A perennially connected smartphone and a scooter (before it was the electric bicycle) are the work tools of the riders. A sector that during Covid, in the Lockdown period, recorded the boom and has never stopped. Passion, education and punctuality are the qualities required of those who choose to make a rider. A figure that has evolved over time.
From the facts of the most distant times, to the couriers and riders. A flourishing induced that of the takeaway food on which the cornerstones of a growing profession are founded that started offering valid opportunities and has been positively transformed. Choice not only by young people but also by more adult people who have a family to maintain and manage to do it by signing a employee working contract. Yes, because the rider is no longer just a job to round off, with the right contractual conditions, it can also become a well -paid profession thanks also to the slots and other prizes that allow you to have a high score and therefore to be a referenced rider and therefore more requested.
Rain a little and Salvatore Gemelli, 23 years old, Messineseshe repairs with the helmet while in Piazza Antonello with other colleagues, wait to receive the signal with the order to be delivered. Despite the young age is a veteran in the group of Messina riders. Often lights the mobile display to capture through the app if there are requests forwarded by the distributors. Responsible, polite and experienced, as soon as he became adult he has spoken to economic independence.
«I am a working student – he says – I attend the first year of the degree course in Nursing. With Rider’s work I keep my studies. I started before Covid. Since then things have changed for the better because this sector is expanding in Messina. I work with Just Eat, a company for ordering meals at home. It is among the few, if not the only one here with us, who frames the workers with a contract of employee in all respects and allows you to get to a salary that is not a paghetta. Personally I can earn up to 1,200 euros per month with a twenty -five weekly commitment that I can self -manage. Conditions that are good for me. Usually work in the evening and I attend the university in the morning. It will not be the work of life, but it allows me at least until the degree to earn well and with a national employment contract, which is not a little. I would like to recommend this opportunity to young people looking for work. With the opening of the McDonald’s in Sperone, the work will increase by favoring the hiring of new staff ».
Waiting for the signal transmitted by the app, which is read through an algorithm of localization, the rider lights up the scooter and leaves to withdraw the hills to be delivered by moving inside the city perimeter. The area of action is that between Tremestieri and Paradiso including villages, at least for Just Eat employees who never go beyond that band of territory. Not everyone wants to tell their story, there is a certain reluctance to open up. There are those who are on their first day of work and are flanked by the most experienced colleagues. «I don’t know how this adventure will go – says a rider no longer Givane who is just starting. I am trying to better understand the functioning of the app to be ready as soon as the requests arrive ».
Vladimir Balsamo, 23 years old, is the fixed rider of a pizzeria. He has been working for about a year but only on the weekend or when there is more need. Born in Ukraine he was adopted by a Messina family in 2013. “After the diploma – said my parents immediately wanted to become a responsible and increasingly integrated person. The work allows me to earn the money to keep the car and not to weigh on the family. Of course it is not a simple one because you have to do a delivery tot and it is not said that they are all in nearby areas. Often you have to reach quite impervious places and the probability of accidents, having little time, is quite high. For now I am satisfied. Everything serves to make curriculum. I have a dream in my drawer: to become an entrepreneur in the bioagriculture sector. I am finishing a high specialization course that will enable me to this profession. I hope to do it and I would like to do it in the city that adopted me ».
Rider’s profile is varied, because almost all of whether in possession of the physical suitability required, they can have the characteristics to fit as long as they are of age. In the same company they found the father first and then the son. «We are two riders in the family – they say preferring to keep anonymity – this work says the head of the family allows me to live. I have four children to maintain. The greatest studying at the university is the rider like me. Of course, the rights and protections for workers who work on the road, among many dangers, are never quite mainly in terms of safety. We have the problem of traffic, narrow and often dark roads and with the asphalt not always smooth. The rider is in a hurry and the times counted and these pitfalls can cause serious accidents ». In this sense, the proposal, about a year ago, had been advanced to find repaired places that became the house of riders especially in case of rain but also with the torrid heat. Nothing done again.