I number this as if I plan on ever doing more of these in the future, but you never know. Ironically if I had any camera presence, I could probably become like TikTok famous for spreading unsolicited advice, but I’m an old dad and don’t want to put forth the hustle to be an obnoxious vlogger of any capacity.
But I still do some gigging on the side, because I like to make a little bit of extra scratch to have hopes of using to buy personal shit for myself, but really it’s mostly to supplement my income and build up a little safety net for all the endless parade of life’s expenses and parenthood.
At this point, I’ve got over 400 deliveries completed in my time doing it, and have a fairly decent grasp of how the whole process works, to the point where I have my own sets of rules and guidelines that I try to adhere to, in order to not burn out and feel like it’s a necessity and not a side hustle.
One of the rules I have is to not accept any shit pings. The ones that are under $3, because those are almost certainly fares where the cheap motherfucker on the other end has added no tip, and regardless of the fact that I deliver myself, even if I weren’t, I’m 100% on board with the whole notion of no tip, no trip. If I’m ordering food, I wouldn’t expect anyone to pick up my fare if I’m declaring a $0 tip up front, so cheap assholes out there who don’t tip shouldn’t expect me to pick up their bullshit requests.
The only exceptions to the rule are when there’s a trip bonus in play, and I’m just trying to clear as many trips as possible as to get a bonus from like UberEats or DoorDash, or it’s just such a miserably slow night that I take something just to get on the board.
But for the most part, acceptance rate be damned, if I’m pinged for a fare that’s sub-$3, I’m not only declining it, but I’m cursing the customer out loudly in the confines of my own car, saying shit like they can starve, fuck that, etc. These cheap fucks all hide behind the veil of anonymity and use it to let their inner stingy cheapskates out, and delivery drivers have it ten times worse than restaurant servers.
Anyway, what prompted this whole post is there was a night that was pretty dreadfully slow. I had already made a first drop, and I was hoping to pick up a second far so that I could get a pithy $2 trip bonus for making two deliveries. I get a ping, it’s shit, for $2.83 for Baskin Robbins cakes, but the estimated distance is but two miles, it’s on my way home, so I figure fuck it, I take it, it becomes a $4.83 ping with the bonus, which is still pretty shitty, but at least it’s not a difficult delivery.
Or so I thought. I get into the Baskin Robbins, and the workers tell me they have one of two items, and the cake they wanted, they didn’t have. So I’m like wtf, I don’t want to cancel the order since I wanted the trip, so they suggest reaching out to the customer. I text them to let them know that they don’t have the cake they want, and we go back and forth for way longer than $2.83 should’ve gotten them, but the TL;DR is that they pick a different cake that is in stock, their cost doesn’t change, and I’m on my way to drop off.
I get to the house, and of course the instruction is to leave at door; this is what I prefer, but when it’s coming from a no-tipper, it’s obvious that they’re also trying to avoid the shame of facing a person they’re stiffing. Anyway, I get to the door, and through some windows I can see all these party decorations, and I’m thinking to myself that maybe I just rescued a birthday party or something. Which explains why the customer was so eager to get any cake at all.
So after dropping off, I’m feeling a little good that maybe there’s a chance that I just saved a party by coming through with the clutch cakes. And maybe this person will really be one of those customers who love to tell themselves that they don’t tip up front, because they WILL tip afterwards, depending on the level of service received. And seeing as how I didn’t outright cancel their order, and worked with them to provide an alternate and get their shit to them, I figured my level of service was pretty high.
Obviously this post doesn’t exist if that had happened, and unsurprisingly the cocksucker didn’t tip at all. I’m not surprised by it one bit, but considering the extra effort I put into their request, I had hopes that this might’ve been the first time that someone recognized it and rewarded it accordingly.
So lesson learned, and lesson to impart: if looks like a shit ping, smells like a shit ping, it most likely is, going to be a shit ping. Don’t believe that a customer is going to be remotely capable of removing their head out of their own self-absorbed ass to be able to give one iota of consideration of you, the deliverer. They can’t even be bothered to click a fucking thumbs up after their shit arrives, because you know they’re not going to re-open the app again unless there’s a problem, until they next time they need it, at least a day later.
In fact, all customers are shitheads (unsolicited advice #002?), and are assumed to be trash unless proven otherwise. But we still need ‘em, and it’s a vicious cycle in which we co-exist in.
