Zzz. Expecting the delivery workers to eat the difference between "5-second hand-off to somebody who's waiting at the street entrance"* and "gotta secure their vehicle & stuff and get through your building security and figure our where your apartment is and trek up there and..." is an age-old "treat your servants like shit because you can" move. *The article is very clear that the delivery app's Terms of Service spec…
Not quite. The Brazilian elite (that’s middle class and above, considering 30-40 million Brazilians live with hunger or near hunger) live in a dystopia of their own making where both parties are at risk of violence here. Virtually all middle class and above housing is a tall tower with gates and security around it. Often double gate or triple gate. Just the time to get across that can be 5-10 min. If it’s your first…
Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
221–230 of 246 posts
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
> consumers leverage their power to give a good or bad rating I guess they don’t operate on tips in Brazil? In New York, a delivery driver demanding a customer come down to collect would be wagering their tip for time.
A depressing number of customers don’t even tip anyway so I can understand a driver not caring.
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually it's a 0% pay cut because you pay for apartment door delivery. It's a 17% theft if the delivery driver doesn't come up.
1. Read the article 2. Have some compassion, delivery drivers are not rolling in cash
2. If they don't like the game they should stop playing it. If it's not worth it for them to do deliveries where they actually have to deliver, then they can look for a job that is more worth their time.
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#224Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#225I think what is needed is different service tiers. The basic delivery is only to nearby or outer door and leaves food there. Next up they wait you to come and pick it up. And pay couple euros more still and it is to the door. Could be only way to make it sustainable in long run.
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#226I stopped ordering out and started preparing meals ahead. No more nervous days wondering if the food will come, no more angry phone calls trying to get items fixed, no more delivery fees+tip+taxes+plus insane cost of food.
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. I'm frequently amazed just how much of an asshole some people are.
Never forget that some portion of human beings aren't even willing to return a cart to a certain point at grocery stores. A surprising number of people don't see other humans as equals, but rather as pawns to be abused. If you don't build your system with them in mind, they will abuse anything and everything they can. That doesn't mean make things suck for people with few resources though, as anti-social behavior is…
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> US perspective (eg theft of bikes / crime is not AS serious a problem as Brazil, although it can be bad): In the US we take the utilitarian perspective that the thief who took my bike has gained more happiness than I have lost without it, so maybe bike theft is a good thing[0]. In Brazil a bike is probably a fair bit more dear and may more likely be the user's only form of rapid personal transportation. [0] https:/…
Does anyone really think this? The hassle of buying a new bike alone isn't worth it.
And I'm not saying that as a bad thing, necessarily; if anything, it's probably worse to think in the neurotic PTSD terms of defending your bike to the death because you saved a long time for it and can't afford to replace it. Moreso when you can trivially afford to replace it and the person stealing it is probably in a much worse global situation than you.
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to hear that story. My partner gets frustrated by Instacart mistakes and I try to remind her that many of the people doing that job probably have low comprehension and planning skills or they would be doing something else. (Certainly not all though, we've had amazing drivers too). They also probably grew up with different food habits and don't see why a certain substitution doesn't make sense. Sometimes the res…
This man sent curse-laden messages in addition to calling me to taunt me further, complained that the trip was several miles (under 10, and they can see the charge and route before accepting the order), mocked my dying animal, mocked me. He straight-up told me that his plan was to stay on my order so that I couldn't get a different driver, while he simultaneously used a competitor app (Uber Eats) to deliver other ord…
I've never had an experience anywhere near that bad, but InstaCart is the slider set all the way to the "this is a random person, we vaguely know what's in the store, and you work out what you're actually getting with the random person as they're shopping" end of the spectrum. The good thing about it is that its store flexibility is extremely high.
Prime Now is the slider set to the other extreme: inventory is accurate, your "shopper" might as well be a robotic arm, and your driver is a separate, nameless delivery system. The downside is the store flexibility is limited to Whole Foods.
Re: Come downstairs or we’ll eat your order, delivery workers tell customers
#230US perspective (eg theft of bikes / crime is not AS serious a problem as Brazil, although it can be bad): I'm a bit torn here. On the one hand, I fully empathize with the delivery drivers (particularly if the rules / policy of the app is NOT doorstep delivery) and where theft is a real issue. However, as a (US) consumer, where the apps DO allow us to request doorstep delivery, I think there is no issue with consumers…
According to the article, the deliverers are expected by the terms of the app to bring the order only to the street level door. Some consumers leverage their power to give a good or bad rating to compel the deliverers to bring the order upstairs.
Welcome to the end stage of "The customer is always right."
Rating systems do not work--eventually they get gamed and become a battlefield.