The term ‘gig workers’ is derived from a jazz-age slang. In the 1920s and 1930s, jazz players in the United States used ‘gig’ to describe a short-term booking or club date where they were paid per show.
In recent times, the term ‘gig workers’ has become an integral part of our lexicon. You cannot miss them even if you wanted to. They ring your doorbell on a daily basis, delivering provisions from Big Basket, pizzas from Dominos, medicines from your neighbouring medico, couriers depositing things you had forgotten you had ordered the previous week (‘Lizard repellent? Moi?’) and unwanted notices from the Income Tax Department. Not to forget the lady who supplies vegetables from just a block away and charges a sinful premium for the service. As a retired pensioner, a pitiful dole I might add, having to trudge up to the front door to collect the stuff at least nine or ten times a day takes care of my intended, but largely ignored, Tai Chi walking regimen. And here’s the thing. For some inscrutable reason, they prefer the afternoon slots, these delivery chappies. My post prandial nap has been shot to pieces.
They are omnipresent, these gig workers. If they are in your face, quite literally, at your doorstep, they are all over the streets, dominating our chaotic traffic conditions as you attempt to wend your weary way through the jams in your jalopy. They whiz past, the gig demons, on their two-wheelers bearing bold legends on their overalls – Swiggy, Zomato, Big Basket, Dominos, Porter, the ubiquitous Amazon and several lesser-known brands. (Nagarjuna’s biryani is to die for, claim some devotees). They twist, turn and swerve dangerously, constantly following the ‘location’ on their mobile GPS to get to their destinations in double quick time. Bonuses and penalties are involved for timely or tardy deliveries. If that causes a few aged drivers missing a heartbeat or climbing the nearest pavement, ah well, that just goes with the territory. When they are not tearing down our pot-holed roads as if getting in tune for the MotoGP World Championship, they congregate in clusters at various street corners, smoking, watching videos on their hand-held or just gossiping while awaiting instructions for their next port of call.
This is not intended to be a rant against gig workers. They contribute enormously to keep the wheels of commerce well-oiled in our frenetic, post-Covid world, where more of the working generation order food in preference to cooking at home. In fact, the government’s statistics on employment would look more flattering if they could take into account all these workers from what is loosely termed ‘the unorganised sector.’ After all, the ruling dispensation receives flak on a daily basis on this score alone from the opposition parties and other bleeding hearts.
That said, it would help if some sort of training in communicating with customers is imparted to these youngsters who earn their daily wages in pretty forbidding infrastructural and climatic conditions. Once in a rare while, you are likely to come across a specimen who can understand clearly what it is you are trying to convey and provide an intelligent reply. That is a rarity. For the most part, my conversation with the average delivery individual will proceed something on these lines.
As I open the door and stick my hand out to collect whatever it is that the fellow is bringing, he pauses and mutters those three deadly letters of the English alphabet. ‘OTP’ he barks. This was a new one on me. Delivery boys didn’t ask for one-time passwords previously.
‘Why OTP? Can’t you just give me that packet which is clearly addressed to me?’
‘OTP,’ he repeats unyieldingly, clearly indicating he won’t budge otherwise. He also appeared to limit his conversational method to parroting that one, single utterance: OTP. Like some mantra.
I went in and brought my mobile phone and could find no message from anyone having sent me those magic digits that could have ended this impasse. I tried again with this stubborn courier from whom a mule could have taken its correspondence course. There was also a language problem. English, Tamil, Hindi, broken Kannada, he received them all with the same indifference. I even tried my rusty Bengali but to no avail. Swahili was out of the question. Maybe he was one of those recruits with special needs? I couldn’t tell.
‘No OTP’ I said, flashing my mobile at him and employing his own staccato lingo. He then moved away from me and called someone, probably his superior and muttered something I was unable to follow. Then he came back to me and said triumphantly, ‘Now OTP.’ I stared at my intransigent friend, stared at my mobile and waited. Poor signal. The story of our lives. Finally, my mobile lit up and a four-digit number flashed across the screen. I turned the phone towards my monosyllabic visitor’s face. He squinted at it suspiciously, as if I was pulling a fast one on him, punched those numbers on his mobile and waited. Another 30 seconds passed while we continued the staring game with each other. Finally, a ‘ping’ sounded on his wretched instrument. He thrust the packet at me, face wreathed in smiles and was off like a jack rabbit. No thank you, no sorry, nothing. I slammed the door, tore opened the packet. It was an in-house promotional magazine from a television brand. The entire OTP drama for this! Much ado about nothing. For all the trouble I went through being roused at 3 pm, I should have at least received a penalty notice from the Income Tax Department!
As if all this weren’t bad enough, at times you are faced with the bloke who has the wrong address or flat number but decided to pin the tail on the donkey at my door. Naturally, I was not amused.
‘Hullo, this parcel is for one Mr. Anil Kashyap, apartment number 705, Rose Garden Complex. Can you read what’s written on the brass plate on my door? S. Subrahmanyan, 1304. And this is not the Rose Garden Complex. Wrong on all three counts. And yet you rang the bell. Just took a random chance, did you?’
He looked rattled for a minute or so, then recovered. ‘Sir, but you have got OTP?’
Here we go again, with the OTP circus. ‘No bhaiyya, I have not got OTP. Nor will I get OTP if you waited all day long. The cows won’t come home. Not here. Try Mr. Anil Kashyap at the Rose Garden Complex. The cows have all gathered there for a convention.’ He looked alarmed, clearly concluding that I had flipped my lid, banging on about cows coming home. He started to say something but I had slammed the door on him.
I had some very nasty things to say to my security chaps at the gate as to how they could confuse Rose Garden Complex with Oakwood Apartments and allow these misguided poops to have the run of our building, knocking on whichever door that took their fancy. The security guy said he was sorry, but there was a new trainee at the gate, hence the confusion. So, what else is new? It was hardly a satisfactory explanation but I cautioned him that if this happened again, he and his team had better look for a job at the Rose Garden Complex, evidently a safe haven for cows and ‘cow rakshaks.’
Life was so much easier when the postman simply slotted the mail into your letterbox, while you trotted off to the market or shops to buy vegetables and provisions and nobody ever asked you for an OTP. The only thing that woke you up from your afternoon siesta was the blissful gurgling sounds and aroma of the steam going off from the coffee percolator. If, by some strange chance, a letter was wrongly placed in your box, you could always overwrite on the envelope, Return to Sender, address unknown, no such number, no such zone, as Elvis Presley did. And the postman would just take it back from your letter box and have it sent on. Progress, eh? That is strictly for the birds.
Suresh's Corner 