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Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

restofworld.org

51–60 of 246 posts

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#51

I have never used one of these services and never will. Way too many horror stories. If I'm making already poor decisions to eat fast food I might as well bike, walk, or drive to go get it and save myself another $10.

Good for you not having children.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#52

I have never used one of these services and never will. Way too many horror stories. If I'm making already poor decisions to eat fast food I might as well bike, walk, or drive to go get it and save myself another $10.

The service fees are actually insane, and it's super unclear what the fees go to. Not the person doing the work—that much is clear. I just automatically assume anyone who ordered with these apps is straight bad with money (outside of extenuating circumstances like being disabled or sick, that is, I happily order delivery when I'm sick).

If you're in a small enough town (that still has delivery people) you can often strike up a conversation with whoever did the delivery, and get "service outside the app" for much cheaper and nicer, and everything goes direct to them.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#53

Imagine getting paid to deliver something and complaining about actually having to deliver it. I can see the problems they face, but delivering an item...most of the way...isn't the solution.

Not everything can be bought. The situation delivery workers are in is not one of choice, of decision over their own conditions of living and working, regarding the number of working hours, the independence, the wages, etc...

To blindly expect those people to do whatever you want because you have the money makes you look closer to a Disney Villain than a human being who wants to build a society with these people.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#54
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another solution is having a proper bicycle lock. Yes, they’re heavy but I bike around with Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock, as well as sometimes with a 25-lb 18mm motorcycle chain for the bicycle. I do think the food delivery model should only work for customers willing to pay delivery people $25+/hr, especially considering you’re not just paying what should be a living wage for labor but also renting the ca…

Kryptonites largest and thickest U-lock gives way to a battery powered angle grinder in about 2 minutes.

I didn’t realize that. Thought it was 5-10 minutes. Thanks. Sounds like the bicycle delivery system is fundamentally broken then.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#55
post #12

The absolute entitlement to believe that delivery workers should be coming up to your door at the 9th floor, while complaining about "ethics". You're using a delivery service like Uber Eats, Deliveroo or Doordash that are well known to underpay, overwork and unjustly punish workers that do not maximize their deliveries per hour, and you have the gall to complain that they're not taking pride in their jobs from your i…

Some people have disabilities thou.

Yeah, or even just small children who can't be kept from burning the building down.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#56

If you have to go into the street to pick up your order, I don't see the point in food delivery. You might as well walk to the restaurant at that point.

You don’t even have to put on real shoes to go downstairs. You can put on slippers. Even in the most dense city, food delivery to the street level is more convenient than walking to the restaurant.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#57

I wonder if this specific case isn't counterproductive activism, which will create opportunity for a new food delivery segment that specifically promises door delivery.

With what employees?

Wrong perspective. When enough customers are fed up there will be an opportunity ripe for entrepreneurship. Labour is always in greater supply than customers.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#58
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're a thief (not all thieves are just random people walking by) you will KNOW that someone who just jumped off a bike and locked it will not be back for a certain time, and tossing the bike into a truck, lock and all, could be a moment's time. So now you need to lock it to something, causing even more time lost.

That's what I did when I did bicycle deliveries. Yes it was a pain, but I considered it part of the job. But I was working for an individual pizza shop which did a good job making the job worthwhile overall and paid me well enough for my time and this sort of "extra effort".

And you likely had "downtime" when waiting at the shop for an order to deliver; these delivery people are often servicing an almost infinite number of orders and shops, and the next order is just an app click away.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#59
post #19

The market decides. Food delivery most places mean to the door of the apartment, not the apartment complex entrance. This is terrible for food delivery agents, since it slashes the efficiency of most deliveries. I always run downstairs, since I am humbled that anyone would cook and bring me food. But as long as this is not the norm, food delivery agents are at the bottom of the food chain. In the past, this was a job…

I live with chronic sciatica. Some days, I'm feeling well enough for a walk in the park. Other days, I can barely limp to my kitchen or bathroom. Modern food delivery has been amazing for those kinds of days.

Whenever drivers don't actually dash to my door as requested, it turns a simple meal into an agonizing journey.

Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers

#60

Imagine getting paid to deliver something and complaining about actually having to deliver it. I can see the problems they face, but delivering an item...most of the way...isn't the solution.

They are between a rock and a hard place: I think the game StarCitizen had a perfect visualization of their problem. When you try to trade resources, you make say 4% income on the trade. So if you trade say 2-million you can win about 200k or 400k, depending on server state. However the risk is your ship blows up, which could be because of a buggy crash or a server crash. The risk was "is the value I get from the wor…

Thanks for writing out the economic model at play here. I needed a better way to communicate this and much of your phrasing works very well.
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