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One of my principles is that you shouldn't screw with the people who deliver your packages. And this goes double if they're delivering food. If the man calls a

by branon 3y ago

One of my principles is that you shouldn't screw with the people who deliver your packages. And this goes double if they're delivering food. If the man calls and says come down to get your food, your options at that point are a) come down to get your food, or b) refuse delivery. Anything else is out of scope here, _including_ the notion that the delivery person was supposed to deliver upstairs and is refusing. While it might be an inconvenience, it's really not your problem as a customer. What are you going to do about it anyway? Argue? That'll just get you posted on tiktok. It's the company's problem, and it's a self-correcting evolution - given enough instances, presumably that person won't be allowed to handle deliveries anymore, OR you wouldn't patronize that service any longer. Now, you may have already switched delivery services when the recalcitrant delivery person is replaced with someone more amenable to delivering upstairs. But either way, the problem is solved.

jkaplowitz 3y ago
So how are people with mobility issues or medical quarantine situations supposed to get their food if there isn’t a way to reliably arrange for delivery people to bring it to (at least outside) their door? And yes, both of these circumstances have happened to me at times within the last few years, though fortunately not so far in a permanent way. Other people do have such limitations permanently.
- mistercheph 3y ago
  There are services and residences that accomodate those needs, and they pay the workers that satisfy them commensurately and they cost more.
  - jkaplowitz 3y ago
    And yet, every delivery app I’ve used has let me deliver to the door at no extra charge, and that’s usually been honored. We’re disagreeing about the reasonableness of the Brazilian service discussed in the article where street-level delivery is the standard service, at least ignoring the unusually high theft risk in Brazil that may make that restriction more defensible there. In the US and Canada and Germany, delivery to the door has been routine in most of my experience.
- bobsmooth 3y ago
  >So how are people with mobility issues or medical quarantine situations supposed to get their food if there isn’t a way to reliably arrange for delivery people to bring it to (at least outside) their door? What did these people do before doordash? Can they not just call the restaurant and explain that going downstairs is a burden?
  - jkaplowitz 3y ago
    In my experience both before Doordash and now, deliveries usually happen to the door, and indeed Doordash allows requesting that - it’s usually been honored when I’ve done it, except in rare cases like building policies disallowing delivery people in the elevators (and even then they sometimes came up). In the linked article we are discussing a different case in Brazil where street-level delivery was the contract with the drivers, and the person I was replying to was defending that. I think there’s a potentially viable safety argument for that policy in the unusually theft-prone context of Brazil, but not one that would outweigh the downsides in most broadly safe developed countries. But as to your suggested solution, I think it’s not appropriate to require a disabled person to explain their burden to every restaurant on every order, or similar. That’s too emotionally harsh. And as I said, delivery to the door is usually not a problem in my experience, but we are discussing a context quite different from my experience.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  The idea that it is poor worker's duty to give up income or safety in case one out of 100 customers have poor mobility is extremely entitled. Slowing down to help out someone like a good Samaritan explicitly harms the deliveryperson's performance in these apps. Be mad at the companies for not accommodating you like they should legally be required, not the individual employees. The companies have worked very hard to push these "gig workers" to be as "efficient" (read overworked) as possible because that directly increases profit. The company could add functionality to their app: "Click here for specialty service at an additional cost" but they don't want to do that because that's another nail in their claim that they are just facilitating contracting, so instead their system just pretends every order is the happy path trivial order, and punishes you if you take an order with a giant tip for extra or special instructions. The company building the app is choosing to fuck you over so they can also continue to fuck over the people stuck working for them. That's who you should get angry at.
  - jkaplowitz 3y ago
    I’m not mad at either the companies or the workers for failing to accommodate - they have reliably allowed me to request delivery to the door at no extra charge, unlike the Brazilian service discussed in the linked article, and almost always the delivery people have been willing to come to the door. Of course, I tip them for their effort, but they don’t usually know that before they come to the door. I am just responding to and disagreeing with your argument that street delivery is generally enough, although I admit that Brazil might be a special case due to the level of theft risk that drivers in Brazil would have to deal with in order to deliver to the door. Forcing disabled or quarantined people to pay extra is discriminatory, and forcing them to out their medical condition to a delivery service in order to avoid a surcharge is rather extreme. Delivery to the door was standard before the pandemic, and the deterioration of service is something we should reverse without undue harm to the workers rather than defend. But I do sympathize with the delivery workers as well. They need stronger rights and I don’t want them to be overworked. But I would prefer that to be handled differently, like legislatively allowing them to sue the companies for 1 year’s full-time salary plus legal fees for every day they are given a (properly defined) abusively unreasonable set of expectations or abusively low pay per day. That way obligations to deliver to the door would not overwork or undercompensate them, and more workers would be hired to satisfy the part of the demand that currently leads to overwork. If they still don’t make enough income to find it a viable job, then as per supply and demand the apps will have to raise their compensation in order to attract enough workers when the number of deliveries or hours per day is legislatively capped.
iLoveOncall 3y ago
You're right, and you should always refuse delivery and get reimbursed by the application. Once the situation has happened enough the driver will be banned and finally you will be able to get the service you paid for.

by branon 3y ago

jkaplowitz 3y ago

So how are people with mobility issues or medical quarantine situations supposed to get their food if there isn’t a way to reliably arrange for delivery people to bring it to (at least outside) their door? And yes, both of these circumstances have happened to me at times within the last few years, though fortunately not so far in a permanent way. Other people do have such limitations permanently.

mistercheph 3y ago
There are services and residences that accomodate those needs, and they pay the workers that satisfy them commensurately and they cost more.
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  And yet, every delivery app I’ve used has let me deliver to the door at no extra charge, and that’s usually been honored. We’re disagreeing about the reasonableness of the Brazilian service discussed in the article where street-level delivery is the standard service, at least ignoring the unusually high theft risk in Brazil that may make that restriction more defensible there. In the US and Canada and Germany, delivery to the door has been routine in most of my experience.
bobsmooth 3y ago
>So how are people with mobility issues or medical quarantine situations supposed to get their food if there isn’t a way to reliably arrange for delivery people to bring it to (at least outside) their door? What did these people do before doordash? Can they not just call the restaurant and explain that going downstairs is a burden?
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  In my experience both before Doordash and now, deliveries usually happen to the door, and indeed Doordash allows requesting that - it’s usually been honored when I’ve done it, except in rare cases like building policies disallowing delivery people in the elevators (and even then they sometimes came up). In the linked article we are discussing a different case in Brazil where street-level delivery was the contract with the drivers, and the person I was replying to was defending that. I think there’s a potentially viable safety argument for that policy in the unusually theft-prone context of Brazil, but not one that would outweigh the downsides in most broadly safe developed countries. But as to your suggested solution, I think it’s not appropriate to require a disabled person to explain their burden to every restaurant on every order, or similar. That’s too emotionally harsh. And as I said, delivery to the door is usually not a problem in my experience, but we are discussing a context quite different from my experience.
mrguyorama 3y ago
The idea that it is poor worker's duty to give up income or safety in case one out of 100 customers have poor mobility is extremely entitled. Slowing down to help out someone like a good Samaritan explicitly harms the deliveryperson's performance in these apps. Be mad at the companies for not accommodating you like they should legally be required, not the individual employees. The companies have worked very hard to push these "gig workers" to be as "efficient" (read overworked) as possible because that directly increases profit. The company could add functionality to their app: "Click here for specialty service at an additional cost" but they don't want to do that because that's another nail in their claim that they are just facilitating contracting, so instead their system just pretends every order is the happy path trivial order, and punishes you if you take an order with a giant tip for extra or special instructions. The company building the app is choosing to fuck you over so they can also continue to fuck over the people stuck working for them. That's who you should get angry at.
- jkaplowitz 3y ago
  I’m not mad at either the companies or the workers for failing to accommodate - they have reliably allowed me to request delivery to the door at no extra charge, unlike the Brazilian service discussed in the linked article, and almost always the delivery people have been willing to come to the door. Of course, I tip them for their effort, but they don’t usually know that before they come to the door. I am just responding to and disagreeing with your argument that street delivery is generally enough, although I admit that Brazil might be a special case due to the level of theft risk that drivers in Brazil would have to deal with in order to deliver to the door. Forcing disabled or quarantined people to pay extra is discriminatory, and forcing them to out their medical condition to a delivery service in order to avoid a surcharge is rather extreme. Delivery to the door was standard before the pandemic, and the deterioration of service is something we should reverse without undue harm to the workers rather than defend. But I do sympathize with the delivery workers as well. They need stronger rights and I don’t want them to be overworked. But I would prefer that to be handled differently, like legislatively allowing them to sue the companies for 1 year’s full-time salary plus legal fees for every day they are given a (properly defined) abusively unreasonable set of expectations or abusively low pay per day. That way obligations to deliver to the door would not overwork or undercompensate them, and more workers would be hired to satisfy the part of the demand that currently leads to overwork. If they still don’t make enough income to find it a viable job, then as per supply and demand the apps will have to raise their compensation in order to attract enough workers when the number of deliveries or hours per day is legislatively capped.

iLoveOncall 3y ago

You're right, and you should always refuse delivery and get reimbursed by the application. Once the situation has happened enough the driver will be banned and finally you will be able to get the service you paid for.