DoorDash driver rages at customer who won't tip over $5 on pizza order
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
This isn’t limited to DoorDash of course. This is the crux of the gig economy. The ability to steal money by making yourself a middleman.
It's quite remarkable how the gig economy has taken two-sided markets where both sides were reasonably happy and turned them into three-sided markets where nobody is happy.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1792789/0001...
My local podunk pizza joint uses this insanely basic, yet fully sufficient service called "weborder.net". Feels like it's straight out of the movie The Net.
There are NO added fees. It accepts every card type. It emails you confirmations and notifications. Everything i'd want from a "modern" delivery experience.
It seems like there are no shortage of alternatives to DD.
The other type (Grubhub, DoorDash, UberEats) do not charge you a monthly subscription/hosting fee, and instead just take up to 20% of your revenue.
Most restaurants want to have both. The first is a destination for people who are looking for you. The second is the third-party marketing your food.
Business hope the latter does not cannibalize sales from the former.
Weborder.net also isn't just some basic webpage that processes payment, It's part of an entire POS system. The kind you sign for multi-year contracts with.
Amazon delivery drivers are third-party and apparently ran similarly. Most of them can't be bothered to ever follow directions, even written in both English and Spanish. The simplest solution for me is to not use such services if they suck so badly because their process creates a bad outcome. The result is not always or completely the driver's fault, especially if they're given too many tasks and not given the tools and support to accomplish the mission.
Another issue is that many things and work ethic in American continue to get worse and crumble, and most Americans just shrug and accept it because raising it is widely considered a modern faux pas.
Who wants to eat fast food that's been sitting for a half an hour? Even sit down food. Most of it doesn't travel well (soggy fries or bread), which is one area where pizza or Americanized Chinese takeout doesn't suffer.
And then the cost. A McDonalds meal is $10 as it is so you're going to add a couple more bucks for the convenience of not having to get it, plus a tip to the delivery person?
Sure, I can understand the spending $20 to not have to take a lunch or to stay later at work and eating dinner there. But for the most part it's ridiculous. I mean there's even a delivery order station at the 7-11. Who's getting a Slurpee delivered?
The local neighborhood Facebook group is full of drivers bitching about not enough jobs to go around, poor tipping, not making enough on their routes... and then you have the people ordering food and complaining about slow service, stolen, incorrect, or missing orders, and whatever else can go wrong.
This is how my roommate says he does not have money for the shared internet bill but often wastes from 10 to 15 euros for poor quality food :D
There are also maybe structural reasons ? I am thinking it may be aggravated if you live in a American city and you need to take your car out to the business/fast food zone in order to get prepared food. I guess from that point of view, you're thinking that at least you are saving on gas/parking ?
Every Plate, followed by Blue Apron, changed that entirely for me. I'm so glad that my wife suggested this idea. (She also suggested we get an Echo when they were beta. It was an incredibly left field suggestion from her since she's not into tech, really. Now we have one in almost every room of the house!) Every meal they send takes less than an hour, doesn't require any advanced culinary skills (or ingredients, even; they send almost everything you need), and always come out insanely good. I've had meals at highly-rated restaurants on guides like Eater that rivaled Blue Apron meals we cooked.
I still love going out to eat and, by default, will do that. But I don't mind cooking anymore. Sometimes I even enjoy it. That's a huge 360 from where I was five years ago.
Sorry if this reads like an ad; I promise it isn't.
Why is having Chinese delivered okay, but not other food? There are lots of dishes that follow a similar format to Chinese food that delivers well. I'm had plenty of good results from ordering Chinese, Indian, Jamaican, and certain Mexican dishes.
I think the real reason why tipping is now pushed everywhere, including POS terminals and even online payment portals is because the payment vendor receives a cut of the entire transaction (inclusive of tip). So adding anything onto the transaction total is more money in the pocket of the payment processor.
I'm not sure what a non-legislative way to push back against this practice, since the incentives are clearly stacked to favor what we see today.
People aren’t going to start tipping $10 for a $20 pizza, no matter how hard you wish for it.
In short, when the checkout terminal asks you to round up your change for a donation to help kids, and the cashier is looking at you, nobody wants to feel like the jerk that says no.
I find it helps to remember that the corporation is not in it to help needy children, but to launder your extra pennies into being able to claim charitable donations on behalf of the company and consequently reduce their tax bill.
When you look at it as corporate greed, feeling like a jerk disappears.
This is an urban legend. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/10/fac...
I get that they're underpaid but if I'm already paying more than a reasonable price for the product, I shouldn't have to pay yet again to subsidize the company who provided the product by supplementing their workers salaries just to allow them tomake a fair wage.
Instead, we plan our giving, update the plan annually, and I have no problem saying no to the adhoc requests for me to pay for a “company’s” contribution.
You may ask what has taxation got to do with tipping ? Well in a welfare state, the employees are supposed to be paid a moderate wage in accordance with living wages and inflation. I suppose some portion of the 50%+ tax the government rips off from me goes to this. Am not shelling out a tip on top of this.
In low tax regimes, there is an argument to be made for 15-25% tipping but even that doesn't stand true in current climate. The government has intervened and increased minimum wages everywhere. So unless there is some balance, tipping beyond a certain limit is economically illogical and overrated.
It's less about being called a jerk, and more about the fact that these are repeated games you're playing with the people who now expect these tips.
Someone calling you a jerk is minor; someone acting on the fact they think you're a jerk is another. Best case you get poor service, worst case, who knows...
Upfront tipping is especially a red flag for me.
Starbucks was quite late to "press the tip button to continue" culture. I think they added that to their payment flows in 2021, in fact.
When I went to actually order the groceries though, Walmart informed me that I should be tipping my driver who is actually delivering the groceries. I gave a 20% tip except they delivered it to the wrong address and I ended up on the phone with Walmart for about 40 minutes to get everything refunded anyway.
>The video itself shows the delivery person handing her the pizza, which text across the screen clarifies was a $20 pie. “I just want to say, it’s a nice house for a $5 tip,” the man replies as he walks away.
“Thank you,” Purciful replied as the delivery person chimed in again saying, “F.. you.”
Imagine having that level of entitlement.
In fact, Uber introduced this phenomenon into markets where it didn't even exist previously.
(Personally I don’t think they have any culpability per se, just interesting to think about the mechanisms at work).
Barber, tattoo artist, barista, bartender, waitstaff, pizza delivery... I'm sure there are more but that's my usual.
I'm not tipping the people at fast food or the other places that have started 'asking' for tips
I don't understand tipping for these services.
I would think that they make way more than minimum wage, especially tattoo artists. What's next? Tipping at the car shop?
Is it OK to tip a therapist or a doctor?
I was genuinely curious so I googled where I'm supposed to tip and how much. It seems like there are an awful lot of rules about tipping, and they don't follow a clear, consistent pattern, not even for when to do it, e.g. before or after receiving a service.
So much work to keep an outdated tradition alive.
But also, I've been to some places where the default choices start at 25% now, which I believe would be too bold for these PoS companies.
Honestly there are some categories of restaurant in the US that probably shouldn't exist as widely as they do... but this is not what people want to hear.