61-year-old Instacart shopper who drives an average of 25,000 miles a year delivering groceries
Kathy Harwick is a 61-year-old Instacart shopper who lives in Beaverton, Oregon.
She's been working for Instacart for four years. Before becoming a full-time shopper she worked in administration in the medical industry. Harwick said in the first two months of the coronavirus pandemic she had "no idle time," with a flurry of orders rushing in hourly.
The pay has gone down considerably since I started working for Instacart four years ago. When I started delivering groceries in west Portland, there were 64 other shoppers. Now there are 800.
At the beginning of the pandemic, there were nearly 1,000 Instacart shoppers in my zone. Probably because people were out of work and looking for additional income. The number of shoppers has gone down since the state reopened in June, because people maybe are back at work, or didn't like being a shopper.
My car is like a medical supply store. I don't stop working, so I make sure to have ample disposable masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant. I also carried bottles of water, tissues, and gloves. On the Instacart app we are required to take and log our temperature for the day and report whether or not we were experiencing symptoms before we start delivering.
Full article:
This is Harwick's story, as told to freelance writer Meira Gebel.
https://www.businessinsider.com/working-for-instacart-what-its-like-for-shopper-during-covid-2020-10
