Job Description

Distribution Partner with Vegetable Delivery Startup

In March 2020, as the world tried to adjust to a new normal, I too found myself stuck in my room like everyone else. At the time, my aunt, a gynecologist, was living with us, completing a fellowship at a leading public hospital in my city. I saw her leave at 7 a.m. before most of us were awake, and return late at night, sometimes close to midnight. I saw her fellowship get extended by six months, I saw her unable to visit her children due to travel restrictions. She was one among close to a hundred first responders in my neighborhood who had to face the virus firsthand. I felt the need to share that burden, to contribute to my community in some of our hardest times. In April, I was lucky enough to get to opportunity to work as a Distribution Partner with Otipy, a vegetable delivery startup.

As a distribution partner, my job was to organize and deliver the prepacked orders of fresh vegetables every morning to each customer. Additionally, I would take customer complaints and promote new items such as seasonal fruits. I oversaw over 200 customers within my community, generating a total revenue of 30,000 dollars for the company over three months. This experience, while short, was invaluable and taught me the following skills:

1.     Punctuality

2.     Patience

3.     Negotiation

Punctuality

Every morning, a supply truck would arrive at exactly 6:15 am with all the deliveries for my customers and every single morning I would wake up at 5:45 am to receive it. As a 17-year-old, my sleep was extremely valuable, but within a couple days of being on the job I had learned to embrace this new routine. I realized that I was part of a larger chain and while I was dependent on some people, I had many others, my customers depending on me too. Bringing people their food everyday was a responsibility I didn’t take lightly. My duties in the morning included inspecting the orders to confirm delivery of the right quantity and quality, which on close to a hundred daily orders proved to be a lengthy task. Nevertheless, I would make sure to complete all my deliveries by 8 a.m., just in time for breakfast.

Patience

Working in customer always comes with unpredictability and requires the ability to deal with multiple variables at the same time. For me, these included delays from the supply side, dealing with customer complaints, dealing with quality issues. Waking up at 6 a.m. and handling orders and customer service for close to 100 customers in a span of 3 hours would be tiring. But this experience also taught me patience in the face of unpredictable circumstances, as well as how to think rationally during stressful moments.  My customer feedback ended up reflecting this, with reviews describing my service as “friendly”, “understanding” and “informative.”

Negotiation

I joined the startup at an early stage, in fact, I was one of their first delivery partners. Halfway through my time working with them, I was generating 10% of their total daily revenue. However, as the business expanded, the company decided to restructure to keep more of the revenue and expand the business. This would have included restructuring my contact which initially stated a 10% royalty on the revenue from each sale. The new contract included a royalty closer to 3%or 5%. However, I had faith in the value that I brought to them, and given that my contract was short term, I was able to keep my original contract.

5 adverbs, meeting the goal of 6 or fewer.

0 uses of passive voice. Nice work.

4 phrases have simpler alternatives.

13 of 45 sentences are hard to read.

5 of 45 sentences are very hard to read.