat around for hours to only make $35 and put it back into my gas tank,” one commented. “Making less than minimum wage some days!”
“Heavy on part time gig for extra money not worth the stress on you or your car !” another wrote.
“Instacart, DoorDash, Uber… I was in tears between orders,” an additional viewer said. “Making less than $10 an hour.”