A Delhi-based social activist has sparked an emotional conversation online after sharing a "sweet unethical" incident involving a Zomato delivery executive. In a LinkedIn post, Kiran Verma, the founder of Simply Blood, shared that while he was parking his car in Noida, he noticed a Zomato delivery partner eating on his bike. Initially, he assumed the food belonged to a customer. However, after a conversation with the agent, whom he referred to as "Vishal", what unfolded was a tale of circumstances and survival, leading Mr Verma to express gratitude toward Zomato and its CEO, Deepinder Goyal.
"Thank you Zomato for this sweet unethical act! Yesterday, I was parking my car in Noida, when I saw this biker eating on his bike. As that was the only place to park the car nearby, so I thought to wait for him. That's when I clicked the first picture and I thought he would be another delivery guy eating someone's food," Mr Verma wrote in his post.
Further, Mr Verma said that when he approached the delivery agent he politely inquired about the time required for him to finish his meal so he could park his car accordingly. In response, the agent said, "Just a few minutes, sir".
According to Mr Verma's post, the delivery agent sounded like an "educated guy", and after a brief exchange of names, he asked the agent about the reason behind eating lunch at nearly 5 pm on Holi. "Sir I picked up this order at around 2 pm and I went to deliver the food but nobody turned up to receive the order," the delivery executive said.
Consequently, Zomato instructed the agent to mark the order as "delivered" to prevent additional operational costs for the company. The post also mentioned that if the order is not delivered, the delivery executive also does not get paid unless the product or order is marked as delivered. After marking the food as "delivered" the agent can then officially do whatever they want with the food order.
Mr Verma reflected on this practice, saying, "It may sound unethical or wrong, but it is good practice, because that's how delivery partners save little money on their food and wastage can be controlled."
Ending his post, Mr Verma tagged Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, expressing appreciation for the impact such policies have on gig workers. "Thank you Deepinder Goyal for building hope in such an impactful way. Hope you all are close to your families celebrating the festival and not like millions of gig workers, who are supporting us to creating those moments into memories," he said.
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Since being shared, the post has garnered more than 1,000 reactions and several comments.
"Kiran Verma very touching post. Thank you for sharing. It's very unfortunate that so many people are working so hard when some of us are celebrating. I have consciously started making a small difference by saying thank you to all the delivery persons and by offering them water during summers. It costs nothing but it might help them feel a little better. Tipping, I prefer giving them directly rather than through the apps, it can help them have some immediate relief rather than waiting for payments to come through company systems. It's a very important point you have highlighted," one user wrote.
"This was really heartwarming," commented another. "Your post beautifully describes how a startup becomes a livelihood and hope for many in an unthinkable and unthank-able way!" wrote a third user.
