So, been chatting with @Range Bear 🔜 MFF about gig work, and figured it was a good time to put up a few details about what the options are out there, and there are a fair number.

When you say gig work, most people think DoorDash, which isn't surprising considering the amount of marketing they do, however there's a lot more, basically you can deliver people, packages or food.

People
Uber and Lyft are the best known, though if'n you look around you might find something local or regional in your area. I believer there's also companies dipping their toe into child transport and/or non-emergency medical transport as well.

Food
Like I noted, we all know DoorDash, UberEats is about as well known, and then there's GrubHub, but once again, look around for regionals which is often easier with food as companies put up signs, stickers and other marketing at restaurants they serve. There's also GoPuff which is sort of a virtual convenience store

Packages
Now here's my niche, and the biggest problem here is that nationwide companies are rare, I primarily work for Better Trucks, but they're based in Chicago and have about two dozen warehouses, so less than half the country covered. Like them, Jitsu and Veho do package routes, and nationwide there's of course Amazon Flex. And that's assuming you want route work, if'n you want packages on demand, there's more, DropOff, Roadie, Dispatch, GoShare, Senpex, Frayt and Courial off the top of my head. They all work much DoorDash, offering the order to the nearest driver, but they also list the unclaimed orders on the app.

How does package route stuff work? Well, it varies from company to company, but except for Flex, typically you pick your work days ahead of time, go to the warehouse, and pick up your load. In the case of BT and my warehouse, as I'm not sure all warehouses do things the same, I show up, tell them where I'd like to work, how long, and what I'm driving, and they try to accommodate as many of those as they can. I'm only familiar with BT and Flex, and with Flex, you show up, check in, and it gives you a route. No offer, take it or leave it, and the only things you know ahead of time is how long it should take, and what it'll pay, where is random and can be far if you're working out of a Flex aka Same Day warehouse as opposed to a standard delivery warehouse, which is where you'll usually be working. And that's about it, the software will guide you stop by stop, and you go home when done. Pay is usually lower than the on demand work, but you're trading pay for guaranteed income, so you have to decide which is better for you.

#gig #income #work #drive