I hate that I am become this person but: are delivery drivers just allowed to call and say 'please come and meet me' now?
i get it's a legitimate safety thing to some degree and to certain people but have you considered that i cannot leave my place right now which is why i paid 40 dollars you ess dee for taco bell. which was a legitimate safety thing for myself as well, frankly.
and i totally get it: apartments fucking suck ass. i did this job for years. every single apartment design is absolute dogshit minus maybe 2 or 3 i've seen in my life between 3 cities. buildings will not be laid out, address wise, sequentially at all so finding anywhere is a fucking nightmare, the roads will be dogshit as well, potholes and speedbumps and i'm just trying to do my job and certain dumb complexes will randomly have some address noumbers on like, the back side of the building facing away from the fucking road for some reason??? why??? insane. just a total fucking hell. yes. i understand. but when i did the job i gritted my teeth and figured it out myself. calling the person is an absolute last resort. it's a nightmare but frankly also when i gave up and called the person, waiting around and/or trying to get directions from them was just as annoying. bullshit job. we need high speed tubes connecting everywhere in the city.
Personally, I'm crippled, so even getting to the front door is a process. If a driver calls me and says I need to come down, I tell them no shot, I paid you to bring it to my door, so either bring it to my door or refund it.
If drivers are not getting paid enough to bring deliveries to people's doors? That's a conversation for the drivers to have with the company. The company says they'll bring it to me, and I expect the service I pay for.
I am paying a to-my-door delivery service to deliver things, to my door. I shouldn't have to specify that I expect people to do the entire job and not just the easy part of it. If they don't want to do the entire job, that too is a conversation for them to have with the company, not me.
I also did not make the connection, after a 12 pack this lovely Friday night. OP is not wrong - even as someone who sometimes dashes for extra cash and hates people just like OP - but was thinking I missed some cultural reference.
I've given up on food delivery. With the all the fees and tips and shit to wait who the hell knows how long for food to show up colder than a penguin fart.
It's just not worth it to me anymore. Why would I want to pay for that experience? I can make less disappointing food quicker for less money.
I really hope app-based 3rd party food delivery just dies soon. The incentives are so fucked up and at cross purposes between the customers, companies, restaurants, and drivers. Like literally no one is getting a good deal out of it except the app itself. Support places that actually want to deliver enough to have their own drivers, and you'll almost always have a smoother, faster, and more professional experience.
You can revel in your superiority when you're tracking individual animals on your 3 day long persistence hunting trips and foraging your own berries. Agriculture and technology are entirely unnecessary, for prime specimens of humans like you.
I gave up on the food delivery because of the ludicrous fees and whatnot but also because of how inconsistent it is since you literally have no idea who's delivering your food. Sometimes they take forever and your food is ice cold. Also, I wasn't particularly fond of people sending their little 8-year-old kid up to my door with my food. I'll just eat what I have in the house, go out and get food myself or just not eat but I refuse to play that game again.
are delivery drivers just allowed to call and say 'please come and meet me' now?
Not in my world lol.
I order it for delivery, you're arse comes to my door. I don't care if it's a house, I don't care if I live 400 floors up in a space elevator. If the apartment number is on the order, buckle the fuck up, sunshine.
Delivery guys ring my buzzer, I don't talk to em I just hit the button to open the front door and they can figure their lives out from there. If they call me from their cell phone, sorry kemosabe but I don't know your number and don't answer phone calls from random numbers I don't know.
Food at my door, period. Don't even have to look at me, you can drop it and run for the hills to make up time for all I care. But it's at my door or your boss gets a phone call lol.
Edit: Low expectation mother fuckers in these replies I swear. Try not properly completing the one sole task your job involves and see how long your bosses keep you around kiddies. Holy fuck.
Edit 2: lol the copium below is both amazing and embarrassing.
I'd love to continue engaging but I've gotta go get a job digging 10' holes. Might just dig them 5' deep and assume the boss will be fine with me doing a half assed job like so many in the comments seem to do apparently ROFL. Stay fresh, cheesebags.
Damn yo, have some sympathy for the working man. You act like delivery drivers have a boss these days, it's all gig work; neither the drivers nor UberEats gives a shit about your customer satisfaction.
#1: They probably should as customer satisfaction is a huge part of any business involving customers.
#2: I'm not necessarily talking about UberEats, I stopped using their services during the pandemic when a $15 meal magically turned into $43 by virtue of pure unadulterated magic. This is a problem that occurs even with in house delivery people who I assure you very much have a boss.
#3: I don't care if anybody involved doesn't give a shit about my customer satisfaction. I care about people doing their job. I don't get to hang up on people who call me for help on the phones when their being twats because part of my job is handling those twats. If part of your job is delivering food to a specified address, then do your job and deliver the food to the specified address. Failure to do so means you aren't doing your job lol.
Inflation and low wages are caused by people asking door-to-door delivery drivers to actually deliver door-to-door? Guess I'll go save the economy by hopping out my taxi before they actually get to the airport then to save those folks some time and gas and tamp down that pesky inflation!
People this angry about delivery issues tend to also be the people who fail to actually include their apartment number in the order and then their pizza goes back to dominos because their dumbass didn't answer the phone.
Sorry I had to call because you, the customer, fucked up.
If they call me from their cell phone, sorry kemosabe but I don't know your number and don't answer phone calls from random numbers I don't know.
"Hey I ordered 2h ago where the fuck is my food?"
"You forgot to put your apt #, or fatfingered your address, or we otherwise had a problem with the delivery, and as is customary since the dawn of the cellular phone the driver attempted to contact you 1h 30m ago, but since you didn't answer we were left to assume you no longer wanted your order or would call back eventually. Would you like us to send our driver, who now hates you for wasting his time and knows you won't tip him for both of the deliveries you made him take?"
Edit: LOL downvote but no comment, eh? I'll take that as tacit admission that the described scenario has happened to you exactly.
These are the words of someone who is destined for a life of disappointment from his deliveries. If you expect perfection then expect to be disappointed.
I don't expect perfection, nor did I ever state that I did. I expect the literal bare minimum of service which in the realm of delivering something means as I said to the other person, taking it from point A to point B. If you take it to anywhere but point B, you have failed the basic task your job revolves around.
I don't expect perfection, but I do expect companies and employees (even gig employees) to fulfill the basic promises they make about what their service consists of. Surely not too much to ask?
I delivered food many many man....you get the idea, years ago, long before the delivery apps, and even before the interwebs. The short answer is: No, we/they are not supposed to do that.
I cannot be sure, as I quit because of asshats who cheat the system and screw over the customer. I understand why they do it, we stopped making money once the apps came into existence. Back in the day, I made $300+ after expenses on Valentine's Day, and now it be a good night if I made $100 before expenses. However the jerks will run multiple phones, accounts, and apps, at once. So they will pick up your order, head to McD's to wait for the order to be ready. Stop to deliver it, and if there is another pickup on the way to your house, guess what, they are stopping. They call you because it can/will/might save them a minute or two, added up over the night, that could amount to a couple extra deliveries.
Again, I'm only assuming by what I've seen on the other side of the app and the asshat drivers who have taken over, and I do NOT condone that practice at all.
Are humans performing labor allowed to ask a question? Yes. Especially when they are performing dangerous work, which it legitimately is where I am. I have no desire to fuck with low earning people in dangerous jobs, so I wait outside for them when I see they're pretty close on the GPS.
When I had covid I put "have covid, knock and leave at apartment door" as the delivery note. It worked pretty flawlessly. My normal delivery message is "will meet you out front, do not call unless necessary", which works about 90% of the time.
The delivery people who actually piss me off are the ones who call/text "I've arrived" when I'm waiting outside and I can see they're still 3 blocks away on the GPS. Don't lie to me, even though i understand you're trying to reduce your wait time, and some people make them wait for 15+ mins.
The other ones who piss me off are the ones who take a 30min detour with my food because they're juggling apps and two different services have told them to go in opposite directions. Special shout out to the dude who literally rode past me while I was waiting for him outside, so that he could pick up an order for a different app instead of giving me my order. Thanks for chilling half my hot food too with what I assume was a cold drinks order, asshole.
so I wait outside for them when I see they’re pretty close on the GPS
You are the kind of person who made my life easier when I was a driver, so on behalf of the good drivers out there, thank you for that.
I dont understand how the drivers today are getting away with half what they do, unless told otherwise, I always go right to the front door.
30min detour with my food because they’re juggling apps
This is against the TOS for the drivers, while on one app, you cannot run another. zero enforcement tho, the apps make more money that way, the customer is the least of their worries.
I deliver for Domino's. I'm not a fan of climbing three flights of stairs with the equivalent of a grocery cart of food in my arms for a two dollar tip. But you know what, we all suck it up and do our job. Only time I called to have them meet me downstairs was the time I fucked up my leg.
Oh, and 100% agree that apartments are laid out like shit. Thankfully, most of the apartments here in my city will give us a map of the complex.
That’s pretty much how it was when I delivered with Dominos too. It was a cold day in hell before we’d tell someone to have to come out and meet us. We even still had to do 100% in person, face to face deliveries.
There was a couple occasions where I had to call the customer due to being lost in an apartment complex, but most are fairly understanding about that.
Curious how that customer reacted. Hopefully well.
I used to get Domino's delivered to me years back. Often in the winter with snow on the ground and it is near zero. I always put my porch light on and waited near the door. The app showed me they were close, so why wouldn't I? I can't believe how many drivers thanked me for just doing these things. Many told me they'd often wait 5 minutes after knocking or ringing the doorbell. Like WTF? You know your order is coming.
You have no fucking clue how much I hated these people. And then when they finally do come to the door, they don't tip and say "hey thanks man I really appreciate you coming out here" NO you DON'T or else you'd TIP! Fuck!
I can't say I'm a frequent user of delivery services. I see Uber Eats at least has an option to say beforehand if you agree meeting at the door, driveway or whatever and sometimes I, I choose to make things easier for the driver...
But having to haggle on the phone sounds ridiculous. There's a thousand reasons you may not be able to walk out of your apartment ffs.
I've had them do that when it's pouring rain outside. Like yeah, I get it, one of us is going to need to get wet, but considering I'm the one paying you, you should be the one getting wet.
It's also impossible to get them to ring the fucking doorbell. I've had drivers leave my food on the porch when it's 10 degrees F outside and just walk off. What in the actual fuck? My instructions said "please ring doorbell", it would take half a second to ring the fucking thing, and I tipped 25 freaking percent, plus a bunch of fees, expecting a basic level of service. The doorbell thing has led to me just not using Door dash. Idk what's up with their drivers, but if a button isn't on their phone, they refuse to push it. I think a lot of these problems stem from tipping them before service is actually rendered. What the fuck do they care? They've already been paid.
I refuse to answer phone calls from delivery drivers. They either deliver it, or they don't. For the drivers that just use the phone call to alert you that it's been delivered great. I don't need to answer that call. For the drivers who want to negotiate at my front door for whatever reason, I don't need to talk to them either.
I should add there's a table at my front door for deliveries to be left at. There is no human interaction required for a delivery. Though happily all the local drivers here just take a photo of whatever it is on the table, 10% of the time they'll make a phone call (one ring - they don't want to talk either) to let you know it's been delivered.
I think it's more the nature of the question being "hey is it cool if I don't complete the delivery as written and just save myself some minutes by doing curbside when we promised door-to-door?" That's what I'd have to guess is annoying to people.
Door dash (or equivalent)? They don't have to care like drivers employed by "a guy you could theoretically call and have bitch the employee out." Stick to ordering from a delivery spot that delivers themselves, if they still exist and haven't been killed by door dash in your area yet, that is. Well, at least there'd still be the chains then, too. Bonus though: it isn't $40 for a McDouble and a McChicken like it is with uber eats. Helps with (not solves, but) the apartment issue too since the store likely has a smaller delivery area and the driver has been in your complex 6x tonight so he knows where 1401 #D is by heart.
I think they should really go all out and just text "is it cool if I deliver to you at the restaurant parking lot, I got a real busy night, just come on down and help a guy out?"
The guy rings my appartment or gives a phone-call, and I have to come down to open the door anyway. Sometimes they're smart enough to call in advance so we know they are coming, and sometimes I discover that I have a package a day when I'm not available so it ends-up being at the pick-up point
If there's a delivery, they usually call so you have time to get dressed and get down (because it's always easily in the morning). That's normal for package delivery, at least. I've never ordered food though.
Often I need to sign, when not I live in a (semi) large building in the city centre, if noboly open the door to the delivery person they won't let it in the street. Sometimes, they let it in the hallway, but I am never comfortable with it. Rather walking 5 minutes to the post office/pick up point
I assume the people acting like this are doing it because I didn't give them a tip before they did their job.
Either way, it's just wasting their time; if they ring the front gate of the building and then just wait there for me to walk down, that's worse than if they save themselves time by meeting me halfway.