I once worked at a company that mandated everybody do help desk one day a month for a similar reason. Everybody thought it was a good idea including me. There was a 5 month span when I was working 10-12h days (yes it was a startup and I was young and dumb) to get something shipped. By the 3rd time of having to take a day to work help desk I was furious that on the one hand I was expected to work myself bald to ship a product but on the other they felt it was a good use of my time to take a whole day off the project every month. After this and a couple other incidences we stopped requiring it. This is to say there are certainly some upsides but there are also morale downsides.
DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
21–30 of 86 posts
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#22No post body was provided.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#23> But a 1,500-comment thread on Blind
Nothing good ever starts off that way. Astonishingly sociopathic website.
That said, I do think that the media are deliberately seeking out the weirdest and most unpleasant employee opinions; I can’t imagine most employees of the company have an issue with this. And it does seem to be something they did before; they just suspended it for a bit.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#24DoorDash is a good idea in principle, but it's poorly executed. Among their competitors, Grubhub is superior in every way.
The reasons I dislike DoorDash and stopped using it:
- It has frequent outages.
- Has been the subject of controversies regarding tips.
- Does not have live customer support. They get back to you in 3 days.
Grubhub has none of the issues above, and they are always on top of orders.
Amazon Restaurants was another yet superior competitor to DoorDash but was discontinued as a service.
I have no affiliation to any of these companies, just talking from the perspective of a user.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#25Requiring the engineer to actually use the product they are working on in real life is good. Maybe it can help make the experience better for the dashers, the restaurants, and the company. That $400,000/yr engineer makes more money in a day than a DoorDash worker makes in 2 weeks working full time. I do not feel any sympathy for the 1 dash they will have to make a month.
Another thing to consider is one less dash, per employee, available for the dashers who might need the money. Perhaps there are not enough to be significant but if you dash by the office I bet you’ll notice.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#26Requiring the engineer to actually use the product they are working on in real life is good. Maybe it can help make the experience better for the dashers, the restaurants, and the company. That $400,000/yr engineer makes more money in a day than a DoorDash worker makes in 2 weeks working full time. I do not feel any sympathy for the 1 dash they will have to make a month.
what does the engineers salary have to do with anything
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#27When designing a dogfooding process try not to have 50 engineers do the same thing 12 or 120 times a year. For example, having engineers in kitchens fulfilling orders, having engineers perform store management tasks, and having engineers run a full day of deliveries will probably provide more insights even if done less frequently. I’m pro dogfooding, but put some thought into making sure the entire app is being dogfooded. Finally, when running a dogfooding program in your company be sure to communicate the importance of focusing on your customers and and cultivating customer empathy.
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#28I remember one comment here in HN that mentioned how in the future society will be divided in those above and bellow the API. About the difference in quality of life of those that make the platform, and those that work for it, like the gig workers. It made me angry because was too cold, but in line with reality. I really hope this type of strategies help in this regard. For the people developing those platforms, to r…
Do you remember what thread that comment was in?
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#29Has anyone considered that this is simply a viral stunt created by the gossip website (which I'd rather not name) in order to promote itself?
Even if the commentary isn't fake, it's just one engineer within a huge organization. For those upvoting this story, shouldn't our outrage/attention be directed elsewhere?
Re: DoorDash is requiring engineers to deliver food
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like a great way to assist the engineers in just finding new jobs...
These engineers are paid incredibly well. If they can't handle spending 30 minutes once a month taking a delivery, then they can work somewhere else.
That's exactly what they said?