The messenger

: deliveroo, dirty jobs, and the gig economy

Abstract

This creative writing dissertation explores what it is like working as a bicycle courier in the 21st century and is split into two sections: a creative component featuring 60,000 words of fiction and a critical component comprising of 20,000 words. Utilising personal journals documenting the author’s three years working for Deliveroo, the body of work engages with the critical research of Kidder (Urban Flow: Bike Messengers and the City) and Cant (Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy), alongside novels, newspaper articles, and social media conversations that represent bicycle messengers in a broader context.

The creative component follows the story of idealistic Deliveroo rider Jack Adair, a young Belfast man who has just found out his partner Jenny is pregnant. Shocked by the news, Jack begins texting his unborn child in between deliveries to process how he is feeling, to document this stage of life and to come to terms with being a father. But as the financial pressures — caused by changes to the company’s algorithms — begin closing in on Jack he starts to deliver unofficial packages to odd places for extra money on the side. As his activity becomes more and more criminal, Jack is forced to decide whether he will follow in the footsteps of his father, or break the generational cycle to become the man he so desperately longs to be. The Messenger is a fast-paced insight into what it is like to work in the gig economy, while exploring the mental health crisis faced by young men, and depicting a colourful city trying to break free from the sins of its fathers.

The critical component explores how technology both disrupted and reinvented the industry; why people become couriers; worker demographics; the global struggle for better working conditions; and how bicycle couriers are represented in fiction and non-fiction. Bicycle messenger subculture is also explored, from the traditional couriers of the 20th century to the modern riders of today, documenting6phenomena such as the formation of tribe-like communities, the creation of insider language, and the adoption of group clothing, as well as analysing the intense passion many couriers display in relation to the job, despite poor working conditions.

Research on the history and evolution of the bicycle courier industry, beginning with the invention of the bicycle, is tracked from first commercial uses in the 1800s, the role of telegraph boy in the early 1900s, the messengering boom of the 1960s, the early 2000s crash, right up to the recent resurrection, led by Silicon Valley tech start-ups. Covering the history of the industry from its inception to present day is an opportunity to understand how worker exploitation has always been a feature of the trade; this methodology helps to provide a context for the struggle many workers are engaged in today. Throughout the dissertation, the inner workings of the technology, legal loopholes and methods of exploitation that Deliveroo deploys are laid out, investigated and interrogated; these oppressive techniques include the implementation of algorithmic management, in which workers are controlled, directed, and disciplined by artificial intelligence rather than human supervisors, thus providing insight into what the future of work could look like for millions of people around the word.

Thesis is embargoed until 31 December 2028.

Date of Award	Dec 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Sponsors	Northern Ireland Department for the Economy
Supervisor	Nick Laird (Supervisor) & Leon Litvack (Supervisor)