11 ms·

DoorDash will require all employees to deliver goods

78 points by 999900000999 5y ago

vgeek 5y ago
Who would have ever thought that delivering food to lazy people would require a degree and 5 years of JS experience.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  This seems like a really good way to have your employees leave, to me. I've worked retail and food services and delivery jobs. I got into software to never ever have to do that again.
  - almost_usual 5y ago
    Getting paid a SWE comp to do a minimum wage delivery job and you’re complaining. Ok.
    - lokar 5y ago
      Arguably less then minimum wage
    - anonymousab 5y ago
      When the difference is "get paid well to do the job and career you trained and worked for" vs. "get paid well to do an annoying, stressful frontline job unrelated to your skillset" then yeah, of course you'd complain. One is much better/worse for you than the other. The job sucks, and for most of the people working it, the pay sucks too. To that end, I think a major part of why the job sucks is that the pay sucks - so much hard work for so little reward adds up mentally, and makes every interaction and delivery worse - so they're kinda missing the point with the "build empathy" part if they aren't making only delivery pay while they do this.
      - slenk 5y ago
        Walk in your customers shoes. You'll be surprised what you learn. And yes, fellow employees are your customer.
      - DarylZero 5y ago
        From my perspective, driving around is pleasant enough, as an activity, but the loss of time to do anything else after committing to so many hours, just to make rent... it seems like giving up on life.
    - bluefirebrand 5y ago
      It's not about the money at that point it's about those jobs being shit to do. I can go get my SWE comp elsewhere and not have to do bullshit like that.
  - mdoms 5y ago
    And the company could be better off without people who have no interest in building empathy with the most essential workers in their business. So it sounds like a win/win if they get rid of people like you.
    - vgeek 5y ago
      Do you really believe that they are trying to instill camaraderie and mutual respect among their white collar and abused contractor workers, or are they more likely to be have a shortage of delivery contractors and are looking to implement this as a some sort of stopgap or PR piece? I have worked places where myself and fellow office workers have regularly pitched in for things like inventory in the warehouse, but then again the companies I have worked at have not been notoriously abusive with regards to labor and compensation. Coming from a blue collar family and having worked crap jobs prior to college, I never look down on any labor, rather the companies who take advantage. I do look at exploitative companies implementing suspect policies with a cynical perspective. If you don't believe that the gig economy is a shift towards destroying worker's rights and solidarity (how many tech workers are really pro labor? Vs how many anti-union rugged individualists), I'm sorry.
      - mdoms 5y ago
        You think that the most likely explanation is that they like to pay people $200k salaries to deliver food? > If you don't believe that the gig economy is a shift towards destroying worker's rights and solidarity (how many tech workers are really pro labor? Vs how many anti-union rugged individualists), I'm sorry. I absolutely do believe that and I outright refuse to participate in the gig economy. I never use Uber, I never have food delivered, I do not like this. But we're talking about salaried employees being asked to put themselves in the shoes of their users once a month. Let's keep some perspective.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > You think that the most likely explanation is that they like to pay people $200k salaries to deliver food? I think the most likely explanation is some executive who himself lacks sympathy with the vast majority of the classes of people working underneath him read something or had some isolated experience, or both, relating to the utility of the technique, overgeneralized it, and the instituted an overgeneralized, poorly considered, mandate around a broadly-useful concept, rather than initiating an effort to find a way to incorporate it as and where appropriate.
rolph 5y ago
i would be concerned about the wisdom of requireing disgruntled employees to handle delivery food items
- toast0 5y ago
  It's not clear that the regular delivery people are gruntled either.
- almost_usual 5y ago
  You’re more worried about them messing up an order rather than purposely creating a security vuln or leak data?
  - rolph 5y ago
    i wouldnt call it messing up an order but id be more concerned with the potential mucoprotien based condiments added not upon request
- mbfg 5y ago
  that happens every day, in all restaurants.
1123581321 5y ago
Good policy. Every organization should find a way to expose their employees to problems and opportunities on their front line.
- 999900000999 5y ago
  If I get a job as an engineer at Jack in the Box , I'm walking out if they want me to make milk shakes.
  - almost_usual 5y ago
    I would work at Jack in the Box if they paid me 700k+ TC and I only had to make milkshakes for a year. Could always save the mental energy to program whatever I want in my free time.
    - mbfg 5y ago
      i would, got a link?
    - kgwxd 5y ago
      But the contract you signed says anything you do in your spare time belongs to the company.
      - almost_usual 5y ago
        Not in my imaginary contract.
      - selimthegrim 5y ago
        Shh, the contract doesn't apply when the milkshake machine is "down", don't let him find out!
    - chaorace 5y ago
      It's rather impressive that you have the mental fortitude to get meaningful stuff done in your spare time after working in a fast-food kitchen all day. More than I suspect most have, myself included. Even as a young adult, the heavy labor and stress I took on from working those types of jobs would leave me so exhausted that I could barely even drive home, let alone belt out code. I'm not saying it's impossible -- throw enough money out there and you'll find the people... but that hardly makes it praise-worthy or justifiable from a compatibility perspective.
deleted 5y ago
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krolden 5y ago
Great now make your delivery people actual employees.
- Artistry121 5y ago
  That doesn’t make sense. One of the great things about DD is one can do it in their down time.
  - krolden 5y ago
    The point is to not actually have to pay their social security or benefits.
    - solidsnack9000 5y ago
      If they paid those things then (a) the hourly would be significantly less and (b) there'd be less flexibility in hours-per-week or hours-per-month, because benefits are paid at a fixed rate.
      - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
        > there'd be less flexibility in hours-per-week or hours-per-month, because benefits are paid at a fixed rate. You're not wrong on point a), but I don't think we'd see a "significant" difference though - but you're incorrect on point b) because I've had (and have) very, very flexible working conditions with the same full benefits as everybody else. Benefits don't necessarily have to be fractional nor tied to any kind of fixed rate. If a company wants to extend its health-plan to its part-time workers there's certainly no US tax-code or insurance reg stopping them - nothing other than the generosity (or lack-of) on the part of company leadership.
        solidsnack9000 5y ago
        I guess in theory you're correct about (b) but the implications for (a) are that the hourly rate is even lower for people who work few hours. A person who worked 1 hour a week would need to pay the company in order to true-up for the benefits. DoorDash isn't avoiding anything by not paying benefits -- they are paying cash instead of benefits. Maybe it's the case that the employees should net out more than they do; but that's quite separate from whether they get benefits or not, because it's all cash out the door at the end of the day.
andymoe 5y ago
Perhaps it will show folks how their product and business decisions affect people day to day and improve the experience for everyone. As of now DoorDash is a service I won’t use and definitely won’t work for due to their terrible labor policies and replacing one bad tipping policy with another.
treeman79 5y ago
This is the sort of policy I try to implement at every place I work. People get super comfortable working For years without knowing how their product really works. Having people learn all aspects of the product drastically improves the focus of everyone on problems that actually matter. Losing people that don’t want to participate is often a good thing.
- paulcole 5y ago
  Agree with this 100%. It’s fine to say “this type of work is beneath me.” It’s not fine to say “this type of work is beneath me” and then expect to continue working at a company whose values say otherwise.
  - danaris 5y ago
    There's a big difference between "this type of work is beneath me" and... - This type of work is not what I interviewed and hired for - This type of work will aggravate my bad back/knees/rotator cuff/etc - This type of work triggers my very strong anxiety - This type of work requires skills I do not have - This type of work requires equipment that the company is not providing me (doesn't matter if I own it; if the company wants it done, they damn well better provide the means) Different people have different needs. If I were hired to be a programmer for DoorDash, and they told me one day that the next I would, instead, be driving my car in unfamiliar neighborhoods, being expected to deliver X amount of product per Y amount of time? I'd be putting in my notice. Just like if I were someone who has no programming background working as a driver for DoorDash, and they told me one day that the next I would be starting work on a project to upgrade feature Z in the app, with an expected delivery date based on highly trained programmers and no training.
    - paulcole 5y ago
      A couple of your examples can be handled by providing a reasonable accommodation/alternative because of established health condition. But the others… > This type of work requires skills I do not have Great, see this as an opportunity to develop new skills! Take it or quit/be fired. > This type of work requires equipment that the company is not providing me OK, either do it or quit/be fired. > This type of work is not what I interviewed and hired for OK, either do it or quit/be fired. Making bad (but legal) decisions and fucking up a business isn’t (usually) a crime — if it is, lock me up! You may not like what your employer is telling you to do, but for the most part either do it or don’t.
remarkEon 5y ago
Nordstrom (my wife works there) does something similar where folks who work in corporate have to work a shift on the retail floor. Generally it seems like a wise policy imo. I’m a little baffled by the comments about how delivering food is somehow “beneath” an engineer. It isn’t, and sometimes seeing how the things you build are used by employees can expose unknown unknowns that need fixing for both customer and employee.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  Honestly it might be kinda fun to do something like that once a month. Especially if they're paying you an engineering wage to do it. Not for everyone I guess but I would enjoy it. Personally I would love to embed with my customer teams for a few weeks a year to work on their integration with my product. But in my organization the incentives are not set up that way so it would not be a viable thing for me to do unilaterally.
  - redisman 5y ago
    Yeah it sounds kind of cool. I used to work min wage jobs while in school . Driving a car to pick up some food for $100+/h sounds like a nice break from programming
- 1270018080 5y ago
  Is it beneath me? I don't know, sure, it doesn't matter. Would I want to do it? No. And that's the main/only reason. I like being a software engineer, I wouldn't like delivering food.
  - justinclift 5y ago
    Is there a reasonable chance it would help you create better software product(s)?
    - 1270018080 5y ago
      Given a 40 hour workweek constraint, the opportunity cost might be negative. I'm sure DoorDash has Design/Product/Research departments who would get more out of doing this anyway.
nrmitchi 5y ago
Overall I think ideas and programs like this are good for the company long-term; building user empathy is obviously important. It feels kind of odd to be explicitly forcing everyone into it though. This sounds like it would be concerning for individuals on a work status (TN, H-1b, etc) who are explicitly not supposed to perform work outside of their job or specialization. There's some grey area here for sure, but this seems pretty clearly outside the scope of authorized work. An engineer helping with a support ticket once in a while, sure, I think it's a reasonable expectation, but I can't see how explicitly putting this as a job responsibility isn't going to muddy the waters for some people.
- johnday 5y ago
  > [...] who are explicitly not supposed to perform work outside of their job [...] Surely these visa programs account for things like health and safety training, other upskilling and so on? If DoorDash obligates its employees to do this under the claim that it helps them perform their day jobs, then I fail to see how the visa could come into question.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > If DoorDash obligates its employees to do this under the claim that it helps them perform their day jobs, then I fail to see how the visa could come into question. If the mere claim is enough to ensure no questions about visa status, it creates an obvious giant hole to drive immigration fraud through.
  - nrmitchi 5y ago
    You know, I would hope so. But unfortunately with many work status situations the decisions can end up feeling rather arbitrary. I think there is a stark difference between health and safety training/upskilling, and doing customer deliveries/support: the former is an "additional responsibility" to many positions, while the latter is a job function that the company explicitly pays another person to perform.
- nullspace 5y ago
  This is extremely easy to defend from an H1B perspective for an engineer. It just obviously comes under testing the platform that you build, delivering high quality products and building strong relationships with the rest of your team towards that end. It is also the reason why this program seems to exist in the first place, so it all looks like good faith.
purjolok 5y ago
If I could do food deliveries at a relaxed pace while getting paid a software engineer salary I'd sign up in a heartbeat. (Career prospects notwithstanding)
coolso 5y ago
After working in retail and seeing the kind of people who are actual DoorDash/UberEats drivers day in and day out… I refuse to use it or any of its competitors. Not only are they frustrating as customers because a good 75% of them don’t even bother looking for the items, instead shoving their phone in your face and saying “where’s this stuff at”, but it was also quite clear, going by a variety of metrics, that most of the drivers were… not the most model of citizens, let’s just put it that way. While here and there you had the occasional “girl/guy next door trying to provide for her/his family” type person, generally speaking these types do not make up the majority.
- syspec 5y ago
  So exactly what type of person made up the majority?
throwaway984393 5y ago
As long as it's implemented correctly, this is great. Job rotation is a great way to open up perspectives and identify potential improvements. But it can also be done in a way that isn't productive, so it needs to have a particular goal attached to the rotation so it can accomplish something specific.
anonymousab 5y ago
I wonder how that will work for employees that don't/can't drive.
- donarb 5y ago
  They could always ride along with a driver. Gets them almost the same experience seeing what issues a driver has to face.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  "The renewed push adds choices for employees who may not be able to do deliveries, a spokeswoman said. Besides WeSupport, which will allow employees to shadow customer-service workers, the company will also eventually offer WeMerchant, a way for employees to take a closer look at the merchant-support side of DoorDash’s business."
deleted 5y ago
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WaltPurvis 5y ago
Will DoorDash require employees to actually deliver goods rather than just say they did? I recently ordered a small appliance from Walmart and chose the option for next-day delivery, which turns out to mean delivered from a local Walmart store, and Walmart subcontracts that from-store delivery to DoorDash and other companies. Later the same day (not next day), I got a notification that the package had been delivered, left on the porch. That seemed strange, since I was at home sitting on that porch when they said the delivery was made. They provided a photo "showing where the package was left" -- but it was in fact no such thing, it was just a stock photo of the item from the Walmart website. I walked around the neighborhood, thinking maybe they left it at the wrong address, but no luck. Finally, I called Walmart and a CSR looked it up and said, "Oh, that's being delivered by DoorDash. They sometimes just say they delivered things even though they haven't. You'll probably get your package tomorrow." I asked him if Walmart was okay with their delivery service lying to customers, and he said, yes, Walmart is totally fine with it. I did not get my package the next day. Or ever. After three days, Walmart refunded the order. The moral of this story is that DoorDash is a company of liars. Don't trust them. I hope the company dies.
- chuckdotis 5y ago
  I'm having a similar thing happen to me now, though all I bought was a package of six 50 oz glass jars from Walmart. I ordered it Monday and on Tuesday morning I received an email from Walmart saying it will be delivered within the next 15 minutes. Well, it's Friday morning and here we are without jars. The tracking page was updating for two days after with the message "arriving in X minutes" depending on where the driver was, though since yesterday I see has been parked in another part. Now the tracking page simply posts "Order delayed". It's not the end of the world since they're just jars and assume they'll be delivered eventually, but it's incredibly annoying on both Walmart and driver. Semi-related, I recently learned that if you create a Walmart account online and you later decide you want to delete, you actually have to call into Walmart's customer support and speak to a representative in order to do that.
dragonwriter 5y ago
I see the article mentions “I didn't sign up for this” comments. If you want rules against adverse changes to working conditions being imposed without negotiation and appropriate compensation, you need an employment contract that provides that. Which, in practice, means you need to be an independent contractor, an executive, or have a union.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  I chuckled at the idea of DoorDash’s irked white collar workforce being the impetus of unionization efforts for all Dashers.
tacosbane 5y ago
if a company requires 20+ hours of toy work a technical screen, they probably don't respect your time
nopenopenopeno 5y ago
I will be looking into new engineering job next month and I just moved DoorDash to the top of my list.
- listless 5y ago
  I respect their move and I respect yours. I am interested in open positions myself.
NoRagrets 5y ago
And thereby shaming those who escaped menial and gig jobs through education and hard work. This is horrifying. The glorification of menial work and making sure ‘everyone experiences’ it is a new sort of first world hell. We should work towards getting rid of all menial and manual jobs. Not normalize it and perpetuate. America is laughing stock to the rest of the developing world where they work hard to escape poverty and menial jobs. Goodbye, America. If someone had ever wanted to destroy America and a grand plan was in motion…they have succeeded. I am truly horrified by what this country has become…companies like door dash are betting on an never ending supply of low wage menial workers instead of pivoting into automating and modernizing food delivery..and more importantly what is needed is training and educating people acc to their skills and abilities that aren’t for jobs that a mindless drone can do. This nonsense here is some kind of sick grooming and virtue signaling horror story script for an already dying capitalist country. Why not start delivering sustainable pony carts instead of cars next? Philanthropic? A company’s job is to make profit. An individual’s job is to create a better society. Almost every immigrant I know who has come to this country will be laughing. Menial jobs ARE beneath ANY human being. Educate your population instead to make sure there are no more menial jobs. Every problem has its solution in smart infrastructure and small sustainable cities. We are trying to live in the 80s in 2022 with 21st century tech and tools. Most of the startups are seeded with ideas that are reminiscent of the 80s when I was child in India. This country is moving backwards due to nostalgic immigrants in powerful places. Please stop celebrating this. It’s just awful in so many ways.
- jelliclesfarm 5y ago
  P.S: not to mention how insulting this is to the actual delivery and service people who are STILL paid low wages and have to do it day after day after day after day...and now entitled tech bros can claim that they have experienced the same conditions while drawing ‘poverty wages’ of 250k/month. Whoever thought of this must be super perverted. It’s like everyone lets mom sleep in on mothers’ day to make breakfast in bed for ONE day and leave behind a mess and an overworked mom for the rest of the year…while feeling virtuous and glowy for one single day. Sounds familiar? I would wager..not?
- Melting_Harps 5y ago
betwixthewires 5y ago
This is going to blow up in their face when engineers start to actually fix problems drivers deal with at the expense of the company's bottom line. The things that suck about being a door dash driver probably have more to do with the business model and revenue based decisions and less to do with where the buttons on the app are placed.
- jazzkingrt 5y ago
  Why would fixing driver problems be bad for doordash? The incentives are fairly aligned. A more effective and efficient delivering experience means more deliveries can be sold to customers, at a lower price. Disclosure: I work for a food delivery company competing with DD
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Drivers fundamentally want good pay per hour of their life traded, less gas cost, and ideally, to do as little driving as possible for the money. Beyond that they want as close to a frictionless experience as possible. Proper UX flows in the app, not get a fresh order right after they've left Walmart, not to have to backtrack, and customers that don't start trouble. Every one of those incentives is misaligned, and it has to be, the company wants to pay as little as possible and charge an optimum rate for maximum revenue, they want drivers to take an order no matter how much of a pain in the ass it is, they want customers to pay them, even nasty ones. It's nice to believe that solving problems for one solves problems for everybody, but fundamentally the business model is about pushing externalities onto drivers.
    - jahmed 5y ago
      This made me think a little more. When people talk about "dogfooding" they usually mean using a product as an end user, the consumer or customer. Who is the customer of doordash? The drivers are a supplier. How often do companies try to make the life of their supplies better? What's good for Walmart might not overlap with what's good for the supply chain.
  - 5y ago
skzv 5y ago
One of the biggest issues I have observed is employees who do not use the products they work on. This opinion will probably offend some, but I believe to make a great product you need to be passionate about it, and if you're passionate about it, you are going to try to use it. There comes a point in an organization's life where the engineering team is no longer passionate about the product - perhaps just see it as a 9-5 - and the product inevitably stagnates until it's overcome by a group of passionate engineers. FAANG engineers are smart - but nailing the polish on a product requires passion and testing.
- deleted 5y ago
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jelliclesfarm 5y ago
Whole Foods has a ten dollar standard charge for every delivery and a minimum $35(I think ..but at least $35) order. And delivery is within Whole Foods radius. There is also a suggested tip.($7). Earlier before Amazon, WF delivery was min $35. Free delivery and $5 suggested tip. That’s intelligent logistics and last mile delivery. Door dash model is just Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Food is expensive. Gas is expensive. Labour is expensive. Make the customer pay up.(when we had farm CSAs, even with minimums, it wasn’t worth it with Bay Area traffic and gas prices and even if I deliver, I wasn’t paying for my time) DD etc are the real villains. Door dash and ilk should stop boosting their customer numbers for increasing valuations. That’s what this is all really about ..isn’t it?
imroot 5y ago
When I worked retail, I was on-site, troubleshooting an issue with a store. It was getting late, and the store associates started their end-of-day procedure. Since I was logged into the server, I could see that we were doing a LOT of database intensive processes and that the tables that we were pulling data from to generate the end-of-day reports didn't have indexes on them. I couldn't leave until all of the associates left (policy), so, I started looking at why we were doing what we were doing, and trying to figure out how to optimize it. Being stuck at that store helped me figure out that we were probably losing close to $(rnd(2-8)13.509400)/day -- at least 253,000 per day in labor costs just in the US by having the employees wait for this to finish up -- so, I can say that sitting there and watching them struggle to wait for it to finish up would have never alerted me to these issues, as, closing our test stores only took seconds with the few transactions that we'd do during the day for our testing. I think that this is a good thing, but, only because I've seen the benefits of getting a second perspective on things. Eliminating pain points leads to happier employees. Happier employees means you don't see posts about your company in /r/antiwork these days.
foobaw 5y ago
I think the right approach for this is to make this program voluntary - not forced. If someone wants to learn more about customers, they can CHOOSE to do this. This just shows that DD doesn't trust their employees to care and have empathy.
rdtwo 5y ago
lol this is great, I want to have a tech bro in a Tesla deliver my sandwich. I’ll be sure to berate then and treat them as shittily as folks treat delivery workers. So they can experience the shittyness of the product they help create.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  Problem: people being shitty to delivery workers Suggested solution: be shitty to a delivery worker Seems like some solid reasoning and empathy.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    Yeah I mean that’s part of the system they enable to they need to experience it’s greatness
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
Seems fine to me as long as it's treated as normal work hours and compensated as engineering time. I wouldn't mind the break from the monotony of sitting at a computer all day.

78 points by 999900000999 5y ago

vgeek 5y ago

Who would have ever thought that delivering food to lazy people would require a degree and 5 years of JS experience.

bluefirebrand 5y ago
This seems like a really good way to have your employees leave, to me. I've worked retail and food services and delivery jobs. I got into software to never ever have to do that again.
- almost_usual 5y ago
  Getting paid a SWE comp to do a minimum wage delivery job and you’re complaining. Ok.
  - lokar 5y ago
    Arguably less then minimum wage
  - anonymousab 5y ago
    When the difference is "get paid well to do the job and career you trained and worked for" vs. "get paid well to do an annoying, stressful frontline job unrelated to your skillset" then yeah, of course you'd complain. One is much better/worse for you than the other. The job sucks, and for most of the people working it, the pay sucks too. To that end, I think a major part of why the job sucks is that the pay sucks - so much hard work for so little reward adds up mentally, and makes every interaction and delivery worse - so they're kinda missing the point with the "build empathy" part if they aren't making only delivery pay while they do this.
    - slenk 5y ago
      Walk in your customers shoes. You'll be surprised what you learn. And yes, fellow employees are your customer.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      From my perspective, driving around is pleasant enough, as an activity, but the loss of time to do anything else after committing to so many hours, just to make rent... it seems like giving up on life.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    It's not about the money at that point it's about those jobs being shit to do. I can go get my SWE comp elsewhere and not have to do bullshit like that.
- mdoms 5y ago
  And the company could be better off without people who have no interest in building empathy with the most essential workers in their business. So it sounds like a win/win if they get rid of people like you.
  - vgeek 5y ago
    Do you really believe that they are trying to instill camaraderie and mutual respect among their white collar and abused contractor workers, or are they more likely to be have a shortage of delivery contractors and are looking to implement this as a some sort of stopgap or PR piece? I have worked places where myself and fellow office workers have regularly pitched in for things like inventory in the warehouse, but then again the companies I have worked at have not been notoriously abusive with regards to labor and compensation. Coming from a blue collar family and having worked crap jobs prior to college, I never look down on any labor, rather the companies who take advantage. I do look at exploitative companies implementing suspect policies with a cynical perspective. If you don't believe that the gig economy is a shift towards destroying worker's rights and solidarity (how many tech workers are really pro labor? Vs how many anti-union rugged individualists), I'm sorry.
    - mdoms 5y ago
      You think that the most likely explanation is that they like to pay people $200k salaries to deliver food? > If you don't believe that the gig economy is a shift towards destroying worker's rights and solidarity (how many tech workers are really pro labor? Vs how many anti-union rugged individualists), I'm sorry. I absolutely do believe that and I outright refuse to participate in the gig economy. I never use Uber, I never have food delivered, I do not like this. But we're talking about salaried employees being asked to put themselves in the shoes of their users once a month. Let's keep some perspective.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > You think that the most likely explanation is that they like to pay people $200k salaries to deliver food? I think the most likely explanation is some executive who himself lacks sympathy with the vast majority of the classes of people working underneath him read something or had some isolated experience, or both, relating to the utility of the technique, overgeneralized it, and the instituted an overgeneralized, poorly considered, mandate around a broadly-useful concept, rather than initiating an effort to find a way to incorporate it as and where appropriate.

rolph 5y ago

i would be concerned about the wisdom of requireing disgruntled employees to handle delivery food items

toast0 5y ago
It's not clear that the regular delivery people are gruntled either.
almost_usual 5y ago
You’re more worried about them messing up an order rather than purposely creating a security vuln or leak data?
- rolph 5y ago
  i wouldnt call it messing up an order but id be more concerned with the potential mucoprotien based condiments added not upon request
mbfg 5y ago
that happens every day, in all restaurants.

1123581321 5y ago

Good policy. Every organization should find a way to expose their employees to problems and opportunities on their front line.

999900000999 5y ago
If I get a job as an engineer at Jack in the Box , I'm walking out if they want me to make milk shakes.
- almost_usual 5y ago
  I would work at Jack in the Box if they paid me 700k+ TC and I only had to make milkshakes for a year. Could always save the mental energy to program whatever I want in my free time.
  - mbfg 5y ago
    i would, got a link?
  - kgwxd 5y ago
    But the contract you signed says anything you do in your spare time belongs to the company.
    - almost_usual 5y ago
      Not in my imaginary contract.
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      Shh, the contract doesn't apply when the milkshake machine is "down", don't let him find out!
  - chaorace 5y ago
    It's rather impressive that you have the mental fortitude to get meaningful stuff done in your spare time after working in a fast-food kitchen all day. More than I suspect most have, myself included. Even as a young adult, the heavy labor and stress I took on from working those types of jobs would leave me so exhausted that I could barely even drive home, let alone belt out code. I'm not saying it's impossible -- throw enough money out there and you'll find the people... but that hardly makes it praise-worthy or justifiable from a compatibility perspective.

deleted 5y ago

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krolden 5y ago

Great now make your delivery people actual employees.

Artistry121 5y ago
That doesn’t make sense. One of the great things about DD is one can do it in their down time.
- krolden 5y ago
  The point is to not actually have to pay their social security or benefits.
  - solidsnack9000 5y ago
    If they paid those things then (a) the hourly would be significantly less and (b) there'd be less flexibility in hours-per-week or hours-per-month, because benefits are paid at a fixed rate.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      > there'd be less flexibility in hours-per-week or hours-per-month, because benefits are paid at a fixed rate. You're not wrong on point a), but I don't think we'd see a "significant" difference though - but you're incorrect on point b) because I've had (and have) very, very flexible working conditions with the same full benefits as everybody else. Benefits don't necessarily have to be fractional nor tied to any kind of fixed rate. If a company wants to extend its health-plan to its part-time workers there's certainly no US tax-code or insurance reg stopping them - nothing other than the generosity (or lack-of) on the part of company leadership.
      - solidsnack9000 5y ago
        I guess in theory you're correct about (b) but the implications for (a) are that the hourly rate is even lower for people who work few hours. A person who worked 1 hour a week would need to pay the company in order to true-up for the benefits. DoorDash isn't avoiding anything by not paying benefits -- they are paying cash instead of benefits. Maybe it's the case that the employees should net out more than they do; but that's quite separate from whether they get benefits or not, because it's all cash out the door at the end of the day.

andymoe 5y ago

Perhaps it will show folks how their product and business decisions affect people day to day and improve the experience for everyone. As of now DoorDash is a service I won’t use and definitely won’t work for due to their terrible labor policies and replacing one bad tipping policy with another.

treeman79 5y ago

This is the sort of policy I try to implement at every place I work. People get super comfortable working For years without knowing how their product really works. Having people learn all aspects of the product drastically improves the focus of everyone on problems that actually matter. Losing people that don’t want to participate is often a good thing.

paulcole 5y ago
Agree with this 100%. It’s fine to say “this type of work is beneath me.” It’s not fine to say “this type of work is beneath me” and then expect to continue working at a company whose values say otherwise.
- danaris 5y ago
  There's a big difference between "this type of work is beneath me" and... - This type of work is not what I interviewed and hired for - This type of work will aggravate my bad back/knees/rotator cuff/etc - This type of work triggers my very strong anxiety - This type of work requires skills I do not have - This type of work requires equipment that the company is not providing me (doesn't matter if I own it; if the company wants it done, they damn well better provide the means) Different people have different needs. If I were hired to be a programmer for DoorDash, and they told me one day that the next I would, instead, be driving my car in unfamiliar neighborhoods, being expected to deliver X amount of product per Y amount of time? I'd be putting in my notice. Just like if I were someone who has no programming background working as a driver for DoorDash, and they told me one day that the next I would be starting work on a project to upgrade feature Z in the app, with an expected delivery date based on highly trained programmers and no training.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    A couple of your examples can be handled by providing a reasonable accommodation/alternative because of established health condition. But the others… > This type of work requires skills I do not have Great, see this as an opportunity to develop new skills! Take it or quit/be fired. > This type of work requires equipment that the company is not providing me OK, either do it or quit/be fired. > This type of work is not what I interviewed and hired for OK, either do it or quit/be fired. Making bad (but legal) decisions and fucking up a business isn’t (usually) a crime — if it is, lock me up! You may not like what your employer is telling you to do, but for the most part either do it or don’t.

remarkEon 5y ago

Nordstrom (my wife works there) does something similar where folks who work in corporate have to work a shift on the retail floor. Generally it seems like a wise policy imo. I’m a little baffled by the comments about how delivering food is somehow “beneath” an engineer. It isn’t, and sometimes seeing how the things you build are used by employees can expose unknown unknowns that need fixing for both customer and employee.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Honestly it might be kinda fun to do something like that once a month. Especially if they're paying you an engineering wage to do it. Not for everyone I guess but I would enjoy it. Personally I would love to embed with my customer teams for a few weeks a year to work on their integration with my product. But in my organization the incentives are not set up that way so it would not be a viable thing for me to do unilaterally.
- redisman 5y ago
  Yeah it sounds kind of cool. I used to work min wage jobs while in school . Driving a car to pick up some food for $100+/h sounds like a nice break from programming
1270018080 5y ago
Is it beneath me? I don't know, sure, it doesn't matter. Would I want to do it? No. And that's the main/only reason. I like being a software engineer, I wouldn't like delivering food.
- justinclift 5y ago
  Is there a reasonable chance it would help you create better software product(s)?
  - 1270018080 5y ago
    Given a 40 hour workweek constraint, the opportunity cost might be negative. I'm sure DoorDash has Design/Product/Research departments who would get more out of doing this anyway.

nrmitchi 5y ago

Overall I think ideas and programs like this are good for the company long-term; building user empathy is obviously important. It feels kind of odd to be explicitly forcing everyone into it though. This sounds like it would be concerning for individuals on a work status (TN, H-1b, etc) who are explicitly not supposed to perform work outside of their job or specialization. There's some grey area here for sure, but this seems pretty clearly outside the scope of authorized work. An engineer helping with a support ticket once in a while, sure, I think it's a reasonable expectation, but I can't see how explicitly putting this as a job responsibility isn't going to muddy the waters for some people.

johnday 5y ago
> [...] who are explicitly not supposed to perform work outside of their job [...] Surely these visa programs account for things like health and safety training, other upskilling and so on? If DoorDash obligates its employees to do this under the claim that it helps them perform their day jobs, then I fail to see how the visa could come into question.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > If DoorDash obligates its employees to do this under the claim that it helps them perform their day jobs, then I fail to see how the visa could come into question. If the mere claim is enough to ensure no questions about visa status, it creates an obvious giant hole to drive immigration fraud through.
- nrmitchi 5y ago
  You know, I would hope so. But unfortunately with many work status situations the decisions can end up feeling rather arbitrary. I think there is a stark difference between health and safety training/upskilling, and doing customer deliveries/support: the former is an "additional responsibility" to many positions, while the latter is a job function that the company explicitly pays another person to perform.
nullspace 5y ago
This is extremely easy to defend from an H1B perspective for an engineer. It just obviously comes under testing the platform that you build, delivering high quality products and building strong relationships with the rest of your team towards that end. It is also the reason why this program seems to exist in the first place, so it all looks like good faith.

purjolok 5y ago

If I could do food deliveries at a relaxed pace while getting paid a software engineer salary I'd sign up in a heartbeat. (Career prospects notwithstanding)

coolso 5y ago

After working in retail and seeing the kind of people who are actual DoorDash/UberEats drivers day in and day out… I refuse to use it or any of its competitors. Not only are they frustrating as customers because a good 75% of them don’t even bother looking for the items, instead shoving their phone in your face and saying “where’s this stuff at”, but it was also quite clear, going by a variety of metrics, that most of the drivers were… not the most model of citizens, let’s just put it that way. While here and there you had the occasional “girl/guy next door trying to provide for her/his family” type person, generally speaking these types do not make up the majority.

syspec 5y ago
So exactly what type of person made up the majority?

throwaway984393 5y ago

As long as it's implemented correctly, this is great. Job rotation is a great way to open up perspectives and identify potential improvements. But it can also be done in a way that isn't productive, so it needs to have a particular goal attached to the rotation so it can accomplish something specific.

anonymousab 5y ago

I wonder how that will work for employees that don't/can't drive.

donarb 5y ago
They could always ride along with a driver. Gets them almost the same experience seeing what issues a driver has to face.
pseudalopex 5y ago
"The renewed push adds choices for employees who may not be able to do deliveries, a spokeswoman said. Besides WeSupport, which will allow employees to shadow customer-service workers, the company will also eventually offer WeMerchant, a way for employees to take a closer look at the merchant-support side of DoorDash’s business."

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WaltPurvis 5y ago

Will DoorDash require employees to actually deliver goods rather than just say they did? I recently ordered a small appliance from Walmart and chose the option for next-day delivery, which turns out to mean delivered from a local Walmart store, and Walmart subcontracts that from-store delivery to DoorDash and other companies. Later the same day (not next day), I got a notification that the package had been delivered, left on the porch. That seemed strange, since I was at home sitting on that porch when they said the delivery was made. They provided a photo "showing where the package was left" -- but it was in fact no such thing, it was just a stock photo of the item from the Walmart website. I walked around the neighborhood, thinking maybe they left it at the wrong address, but no luck. Finally, I called Walmart and a CSR looked it up and said, "Oh, that's being delivered by DoorDash. They sometimes just say they delivered things even though they haven't. You'll probably get your package tomorrow." I asked him if Walmart was okay with their delivery service lying to customers, and he said, yes, Walmart is totally fine with it. I did not get my package the next day. Or ever. After three days, Walmart refunded the order. The moral of this story is that DoorDash is a company of liars. Don't trust them. I hope the company dies.

chuckdotis 5y ago
I'm having a similar thing happen to me now, though all I bought was a package of six 50 oz glass jars from Walmart. I ordered it Monday and on Tuesday morning I received an email from Walmart saying it will be delivered within the next 15 minutes. Well, it's Friday morning and here we are without jars. The tracking page was updating for two days after with the message "arriving in X minutes" depending on where the driver was, though since yesterday I see has been parked in another part. Now the tracking page simply posts "Order delayed". It's not the end of the world since they're just jars and assume they'll be delivered eventually, but it's incredibly annoying on both Walmart and driver. Semi-related, I recently learned that if you create a Walmart account online and you later decide you want to delete, you actually have to call into Walmart's customer support and speak to a representative in order to do that.

dragonwriter 5y ago

I see the article mentions “I didn't sign up for this” comments. If you want rules against adverse changes to working conditions being imposed without negotiation and appropriate compensation, you need an employment contract that provides that. Which, in practice, means you need to be an independent contractor, an executive, or have a union.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
I chuckled at the idea of DoorDash’s irked white collar workforce being the impetus of unionization efforts for all Dashers.

tacosbane 5y ago

if a company requires 20+ hours of toy work a technical screen, they probably don't respect your time

nopenopenopeno 5y ago

I will be looking into new engineering job next month and I just moved DoorDash to the top of my list.

listless 5y ago
I respect their move and I respect yours. I am interested in open positions myself.

NoRagrets 5y ago

And thereby shaming those who escaped menial and gig jobs through education and hard work. This is horrifying. The glorification of menial work and making sure ‘everyone experiences’ it is a new sort of first world hell. We should work towards getting rid of all menial and manual jobs. Not normalize it and perpetuate. America is laughing stock to the rest of the developing world where they work hard to escape poverty and menial jobs. Goodbye, America. If someone had ever wanted to destroy America and a grand plan was in motion…they have succeeded. I am truly horrified by what this country has become…companies like door dash are betting on an never ending supply of low wage menial workers instead of pivoting into automating and modernizing food delivery..and more importantly what is needed is training and educating people acc to their skills and abilities that aren’t for jobs that a mindless drone can do. This nonsense here is some kind of sick grooming and virtue signaling horror story script for an already dying capitalist country. Why not start delivering sustainable pony carts instead of cars next? Philanthropic? A company’s job is to make profit. An individual’s job is to create a better society. Almost every immigrant I know who has come to this country will be laughing. Menial jobs ARE beneath ANY human being. Educate your population instead to make sure there are no more menial jobs. Every problem has its solution in smart infrastructure and small sustainable cities. We are trying to live in the 80s in 2022 with 21st century tech and tools. Most of the startups are seeded with ideas that are reminiscent of the 80s when I was child in India. This country is moving backwards due to nostalgic immigrants in powerful places. Please stop celebrating this. It’s just awful in so many ways.

jelliclesfarm 5y ago
P.S: not to mention how insulting this is to the actual delivery and service people who are STILL paid low wages and have to do it day after day after day after day...and now entitled tech bros can claim that they have experienced the same conditions while drawing ‘poverty wages’ of 250k/month. Whoever thought of this must be super perverted. It’s like everyone lets mom sleep in on mothers’ day to make breakfast in bed for ONE day and leave behind a mess and an overworked mom for the rest of the year…while feeling virtuous and glowy for one single day. Sounds familiar? I would wager..not?
Melting_Harps 5y ago

betwixthewires 5y ago

This is going to blow up in their face when engineers start to actually fix problems drivers deal with at the expense of the company's bottom line. The things that suck about being a door dash driver probably have more to do with the business model and revenue based decisions and less to do with where the buttons on the app are placed.

jazzkingrt 5y ago
Why would fixing driver problems be bad for doordash? The incentives are fairly aligned. A more effective and efficient delivering experience means more deliveries can be sold to customers, at a lower price. Disclosure: I work for a food delivery company competing with DD
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  Drivers fundamentally want good pay per hour of their life traded, less gas cost, and ideally, to do as little driving as possible for the money. Beyond that they want as close to a frictionless experience as possible. Proper UX flows in the app, not get a fresh order right after they've left Walmart, not to have to backtrack, and customers that don't start trouble. Every one of those incentives is misaligned, and it has to be, the company wants to pay as little as possible and charge an optimum rate for maximum revenue, they want drivers to take an order no matter how much of a pain in the ass it is, they want customers to pay them, even nasty ones. It's nice to believe that solving problems for one solves problems for everybody, but fundamentally the business model is about pushing externalities onto drivers.
  - jahmed 5y ago
    This made me think a little more. When people talk about "dogfooding" they usually mean using a product as an end user, the consumer or customer. Who is the customer of doordash? The drivers are a supplier. How often do companies try to make the life of their supplies better? What's good for Walmart might not overlap with what's good for the supply chain.
- 5y ago

skzv 5y ago

One of the biggest issues I have observed is employees who do not use the products they work on. This opinion will probably offend some, but I believe to make a great product you need to be passionate about it, and if you're passionate about it, you are going to try to use it. There comes a point in an organization's life where the engineering team is no longer passionate about the product - perhaps just see it as a 9-5 - and the product inevitably stagnates until it's overcome by a group of passionate engineers. FAANG engineers are smart - but nailing the polish on a product requires passion and testing.

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jelliclesfarm 5y ago

Whole Foods has a ten dollar standard charge for every delivery and a minimum $35(I think ..but at least $35) order. And delivery is within Whole Foods radius. There is also a suggested tip.($7). Earlier before Amazon, WF delivery was min $35. Free delivery and $5 suggested tip. That’s intelligent logistics and last mile delivery. Door dash model is just Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Food is expensive. Gas is expensive. Labour is expensive. Make the customer pay up.(when we had farm CSAs, even with minimums, it wasn’t worth it with Bay Area traffic and gas prices and even if I deliver, I wasn’t paying for my time) DD etc are the real villains. Door dash and ilk should stop boosting their customer numbers for increasing valuations. That’s what this is all really about ..isn’t it?

imroot 5y ago

When I worked retail, I was on-site, troubleshooting an issue with a store. It was getting late, and the store associates started their end-of-day procedure. Since I was logged into the server, I could see that we were doing a LOT of database intensive processes and that the tables that we were pulling data from to generate the end-of-day reports didn't have indexes on them. I couldn't leave until all of the associates left (policy), so, I started looking at why we were doing what we were doing, and trying to figure out how to optimize it. Being stuck at that store helped me figure out that we were probably losing close to $(rnd(2-8)13.509400)/day -- at least 253,000 per day in labor costs just in the US by having the employees wait for this to finish up -- so, I can say that sitting there and watching them struggle to wait for it to finish up would have never alerted me to these issues, as, closing our test stores only took seconds with the few transactions that we'd do during the day for our testing. I think that this is a good thing, but, only because I've seen the benefits of getting a second perspective on things. Eliminating pain points leads to happier employees. Happier employees means you don't see posts about your company in /r/antiwork these days.

foobaw 5y ago

I think the right approach for this is to make this program voluntary - not forced. If someone wants to learn more about customers, they can CHOOSE to do this. This just shows that DD doesn't trust their employees to care and have empathy.

rdtwo 5y ago

lol this is great, I want to have a tech bro in a Tesla deliver my sandwich. I’ll be sure to berate then and treat them as shittily as folks treat delivery workers. So they can experience the shittyness of the product they help create.

brianwawok 5y ago
Problem: people being shitty to delivery workers Suggested solution: be shitty to a delivery worker Seems like some solid reasoning and empathy.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Yeah I mean that’s part of the system they enable to they need to experience it’s greatness

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago

Seems fine to me as long as it's treated as normal work hours and compensated as engineering time. I wouldn't mind the break from the monotony of sitting at a computer all day.