u/FabulousCucumber3697

Received this unexpected $51.41 check today from an FTC settlement with Grubhub.The amount itself is small, but it made me think about something much bigger.

For an individual delivery driver, there is almost no realistic way to fight a large platform over misleading earnings claims, unfair practices, or money that should have been paid. Most workers simply do not have the time, money, legal knowledge, or bargaining power to challenge a corporation on their own. That is why government oversight matters.Without agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and state regulators investigating these cases and forcing companies to answer for their practices, many ordinary workers would probably never recover anything at all. $51.41 will not change anyone’s life. But what it represents is much more important: rules still matter, enforcement matters, and ordinary workers need institutions powerful enough to stand between them and companies far larger than they are.Seeing this check brought back a lot of memories from my years doing delivery work. Sometimes a small piece of paper can make you think about a much bigger system.

I’ve had this U.S. WWII commemorative stamp sheet for many years. It was issued in 1995, marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The market value today is not especially high, but I think its historical value is much more interesting. The full sheet preserves a map, major events, battle scenes, surrender, liberation, and the return of soldiers home. What makes it meaningful to me is that it records two different moments at once: what happened in 1945, and how Americans in 1995 chose to remember 1945. Maybe a few hundred years from now, objects like this will be viewed less as ordinary stamps and more as small historical documents from our era. Sometimes the story behind a stamp is worth much more than the stamp itself.

Sun Yat-sen — 孙中山 Chiang Kai-shek — 蒋介石 Mao Zedong — 毛泽东

In 1953, China issued a four-stamp set based on ancient Dunhuang murals, depicting a horse groom, musicians, combat scenes, and an ox cart from the Western Wei, Northern Zhou and Tang periods.

China, 1950 — First Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic, Northeast China issue. These stamps were specially issued for use in Northeast China, where a different currency system was still in circulation during the early transition period after 1949.

These five connected stamps reproduce The Night Revels of Han Xizai 韩𤋮载, one of the most famous surviving images of elite life in 10th-century China. The surviving scroll is a Song-dynasty copy of a work traditionally attributed to the Southern Tang court painter Gu Hongzhong, and is now preserved in the Palace Museum in Beijing. According to tradition, the painter was sent by the emperor to observe Han Xizai’s private nighttime banquets and record what he saw from memory.

My rear wheel arch molding came off a few days ago. The replacement arrived yesterday, so I installed it myself today. Took about 20 minutes. The tricky part was figuring out where to start. I found it much easier to start from the side near the rear door, with the door open, then work my way around the wheel arch. I broke a few plastic clips along the way, but luckily I had a box of replacement clips. Pretty satisfying little DIY repair and saved me a trip to the body shop.

One page contains the last Hong Kong Queen Elizabeth II definitive stamps that I bought from Hongkong Post as a teenager. The other is a souvenir sheet commemorating the first Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR following the 1997 takeover.

I recently started organizing my childhood stamp album after more than 30 years. This is one of my favorite pieces—a Republic of China (Taiwan) souvenir sheet featuring Kublai Khan Hunting (“元世祖出獵圖”).I collected stamps as a child, mostly from Hong Kong, China, and overseas letters, along with sets I saved up to buy myself. Rediscovering this album has brought back many memories. I’m not looking to sell it—just wanted to share it with fellow collectors. Does anyone else here collect Chinese or Taiwanese art-themed stamps?

I want to add more context to my previous post and share the detailed weekly statements, including my earnings before and after the NYC weekly bonus started.

One important point: the “Batch hours” shown by Instacart are NYC trip time, not my total working time.After completing a delivery, I often have to drive back toward a supermarket or shopping area that I know well before I can realistically take another batch. That return drive is often around 20–30 minutes. Not every batch requires a full return trip, but a significant amount of this repositioning time is not included in the batch hours shown by the app.

Before the weekly bonus:

June 15–21

• 20 batches
• 14 hr 51 min NYC trip time
• $336.15 batch pay
• $156.76 tips
• $0 adjustment
• $492.91 total

June 22–28

• 30 batches
• 29 hr 19 min NYC trip time
• $589.24 batch pay
• $285.92 tips
• $61.44 NYC earnings adjustment
• $936.60 total

Then the NYC weekly bonus started.

June 29–July 5

• I only completed 1 batch that week
• 1 hr 45 min NYC trip time
• $36.42 batch pay
• $10 tip
• $44.36 NYC bonus
• $93.28 total

Once I understood how significant the weekly bonus could be, I started doing much more Instacart work.

July 20–26

• 41 batches
• 39 hr 27 min NYC trip time
• $818.87 batch pay
• $278.60 tips
• $54.83 NYC earnings adjustment
• $1,288.91 NYC bonus
• $2,441.21 total

July 27–August 2

• 41 batches
• 31 hr 58 min NYC trip time
• $707.06 batch pay
• $193.79 tips
• $0.76 NYC earnings adjustment
• $749.24 NYC bonus
• $1,650.85 total

I’m sharing the detailed numbers because I want to be transparent about both sides. Yes, my real working time is higher than the “Batch hours” shown in the app because unpaid repositioning time exists. I also pay for my own gas, maintenance, insurance and vehicle depreciation.

But those same costs existed before the weekly bonus.What changed is that the NYC bonus made many orders economically worth accepting.

Before, I would often reject low-tip or no-tip orders because after shopping, delivery and driving back toward a useful shopping area, the pay simply wasn’t worth the time and vehicle expense. Now I’m much more willing to accept those orders and complete them quickly. To me, that is an important part of what this policy actually changes.

It doesn’t eliminate every unpaid minute or every expense of gig work. But it makes more ordinary orders worth doing, gives experienced shoppers a reason to stay active on the platform, and provides a much more stable income than I had before.I’m posting the actual weekly statements so people can look at the numbers and make their own conclusions.

I’m genuinely grateful to New York City and New York State for taking steps to protect gig workers. As someone with hearing loss, finding work that offers both flexibility and a fair income is especially meaningful to me. Gig work allows me to support myself while working in a way that fits my circumstances.

Before these changes, it was difficult to earn a stable income even after staying online for long hours. Since the new NYC pay system and weekly bonus started, my earnings have improved significantly. I can now cover gas, vehicle maintenance, daily expenses, and still have money left to save and invest.

This is what a fair and dignified income means to me. Gig workers still work hard, use our own cars, pay our own expenses, and deal with a lot of uncertainty. These protections have made the work more sustainable and have given workers like me greater financial security and dignity.

Thank you to the city and state officials who supported these changes. They have made a real difference in my life.