Pros
No qualities worth noting or considering.
Cons
There is no interview and thusly no point in asking any questions you may have about the job(s). The 'managers' are often unable to explain anything about the job, or outright lie about pay, hours and routes. They approach your questions with a worrying blasé manner. Their advert completely contradicts any of their statements. Their online advertisement told me that there would be £300+ average weekly pay and that the job would be flexible. Upon meeting the 'managers', they said pay was only £90 a day and that 'part-time' equates to a 5 day work week with "plenty of opportunity to work extra days". This is NOT part-time. So either, the recruiters are being told the wrong figures, or they are downright lying to stir interest. If you're working from your own vehicle, there is no insurance policy should your vehicle be damaged or break down during the job, you will be left to fit the bill for fuel costs if you finish your shift miles from home, if you break down they will simply send another driver to relieve you of your parcels and sacrifice you to fate. When I asked about the numbers of parcels expected per day, the manager's response was "if I told you that, you'd probably cry", before hastily back-tracking and stating that it was entirely possible to deliver 150-180 parcels PER DAY. This implies that the system operates on a postcode basis, so if the computer believes a certain number of drops to be close together, it identifies it as ONE drop and expects a certain frequency of drops per hour. This zone could have 50-60 drops, not considering traffic, road closures, breakdowns, navigational errors, etc. If you're behind for any logical reason, the robot that runs the show won't know the difference and places you in a 'red' watchlist which basically means your job is at stake. There is no margin for error and should the algorithm falsely decide you're out, you're out and there's no questions asked, no help from Customer Service, nothing. They don't really have to provide a reason either. Furthermore, one thing they don't mention on the advertisements is that, if you don't have the latest model of phone, you're basically done for. And if you can't afford a contract and then require topping up said phone, you'll drain the credit faster than you can blink, keeping it online all of the time so they can track you. Every minutiae of the business operates off an algorithm and an app. Without it, you're dead in the water. Also, their app is so tricksy and doesn't always work. The managers were very rude to me when I showed them my phone, actually laughing, and when I mentioned that I was in a financial position where I couldn't afford a contract (literally hand to mouth at that time), they shrugged and seemed unconcerned. I was left feeling embarrassed and quite frankly ashamed for a situation that I couldn't help being in. The final strike in my opinion, following the deceitful advert, the complacent 'managers' and their condescending demeanour, was the app they were raving about, namely Amazon Flex, not even accepting my new log-in details and promptly crashing. It took two 'managers' over an hour to get me 'onboard', at which point, after they had said I would be able to access it from a Mac or a "friend's phone", wouldn't even work on these options. They harrassed me with phonecalls for a while, asking me why I hadn't logged in or completed the process. By then, I'd had enough. To summarise: – It is absolutely clear that you are not treated as a human being, but as an asset to be exploited through an algorithmic system. The way this company operates lack any and all human qualities; empathy, connectedness, self-preservation, etc. - The pay is NOT conducive to the number of hours, drops, miles, etc. that you may be expected to undertake in a 'day's work'. So many grey areas concerning pay leave you uncertain whether the payslip you will take home each week even meets national living wage standards or not. – Management is a joke. It's as if the company grabbed a few people off the street, put them in hi-vis and said they were in charge, without giving them any access to helpful information regarding the company or workforce. They are so reliant on an app that, should it fail, I honestly think they'd have a breakdown. - The app, which they make such a fuss over, is absolute bunk! It either won't open, won't recognise you, crashes all of the time and is solely reliant on the latest, best tech. It also doesn't discern between issues on the road and apathy in the workplace, and will drop you without a moment's notice.