Poplin: Low Pay, Condescension, and Questionable Labor Practices in the Gig Economy
What started as a self care technique quickly turned into a horror story highlighting the inequalities of capitalism
You know the feeling. It was a Sunday morning and I realized that the laundry had not been done in a long time. As someone who has finally made it into full-time work, it seems like there’s never enough time to get basic household chores done.
So, I did what any Gen-Zer would do. I hopped online and tried to figure out a way to get my laundry done quickly (and preferably cheaply). That’s when I stumbled across an app called Poplin.
Poplin, formerly known as Sudshare, is a gig economy company that specializes in doing people’s laundry for $1/lb. They get your laundry back to you within a day, and are a relatively cheap service compared to others.
I was sold.
The experience
On 9:56AM Sunday, I made a frantic rush to submit a request for a laundry pro before the 10AM deadline. At 2:00PM, I got a notification from my laundry pro that I had over 100lbs of laundry, and that delivery would be delayed.
Now, I knew that my laundry load would be big, but had no idea it would be that big. The total was 168lbs. My ADHD brain had put off laundry for so long, that I genuinely forgot the mass quantity of clothes that it takes to NOT do your laundry for so long (several outfits had been worn multiple times).
Although I thrift all of my clothes, it did bring up the question of ethical consumption, does anyone need that many clothes?
It also brought up another question: who was doing my work, and what stressors were they under?
I soon found out.
Early Tuesday afternoon, I got a text from my laundry pro. “Would it be okay if the clothes are delivered tomorrow? My daughter is in the hospital with a high fever.”
My first thought was that this was a way to gain more time to do my giant load of laundry. But regardless, I was okay with it.
“Sure, no problem.”
Ten minutes later, another text.
“Actually, my husband can drop off the clothes.”
This was actually real. The chances that someone would make a story like this to get an extra tip were slim to none.
I insisted that she not drop off the clothes, but to no avail.
“As a first time customer, I wouldn’t want you to get a bad experience from this” and “Providing great customer service is always top priority.”
I was shocked, horrified, appalled. What conditions were laundry pros under that they would prioritize delivering laundry over their child? I had to find out. So I asked some laundry pros.
I spoke to 4 laundry pros: Frank (he/him), Emily (she/her), T (she/her), and Alex (she/they) that I found on an online community of laundry pros.
“Slave wage gig job”
Despite making it seem like a platform where laundry pros can make a living, Poplin is like many gig apps in that there are associated costs with being a gig worker that significantly lowers wages.
First, Poplin takes a 25% cut of all money earned, excluding tips.
Second, laundry pros have to pay for gas to and from customers’ homes. This often means driving to a customer’s house, driving back home to wash, dry, and fold the laundry, and then driving back to the customer’s home to drop off the laundry, and finally going back home. Some laundry pros plan their trips to drop off multiple customer’s clothes at the same time, but this still takes a significant amount of gas money.
Let’s take a typical order that’s ten miles from a laundry pro’s house. That means that a laundry pro is driving 40 miles total to get to a customer’s house and back home. The IRS allows 65.5¢/mile to be deducted for taxes in 2023. That means that a laundry pro is spending roughly $26 in gas and car depreciation to get the order done. This doesn’t take into account the cost of doing laundry and purchasing bags for clean laundry that goes into each order.
After Poplin’s 25% cut, laundry pros will make $37.50 on the load, excluding tips.
So, for a $50 order, a Poplin laundry pro makes ~10 dollars, according to this analysis. Even with a 20% tip, a laundry pro will only make $20 total for this trip.
It’s no surprise that Emily says she was actually losing money at first, both to gain points and to get regulars, who she knew that she could count on good tips from. Ultimately, she says, “What I make is in the customer’s hands.”
This is a far reach from Poplin’s website, which describes top users as making up to $6,000/month.
Frank says that’s unrealistic.
“They say you can make $2,000/month. You figure out pretty quickly that it’s not possible.”
Frank also says that gift-giving is implicitly recommended by Poplin.
“It’s encouraged in terms of a treat. Like a mint, or a wrapped candy. That’s fairly explicit. They tout examples of laundry pros who are very high earning ones. They’ll share one of their training videos — “Here’s one of the messages we got about laundry pro so and so” — and that they tied it with a ribbon, and that they put in a hand-written note, and that they included a treat.”
If each laundry pro gave gifts, they would make even less money. Remember: Poplin takes a 25% cut, and laundry pros have to pay for gas, supplies, and depreciation of their washer and dryer.
This push for gift giving highlights a company that is radically out of touch with its laundry pros, who already make cents on the dollar for the clothes that they wash, dry, and fold. And this messaging comes from the top down.
Out of touch CEO: “We are absolutely a number to him”
In looking for laundry pros to interview, I heard rumors that the founder and CEO, Mort Fertel, had made comments about workers for Poplin being “unskilled.” A quick Google search found a comment he made in 2022 in an interview with techbuzz, when Poplin was known in Sudshare. In the interview he says:
“Unskilled workers, people who don’t sit behind a desk for a living, people who work at restaurants, in factories, and fulfillment centers, they want to work from home too. They can’t because they don’t have the skills. But what they do have is an underutilized washer and dryer. You combine that with the SudShare app, and voilà, you have the first ever manual labor work from home gig in the world.”
I asked some laundry pros about Mort’s comment.
Frank viewed Mort’s comment as patronizing and condescending to workers who don’t fit into Mort’s ideal version of the neoliberal capitalist subject.
“Mort’s an a**hole. His characterization of unskilled work is so f***ing elitist — pardon me, because this always gets my blood boiling.”
“I’ve watched this my whole life — having worked in my industry [the culinary industry]. I’m highly skilled. He would probably look at me and if he heard my story he would be like ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah I’m not talking about you. You went to culinary school and you work in fine dining. I didn’t mean you.’”
“Then it’s like, who do you mean? You go do it Mort. Does Mort do laundry?”
He added, “This notion of unskilled often comes from people who have a career doing something that is different from things that they do or view as distasteful. I’m guessing Mort has a fair amount of white, male Mormon privilege going on.”
T took a similar approach to Frank. She views doing work through Poplin as skilled labor.
“Condescending is the first word that comes to mind. It’s a skill to manage your time. It’s a skill to fold nicely. It’s a skill to have great customer service.”
“Yes, my washer and dryer are doing work, but I’m making sure my customer’s laundry looks nice, smells nice, and is packed properly.”
She added, “Mort is such an a**.”
“Ratings are make or break for us”: unnecessary driving, unsanitary clothes, and time pressure
I immediately got the sense from laundry pros that this work was hard. There is no doubt that doing work at Poplin requires a high degree of skill — and patience.
Frank described an experience where he had to drive multiple times to a customer’s condominium to drop off an order — traveling 45 minutes round trip multiple times before the client picked it up. To top it off, Frank had to learn a new folding style on YouTube called The KonMari Style (named after professional organizer Marie Kondo) that the client requested.
Although Frank did reject the order from the client the next time she ordered, he, of course, did not get compensated for his gas, time driving, and time learning the KonMari style of folding. (Frank sees the benefits of this style, but notes that all of the instructional videos had a “zen vibe” to them; a “cultural co-opting of sorts”).
Working as a laundry pro also consists of dealing with clothing that is less than ideal. Emily talked about working with extremely unsanitary clothes, and how Poplin doesn’t make things easier with its unsanitary fees.
“I’ve gotten roaches that have crawled out of the laundry. There have been bugs that have crawled out. And Poplin does have the ability for us to return it unlaundered and charge an unsanitary fee, but we only see 75% of it. But at that point, it would be kind of dumb, because I’ve driven to their house, picked it up, and I would have to bring it back to their house for $15. That doesn’t make sense financially.”
It was becoming increasingly clear to me that this job took a lot of guts to do and that it was far from the “unskilled labor” that Mort Fertel classified it as. Fertel’s comments were condescending, and they downplayed how hard being a laundry pro is. But it’s not just long car rides and bugs that laundry pros have to deal with; it’s also the time crunch and rating system that makes the job difficult.
Several of the laundry pros that I spoke to also talked about the intense time pressure that being a laundry pro entailed. Katie underscored this point when she noted that “Ratings are make or break for us.” In the Poplin ecosystem, points are key. They unlock different levels which open up the opportunity to take multiple orders at the same time, along with other perks.
Get a good rating and deliver an order on time, and you get points. Fail to deliver, and points are deducted.
Alex describes it this way:
“There’s a very strict delivery timeline that gives zero leniency to any kind of emergency or something that happens you can’t control. Your kid gets violently ill and you have to take them to the emergency room? Your car breaks down in the middle of the day? Washer or dryer stopped working and needs to be fixed? Too bad, so sad, we’re going to give you negative points on this order, give you a demerit for failing to deliver on time, and possibly penalize you monetarily (even if it’s more than the order was for) if they have to refund the customer or give them credit.”
Alex’s point underscores my own experience as a Poplin customer. My laundry pro messaged me about some staining that occurred during the laundering process.
I had left a pen in one of my pockets, which had caused some staining of some of the clothes in my load. Now, for me, this was no problem. I’m sure I left a pen in one of my pockets, as I’m often apt to do. I quickly apologized, and we moved on. But what happens if a customer lies about their order and says that something went wrong when it didn’t?
Withholding wages
Poplin laundry pros described a culture within Poplin of not believing laundry pros when an issue comes up.
Emily said a lot of laundry pros have started taking pictures of each piece of the laundry in their order to avoid problems, just adding time to the whole process.
Alex described a situation that led to her account being suspended and her money from previous orders being held.
“I had one order where the customer claimed they were given someone else’s clothes. This was literally impossible since I had no other customers at the same time and none of my laundry is ever in the spare bedroom/laundry room where I do my business. Poplin told me that I had to go to that customer’s house, 35 minutes away, IMMEDIATELY, to pick up these clothes.”
They said that this ultimately led to the suspension of their account.
“I was about to agree to it even though it was ridiculous when they told me that they will be withholding all of my funds until I retrieve the clothing. In Oregon, it’s 100% illegal for them to hold money from a previous completely unrelated job to get me to do something they want me to do.”
Ultimately for Alex, though, it just wasn’t worth the hassle to go to court over $56.
“I value my time too much to put 10+ hours into it. The principle of it all only goes so far in a capitalistic world.”
Emily had a similar experience. She says that Poplin took $10 from her based on a false accusation from a customer about bad service provided.
“That almost stopped me doing it…when they took my money from me. Because Poplin decided that the only way to make the customer happy was to give them a credit. But again, it’s $10, how am I going to fight them for that? Like I have to hire an attorney or go to court. And it’s just not worth it. And they know that.”
Changes
Finally, I asked the laundry pros if there were any changes that they would like to see within the platform.
T said “One thing I would change: maybe giving your executive ranked laundry pros a raise. They’ve proved they can and will do the job well. Also, maybe making a place where we can really voice our concerns and give input. I don’t know if there is a place for that. If there is, it’s not easily found.”
These two concerns were echoed by the other laundry pros.
For them, wages and a place where concerns were taken seriously were important improvements that Poplin needed to make.
Still, despite the low wages, the condescending attitude from the company, and the questionable wage practices, Emily says that she will still work for Poplin. “To me it’s still worth it. This is what allows me to stay home and make some money to go to Disney. It’s worth it to me after all the complaints.”
For Alex, the story is different.
She says, quite bluntly, that “I’m not working a single day for them again.”
It’s certainly true that there is “no ethical consumption under capitalism,” but this is a company where it’s hard to ignore the problems going on. The old washer and dryer at home will have to do.
When asked for comment, Mort Fertel responded extensively to my questions. See his responses here.
