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Comment by aero142 | Hacker News Reader

I only know one Amazon driver in Austin, so it's just an anecdote. He is a student and likes it better than driving for Uber. He makes $18/hr plus tips and can just pick up hour shifts whenever they are available. He makes good money and it fits perfectly with his school schedule. He avoids telling people about it because he doesn't want the competition for shifts.

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People are tipping Amazon drivers? Or is this just for food delivery?

I am guessing he is referring to Amazon Prime Now where you are expected to tip. But generally I do not tip because I think Amazon should pay their drivers. And most of the time they didn't even come to my door, so they don't deserve any tip. Though, I don't use that service as much.

Though thinking back, I did leave $1 or $2 tips here and there, depending on their service.

Tipping in general is a big deal to me. I usually overdo it because I'm just pro-labor.

But, at a certain point you do start to feel a little scammed by the companies simply underpaying their workers and expecting you to make up the difference.

More recently, this trend of tip jars for people just ringing you up and other minimal things is downright annoying. Extra money for <20 seconds of minimal effort wherein the service quality level is relatively unimprovable? C'mon.

If you think Amazon doesn't pay well, I think it's a better practice to just mentally add $1 or $2 to the price of what your ordering and call it the tip, rather than stiffing the drivers. If you can't afford it with tip, you can't afford it.

I think I'd be less annoyed if Amazon wouldn't just fill out the tip field automatically. I ordered a GPU last time for $400 and they wanted me to provide $30 tip. I changed it to $2 or $3.

Whould it make more or less sense if it were just for food?

More. Food delivery is a personal service, point to point. Deliveries are done en masse.

I know they have Prime Now in the Dallas/Ft Worth area (Amazon has at least 5 or 6 warehouses near DFW alone) but I haven't seen any job openings for it. I did apply for Amazon Flex, but like many others, I simply never heard back from them. A co-worker got a call back about it, but they declined him because his vehicle wasn't considered fuel efficient enough.

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