By now, we’ve all seen a video that features someone delivering food or a package doing something fun, silly, or kind in the camera fixed to the front of whatever house they’re at. They’ve gone viral time and time again, but could there be repercussions for videos like this?
A recent study explores how busy delivery drivers tend to be, and even touches on how video requests made by customers only hinder them further.
As TikTok has only grown in popularity, so has a certain genre of video.
This being the more candid-type videos that feature unsuspecting people, or more specifically, unsuspecting on-the-clock employees.
Within that subgenre, videos of delivery drivers performing in doorbell cameras have been extremely popular, leading others to want to recreate those moments for themselves.
The experience of being featured in TikTok videos has become increasingly common for delivery drivers.
A recent study from Circuit, a route-planning software, reports that 17.7% of drivers have had an experience where they’re filmed for TikTok content, that’s nearly one in five!
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They surveyed 848 drivers in the U.S., with 409 working in food delivery and the remaining 439 delivering packages.
These drivers are often asked to dance in front of the home’s doorbell camera for the customer’s entertainment.
And the requests have them split. On one hand, delivery drivers are busy. In the same study, 14.3% of delivery drivers said they’ve experienced an “unrealistically high number of delivery requests” while working, with another 12.7% said they were “unable to deliver all packages in time.” This means that time spent dancing is time wasted as they struggle to finish packed routes.
On the other hand…
Not performing what the customer asks of them risks them getting a low review, which for food delivery drivers especially, means a lot in their line of work.
Other reprimands could come in the form of a complaint for not following customer requests, which, when it comes down the line, could mean anything to a manager reading the complaint.
So, what’s to be done then?
Of course, it’s better off to leave these workers be, as with all employees everywhere. They have a job to do, and don’t need to be forced to dance on camera so someone might get a semi-viral TikTok out of it. They’re not circus animals, they have other houses to visit.
h/t: Insider