Although there are full-time employee drivers at some couriers (especially large ones like UPS or FedEx), I an independent contractor. This means that I'm basically a business entity consisting of myself. Each delivery is a separate job offered to me from the company, and I can choose whether to accept each one. This gives me a lot of flexibility: I can pretty much choose when I want to work.
Of course, if I choose to work at a time when there aren't many deliveries to run, then I won't have anything to do and I won't get paid. It is convenient, though, if I want to end my day early, or finish near a certain part of town so I can go out at night. Or, conversely, when I don't have anything to do and am willing to work for 10-12 hours to make more money.
As my own business entity, I'm responsible for my own tax payments, healthcare, and equipment. Every week I have to pay the company to buy into their umbrella vehicle insurance, to rent my radio, and a couple other things.
I also have to buy my uniform T-shirts from them, my car door magnets with the company logo and registration number on them, and some other equipment I need to do the job.
All of that comes out of my pocket.
In compensation, I'm paid a fixed percentage of each delivery I complete. I'm not paid mileage compensation, flat fees, or salary. Any gas, oil, car maintenance, etc., comes out of my pocket as well.
The end result is that because of the mandatory fees I have to pay the company, I start off each week with negative earnings; if I only worked part-time and didn't take on enough deliveries, I could end up owing the company money come payday. Working full-time, though, this isn't a problem.
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