in 30–40 minutes

I see Wolters sit­ting next to their box­es every­where. Like tur­tles being able to put their shell-home aside for just a moment. Some are rest­ing. Some are work­ing, wait­ing for their next assign­ment. You can nev­er tell who’s online and who’s not.

Pho­to: Dana Mor

Me and the guys. Most Wolters are men. One of them said that the restau­rants’ work­ers are always nicer to the women Wolters. Anoth­er said that the women usu­al­ly pre­fer to work dur­ing the day and not at night. I also do.

Pho­to: Dana Mor

Homage to “Femme Mai­son” (Woman House) by Louise Bour­geois (1994)

Pho­tos: Dana Mor

It was Sat­ur­day morn­ing and K. ordered Piz­za. He did­n’t want his pho­to tak­en. It was prob­a­bly too ear­ly for that. But it was­n’t too ear­ly for Piz­za. It nev­er is.

They ordered Ice Cream. It has become the new trend in Tel Aviv dur­ing the third lock­down. I was very curi­ous which flavours they ordered but it did­n’t say. When I reached the door I heard some­one say from inside: “He’s here!” She meant me. I left the ther­mic bag (to keep it cold) of the ice cream at the door as they asked. They would nev­er know that I’m actu­al­ly a woman. I hope for them that they ordered the pret­zel flavour. It’s the best.

He lived in the build­ing of my Pilatis stu­dio. The code for the door on the order did­n’t work. I rec­og­nized it – it was the old code. They changed it just a while ago and prob­a­bly the cus­tomer for­got to update it. Luck­i­ly I had the new one saved on my phone. I knocked the wrong door at first – it was a lawyers’ office. They direct­ed me to the right one. Then I went to vis­it the stu­dio on the base­ment floor. It was of course closed because of the lock­down. It felt like from anoth­er life­time. I haven’t been there for ages.

The box is in my house. It has a weird pres­ence. At first It made me feel guilty for not work­ing more. Like a con­stant reminder for the fact I can work any moment I choose. It’s a strange thing about this job – hav­ing no sched­uled hours, no boss, no oblig­a­tion. It depends only on me. I can work around the clock if I want to, but I don’t. Some­times I feel the box is look­ing at me lay­ing on the couch and think­ing – oh, you’re so lazy.

With time It has almost become part of my flat, like a mon­u­ment or some per­ma­nent dec­o­ra­tive object. By now I’m not sure how I’ll give it back when I fin­ish my work, I feel too attached. I still have a deposit on it though.

He had the same name as my dad – Udi. Maybe it’s my dad! That could be hilar­i­ous I thought. The app does­n’t tell you the address until you pick up the food so that was actu­al­ly a rea­son­able pos­si­bil­i­ty. It was­n’t him though. The oth­er Udi lived in a house next to the last guy I dat­ed, it was in the sum­mer, between the lock­downs. After we broke up, I made an effort to pass by his street as much as I could. Then I avoid­ed it com­plete­ly. It’s been a while since I’ve been there, at least a few months and it felt weird. I had that feel­ing of want­i­ng to see him and total­ly not want­i­ng to see him at the same time. Udi lived in a fan­cy ren­o­vat­ed house with a dec­o­rat­ed lob­by. I real­ly want­ed the Shnitzel he ordered.

This deliv­ery some­how man­aged to take me out of Tel Aviv and deep into Ramat Gan. Sur­pris­ing­ly enough I rec­og­nized the area. It was close to the house of a woman I used to teach pri­vate Eng­lish lessons. She had a small tourism busi­ness main­ly for rus­sians and she want­ed to learn how to do small talk. I fig­ured by her name that this cus­tomer was also russ­ian. It took me ages to get there and I was dis­ap­point­ed in advance when the app told me that she want­ed a no con­tact deliv­ery. All this effort just to leave this bag in the door? Even­tu­al­ly she did open the door to me and did­n’t seem upset as I thought she would be. but I was 20 min­utes late so did­n’t feel com­fort­able ask­ing for her pho­to. I was already real­ly tired from this ride and could­n’t wait to get home. It felt pret­ty far away.

The app sent me an alert – New Cus­tomer. I won­dered – do I need to do any­thing extra spe­cial? Be nicer than usu­al? Per­haps there is some treat new cus­tomers receive? This was not includ­ed in the train­ing videos. The woman who opened the door was­n’t the one who ordered. So who was the new cus­tomer then? Per­haps it was her moth­er? The one at the door was just on her way out with her dog. She took the piz­za from me and said “it’s good I arrived now just before she left.”

T. lived on the 27th floor in an area where I’ve nev­er been by foot or bicy­cle, only passed by in a car or bus. It’s near the train sta­tion and the east­ern edge of the city over­look­ing the high­way. The build­ing had two sep­a­rate lob­bies – one for offices and one for the apart­ments. The door­man (yes, appar­ent­ly some peo­ple have a door­man in this city) insist­ed I call to check if T. does­n’t want to leave the deliv­ery at his desk. Even­tu­al­ly he called and told him “the deliv­ery guy is here”. I did­n’t cor­rect him. T. said “yeah bro, it’s the food, let him up”. I got this douchebag vibe from his voice and imag­ined some spoiled young guy that prob­a­bly already owns a flat in this fan­cy ugly build­ing that his par­ents got him. It seemed I was­n’t far from the truth. When I reached his door I saw he was hav­ing a few friends over. I asked if I could take his pho­to and he said “no way, nev­er!” and more or less slammed the door. He did give me a tip though. But I want­ed to get out of there so much, I for­got to take a pic­ture of the view from the 27th floor.

The customer’s name was weird and so I imme­di­ate­ly decid­ed it was some old per­vert. It was­n’t a per­vert. Not at all. It is indeed a strange thing to be a woman in the world with these fears all the time.

They lived in this refur­bished build­ing close to my old apart­ment and one build­ing next to a bar I real­ly like. It’s been so long since I’ve had a drink in a bar!

The stair­case was com­plete­ly new and very beau­ti­ful, some parts of it were still cov­ered as a pro­tec­tion mea­sure­ment left from the con­struc­tion site. It was a sun­ny Fri­day after­noon and they ordered a large fan­cy meal with seafood from a restau­rant locat­ed near the beach. I felt a bit jeal­ous. I called them when I arrived like they asked for in the app but the woman said they’re not home yet so I left it at their door. I met them down­stairs as I was leav­ing. They car­ried shop­ping bags from the super­mar­ket, prob­a­bly some gro­ceries for the week­end. They were a very sweet cou­ple, I guess a bit younger than me. I took their pho­to and felt a bit jeal­ous again.

I did­n’t find the address so I called. He had the same name as me – Rotem. It’s a pop­u­lar name in Israel for both men and women but it still always feels strange to meet some­one who shares your name. Most of the time you man­age to still live your life think­ing that you’re the only one and it’s almost a dis­ap­point­ment to be con­front­ed with the fact that you aren’t. Rotem waved from a win­dow above. “Hel­lo there nice deliv­ery lady!” he called. It was actu­al­ly a hotel. He was on his phone but agreed that I’ll take his pho­to if he can stay with his mask on. I did­n’t tell him my name.

He ordered from a japan­ese deli that makes poke bowls but also sells cute japan­ese prod­ucts and can­dies. I went there with a friend a while ago. It remind­ed me of Lon­don. I think he real­ly enjoyed the pho­to op.

This is my Mom, Orna. I dropped by at her place in the mid­dle of work to sur­prise her with some of her favourite cheese borek­i­tas. I want­ed to cheer her up because she was feel­ing a bit down with all that has been going on late­ly and also tired after the sec­ond dose of the vac­cine. As part of the lock­down restric­tions here, you’re not allowed to leave your home for a dis­tance of more than 1 km. Not to men­tion vis­it­ing oth­er peo­ple in their homes. As a Wolter though I’m obvi­ous­ly not lim­it­ed by these rules since I’m con­sid­ered an “essen­tial work­er”. That excep­tion in the law enabled me to do this pri­vate food deliv­ery of my own and see my mom although she lives on the oth­er side of town from me. The back­pack with the logo on my back offers me a for­bid­den sense of free­dom in the city. It feels good and even a bit mis­chie­vous sometimes.

A. ordered Hum­mus for lunch. The road to his house was bumpy, some of it under con­struc­tion. I was hop­ing not to get a flat tire. The area felt a bit dodgy too and although it was still day­light, I did­n’t want to get stuck there with my bicy­cle. Yet as a com­plete con­trast to the sur­round­ing set­ting, A opened the door with a sur­pris­ing­ly friend­ly face and wel­com­ing smile and voice.

A. ordered a fan­cy meal with a bot­tle of wine. He lived in the build­ing next to the restau­rant, or at least that’s what the app told me. He asked to call him when it’s ready and before I knew it he appeared across the street. I think he just typed in that address for the deliv­ery, because you can’t order take away your­self dur­ing lock­down these days, only through couri­ers. He want­ed me to send him the pho­to after I took it. I won­dered who he was going to share this love­ly roman­tic meal with, I had a feel­ing it was­n’t just for him.

They ordered Hum­mus and Ice tea on a Fri­day after­noon. In the address com­ments on the app it said: “We’re sit­ting in the gar­den out­side, call when you get here and we’ll explain.”

Adar is an old friend from the army. He’s the first acquain­tance I met dur­ing my deliv­er­ies so far. I keep think­ing what would hap­pen if I acci­den­tal­ly arrived at some Ex’s house … so Hadar was a nice sur­prise. He asked me to put his deliv­ery on the doorstep but I insist­ed he opened because I already recog­nised his name and I want­ed him to see it was me. He was extreme­ly sur­prised and also said he nev­er saw a woman Wolter before. After I left I won­dered if they gave him the extra Tahi­ni he asked for, cause I for­got to check.

Y. ordered Jach­nun on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Jah­nun is a tra­di­tion­al Yemenite Jew­ish pas­try, very pop­u­lar in Israel, espe­cial­ly on the week­end. I did­n’t know the place she ordered from and won­dered if it was any good. I’m always hap­py to learn about new places for Jach­nun, it’s a very spe­cif­ic munch I get once in a while, and on Sat­ur­days they tend to run out quickly …

I did­n’t even know that we also do flower deliv­er­ies and that moved me. Bring­ing some­one flow­ers on a Fri­day after­noon. Flow­ers for the week­end. I feared they would rot and get ruined in my back­pack so I put them in my front bas­ket. There was a huge delay at the flower’s shop but I did­n’t mind. I was in no hur­ry. One of the shop’s work­ers gave me a cab­bage flower as a com­pen­sa­tion for the wait. “Don’t try to eat it”, she said.

The flow­ers were a sur­prise for M, but she was­n’t home so I left them at her door. It’s nice to receive unex­pect­ed flowers.

E. was cool. She ordered her piz­za from my favourite piz­za place. She lived in a one sto­ry house which is quite rare in Tel Aviv. When I asked to take her pho­to she want­ed to make sure it’s not a com­mer­cial or some sort of brand pro­mo­tion. I explained it isn’t and gave her my busi­ness card. She said: “Thank you Rotem”. It felt sur­pris­ing­ly nice to hear my name. “Enjoy your meal” I replied. It tru­ly is the best piz­za in town.

M. ordered Spaghet­ti Bolog­nese. One of my all time favourites and I real­ly felt like hav­ing that too after a long ride. His house was pret­ty close to the restau­rant so it was an easy deliv­ery. I went into the ele­va­tor but it did­n’t work so I climbed 4 floors. When I reached his floor, I was­n’t sure which door was the right one, but while I was strug­gling with tak­ing out the food from the huge back­pack in the nar­row cor­ri­dor he opened the door. He seemed a bit upset so I did­n’t ask for his photo.

My last deliv­ery on my first day. She was the first to open the door to me though. I was very late with her Mex­i­can food. 30 Min­utes late to be exact. I felt it was slow­ly dying in my back­pack. I was sure she’d be mad at me for the delay, but she was actu­al­ly real­ly hap­py to see me. It seemed she was hav­ing a New Year’s zoom par­ty with a few friends online and was hold­ing her phone so I could see them when she opened the door. “Our Food has arrived!” she said. I thought it was cute she said “our”. I apol­o­gised for being late, although I’m not sup­posed to and asked if I could take her picture.

It seems becom­ing a food couri­er is not that easy as I thought! Indeed the hottest job of 2020 – in Tel Aviv there is a wait­ing list of 15.000 (!) peo­ple who wish to join Wolt (the most pop­u­lar restau­rant deliv­ery ser­vice in Tel Aviv that hap­pens to sound quite like my sur­name – Volk).

But after 3 months of wait­ing and pulling some strings I final­ly got the job, signed my con­tract and start­ed my training!

Things I’ve learned so far from the video tutorials:

1) Nev­er ask for a tip

2) Nev­er cross a red light to make a deliv­ery faster

3) Always say thank you, you’re wel­come and bon appetite (bete’avon in hebrew)