Hossain is 27 years old and was born and raised in Bangladesh. After completing his bachelor’s degree, he moved to Norway to take a master’s degree, and for almost two years he has worked as a foodora courier alongside his studies. We were excited to hear about Hossain’s experiences in foodora, and how it has been to combine it with his master studies, so we decided to pull him in for a chat.
Perfect with flexibility alongside studies
As a master’s student, Hossain has several assignments and projects he’s working on in his everyday life. The flexibility he gets by managing his own workday suits him therefore perfectly.
– The flexibility is clearly the best thing about working at foodora. Alongside my master’s studies, I can manage my own time, and choose for how long and which days I work. For example, when I have projects or assignments at school, I can just set my status as unavailable, which is quite convenient for me.
A lot of fun and memorable experiences along the way
After two years as a foodora courier, you experience a lot and meet many different people while biking around. Hossain has had several fun situations that he remembers well.
– Once I delivered food to a girl who got so happy when I said I was standing outside, that she literally danced. So then I went over to her, sat down on my knee, put the food in my hands, and proposed to her with the food.
– Another funny thing happened one day when I was cycling in Storgata. There was a group of children sitting on the tram who started taking pictures, so I posed for them. Later in the shift, I met the same group in another part of the city, so they showed me the pictures. Then we had a good laugh about it together.
Finding new friends and creating good relationships with other couriers
Although you mostly work alone as a courier, Hossain has created good relationships with several of the other couriers and finds more opportunities to chat and get to know others between deliveries.
– Us couriers have a good relationship, and I’ve also made some close friends who also work as couriers. So if we have shifts at the same time, we often eat lunch and take breaks together.
– If I meet other couriers while I’m out cycling, we usually only catch each other while on the move. Everyone is in a hurry, so it’s usually only room for small talk if we have time for it, whereas we can have a longer chat if we’re both waiting for food from a restaurant for example. If so, we like to talk about how things are going, how many deliveries we have, how much we got in tips, and things like that. It always gives me extra motivation when I get tips. It feels really good.
Plan and organize the working days as you want
On a typical working day for Hossain, he likes to plan ahead for when he will take his breaks and have lunch. On the days he has time to work alongside his studies, he makes sure to take a long shift, so that he can use the rest of the days of the week for other things.
– To not have to work so many days each week, I usually take on a long shift those days I have time alongside my studies to work. So, after I start a shift, my tasks are that I accept orders that come in, where the restaurants give me a notification when the food is ready for pick up. Then I go into the restaurant and click on “picked up”, turn on navigation, and then I deliver food to the customers and wish them a good day, before moving on to the next order.
– Before I start my shift, I usually have a plan for how long I will take a break for during the day, and what kind of food I will eat for lunch. Because I’m Muslim, I have to find halal food, and then it’s usually a kebab in a pita for lunch. As soon as I’ve grabbed some lunch, I just enjoy the food and relax there until my break is over.
Do you want to know more? Read about Darnell’s experiences as a foodora courier!