Representative image showing a bike taxi
Credit: iStock Photo
A Bengaluru woman recently shared about an encounter with her bike taxi rider, who turned out to be an employee at Infosys.
Taking to her LinkedIn, Chaarmikha Nagalla, said that the rider worked at the company in their contract management team, and the reason she mentioned has surprised netizens.
"He arrived at my location, and called me: 'Am I audible?' in the most corporate lingo! You see, I've been experimenting with bike taxis to zip through Bangalore traffic and get to work in under 10 minutes. But this time, the driver (or rider, rather) seemed too enthusiastic. Apparently, it was his first day, so I asked what brought him here," the post read.
She further wrote that the rider chose to be more productive and earn some extra money instead of doom scrolling.
"But instead of doom-scrolling through reels during weekends or early mornings, he thought—why not earn some extra money and be productive?," she wrote.
"And this wasn’t a one-off. Just yesterday, my Uber ride home turned out to be a premium bike, complete with high-end gear and a decked-out rider. And of course, I couldn't resist asking. He told me he works at a B2B event management company and thought, 'Why drive alone from work to home? Might as well complete a ride and have some company,'" the post read.
Nagalla however questioned where it is that more people are embracing gig work or is it loneliness.
"While it's great to see more people embracing gig work, I can't help but wonder—is loneliness becoming an epidemic?," she wrote recalling a recent event where she saw a Microsoft employee "moonlight as an auto driver during weekends just to combat loneliness."
"Are we covering deeper issues by "hustling"?" she questioned.
The post has garnered attention and comments where others too shared about their corporate culture experiences.
"I am really not sure if we should cover loneliness by tagging it as 'hustling' though. The shift towards this is actually scary," a user commented.
"What an interesting perspective! So inspiring to see people making the most of their time, but your point about loneliness is thought-provoking," commented a second.