You fancy about a latest dress, your fingers dance over the android phone and the dress of your dreams is at your doorstep in a couple of days. You feel hungry, you order a pizza and it is there for you within half an hour. Online shopping is no more a practice of the elites staying in Metro cities. But, has one ever wondered who takes the actual pains to make your life easy delivering things from door to doorIJThe lives of the delivery boys, who make everyone smile with one’s orders, are not as easy as it appears for people frequently buying goods on the Internet. They have to undergo a lot of pressure both mentally and physically and the remuneration they get at the end of the day is too less for them to survive, say the big bag wallahs.
“I wake up early in the morning and freshen up myself to get ready for my work as my shift is from 8 in the morning till 8 in the evening,” said Kishore, working as a delivery boy in Ranchi.The story is no different for others in the job and the situation becomes even worse for them when there is some occasion especially Diwali.“There is a lot of pressure while festivals like Diwali. large number of people order online products due to festival and it has to be delivered on time otherwise customer refuses to accept it due to delayed delivery. The work hour is elongated on such occasions as we have to deliver on time. And the company deducts 5 to 10 per cent from our salary in the case when customer decline to accept their order due delayed delivery,” said Manoj, another delivery boy.
They boys have a hectic schedule with lot of work pressure. Many of them said that they joined the work not as an interest but due to adverse situations in their lives. “With no earning member in the family, the situation became difficult for us even to survive. One of my friends suggested to look for the job of delivery boy as one can get this job easily. I searched for the job and got it right away,” said Suresh Kumar, another delivery boy.“I am a history graduate but could not get any job. My father is a poor farmer so I could not afford to spend my time and prepare for the competition so I joined the work of delivering things,” said Mukesh who is in the same job of delivering things. He is upset as life has not given him enough opportunity and time to do something more well in his life.The qualification for the job of delivery boys is not so high so some accept this job as they under qualified for desk job. “I live in a very remote area of Jharkhand where the facility of higher education is not available. So the job of delivery boy was easy for me to opt,” said Ranjan.The sight of a boy who is in his 20s, carrying a giant bag weighing almost 40 Kg can be evidently seen on the roads of Ranchi.
The army of young boys who also had dreamt of a luxurious life has landed up in the job where there is no space for luxury. The life has been biased to them but the companies are also no good to them.The delivery boys not only have to face problems in their personal life but in their professional life too. The work of delivering things is not easy as it appears to be. “Sometimes people do not pay money after receiving things. When we request them to pay then they threaten us to beat. We have to return without payment and bear the loss. Others ask us to show things before receiving and this not possible for us to do. The blame of defected parcel is also put on us as we have no connection to that. People do not understand that our work is to only deliver things,” said delivery boy Anand who has faced such incidences.