As men approach middle age, it’s common for them to want to connect with their fathers and gain understanding. For Qaisar Mahmood, a management consultant, this leads him to take on an extra job as a food delivery worker. His father was a labor immigrant who came to Sweden, so Mahmood hopes that this will help him better comprehend his father’s experiences.
However, Mahmood’s perspective is somewhat privileged compared to most workers in the gig economy who are there due to financial necessity. To better understand his colleagues, Mahmood pretends to be an undocumented Pakistani in front of them, which causes him to feel shame. Despite this, he buys an electric bike and writes that “now the game can begin” on his first day of work.
In his book, Mahmood develops compassion for those who work in the gig economy, particularly those who deliver fast food to city dwellers. However, he emphasizes that it is the gaze of the middle class that victimizes them, rather than their working conditions. This contradicts his earlier descriptions of feeling like he is at the bottom of the social ladder and how the workers are treated poorly.
Some individuals, such as Fredrik Kopsch, the chief economist at business think tank Timbro, have live-streamed their experiences working in the gig economy in collaboration with companies. Mahmood concludes that the gig economy is good and encourages people to order as much take-out food as possible. This attitude is part of a larger trend of market liberals seeking to prove their own ideology by taking on low-status jobs themselves.
Critics of this cosplay have been met with the “do it yourself instead of whining” argument. However, Stockholmstrafiken does not need more people attempting to solve their existential crises by taking on low-status jobs. If people really want to understand the experiences of gig workers, they should consider living their everyday lives and speaking out about their experiences, despite potential retaliation from their employers.
There comes a time in every man’s life, usually between the ages of forty and fifty, when he wants to see his father. You want to understand your father, perhaps because you have become a parent yourself, or because middle age opens up something existential in you.
For management consultant Qaisar Mahmood, this impulse leads to an extra job as a food delivery service. His father came to Sweden as a labor immigrant and now Mahmood wants to share the experience of low-threshold jobs to better understand his father’s first time in Sweden.
It is a rather privileged perspective; most people in the gig economy are there for their financial survival, because they can’t get other jobs. Mahmood is aware of that and lets the firecrackers drip thickly. Because of his feelings of shame, he pretends to be an undocumented Pakistani in front of his colleagues. The problem with the setup is that it never becomes real. He already knows that the “side project” (his words) is time-limited and not financially conditioned: “Now the game can begin,” he writes on his first day of work after buying an electric bike for 17,000.
To visit another reality is fundamental to empathic understanding, and in the book Mahmood develops compassion for the people who deliver Burger King bags two streets away to comfortable city dwellers. But in his eagerness to understand his colleagues – with whom he rarely gets very close – he emphasizes that it is the gaze of the middle class that makes them victims, not the circumstances: “We knit a victim cardigan for individuals who did not ask for one.”
It is as if he has forgotten his own descriptions just a few pages earlier: how he feels at the bottom of the social ladder, that the biddies are treated very badly because of the low status of the profession; the added stress of gamified working conditions where everything is measured and assessed in numbers.
But it is interesting what symbolic value the app jobs have acquired. Those who do not work in the gig economy would like to be reflected in it. “How bad could my life have been?” becomes the premise, while everything happens at a safe protective distance from reality.
When Fredrik Kopsch, chief economist at the business think tank Timbro, live streams a few hours from his internship at Foodora, it is done in an explicit collaboration with the company. He gets the bike from them, doesn’t have to fear being fired or care about material conditions. One person on Twitter points out that for the sake of the experience, Kopsch should at least live on a Foodorabud salary, but get the answer that it is a “creepy objection” because he “doesn’t have the same costs as a Foodora bid”.
So it doesn’t matter about the reality of cycling as much as about others (men) wanting to prove to themselves that they can do it, a kind of toughness version of the experience packages sold at the supermarket checkout – just as long as it’s a padded version that doesn’t involve real vulnerability. It is a strange development, which has gone from journalistic digs to self-realization projects for market liberals who want to be secure in their ideology: I knew the gig economy was great and now I’ve proven it to myself! (Mahmood also concludes that the gig economy is good and that one should order as much take-out food as possible from as many nearby restaurants as possible.)
But if you really want to understand the reality and life situation of the food supply, why not? of live stream your everyday life? Why can’t of tell freely? Stand up in televised debates on their terms? (Spoiler: They may have had their silence bought, and those who contact the union may be fired.)
Predictably, criticism of this bike messenger cosplay has been met with the “do it yourself instead of whining” argument. But the last thing Stockholmstrafiken needs is more people who want to solve their existential knots by doing low-status jobs.
Read more texts by Kristofer Ahlström.