This is the fourth essay in my series on Delivering Food: The World of a Female Rider by Wang Wan.
One of the most harrowing parts of Wang Wan’s nonfiction account is how delivery work physically changes her body. In sections such as “The Physical Toll,” “A Worn-Out Body,” and “Illness and the Future,” she writes about wrist pain, numb legs, irregular menstrual cycles, and chronic headaches.
I had never realized how relentlessly physical food delivery is. Even with an e-bike, the job becomes an ordeal when charging the battery. Some charging cabinets are mounted high. A battery weighs at least twenty pounds; some exceed forty. To lift one over her head and place it into a narrow metal compartment makes her whole body tremble. And this must be done at least four times a day. Three swaps are not enough—too few, and the battery may die mid-route.
In remote areas, charging stations can be kilometers apart. Once, when her battery ran out in the middle of a delivery, she rented a shared bicycle, loaded the heavy battery into the front basket, and pedaled through mud, ditches, and broken roads. The bike swayed under the weight. Her legs soon weakened. By the time she reached a charging station, she collapsed on the ground, having missed the lucrative lunch rush.
Then there are the so-called “big orders.” High pay often means high strain. Once she had to carry two 10-liter bottles of water to a third-floor apartment. She dared not ask the customer for help, fearing a complaint. She carried one halfway, set it down, went back for the other, and climbed again. Only after finishing did she notice her body—arms and legs trembling uncontrollably.
Food delivery is not only time pressure and algorithmic control; it is sustained bodily wear. Trembling muscles, strained joints, and collapse become routine.
She rides over 200 kilometers a day. Every delay—a red light, a distracted pedestrian, sudden traffic control—translates into potential income loss. Anger becomes automatic. Since becoming a rider, she says she feels angry almost every day. The anger dulls her mind. It spreads into her body: breast pain, first on one side, then both. Her once regular menstrual cycle becomes irregular, arriving every two months instead of monthly.
What we see is a chain reaction: algorithmic time pressure produces emotional volatility; emotional stress produces physiological disruption. Sustained cortisol reshapes hormonal rhythms. Menstruation—normally a symbol of biological regularity and stability—loses its rhythm. The platform system replaces bodily time with algorithmic time.
The algorithm disciplines her without yelling. It disciplines through time. And time pressure enlarges the meaning of ordinary friction (traffic lights, pedestrians), turning her into road rage easily.
Wang Wan’s story is not exceptional. Across China—and even across the world—millions of migrant workers labor under algorithmic management. The system optimizes efficiency, but the optimization is extracted from human flesh and bone.
When rhythm disappears from a worker’s body, we are no longer talking about productivity. There's no dignity of labor to talk about. The question is how much biological stability we have to sacrifice under the management of algorithm.
3/1/2026