Delivery Driving has Reduced Me to an Animal State

"Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig" (AndySheehan-StreetsideStig)
08/12/2016 at 10:33 • Filed to: None

This was going to be perfect. I’d make money doing what I love – driving – and I could set my own hours, ideal for nights and weekends. This delivery driving gig was going to change my life. And it did. The money situation has improved, and now I have these sweet talons and antlers. Also, I can see in the dark, and I spend more on gas.

It’s called Postmates, and while this may sound like a hip new spin on mail order brides, it’s a delivery service available in a growing list of US cities. It’s basically Uber for food, without the joy of anyone puking in your car. In fact, Postmates has several advantages over Uber. You don’t have to keep a clean car. You don’t have to interact with people for more than four seconds at a time. They have zero restrictions on what you drive. You could run your deliveries in a sandrail (something I’ve often dreamed about) for all they care. And best of all, you don’t have to drive like a nearsighted ghost in order to rack up a higher tip.

But this is also the problem. The quicker you can get a burrito to a potentially hangry millennial, and the warmer that burrito is when it arrives, the bigger your tip could be. And even if your tip is basically the client’s mix tape and a straw wrapper, you can offset this loss by running your next delivery even quicker. Three in an hour instead of two. It’s a fast-paced game. Like racing, except that you make money. Racing is a funny analogy, because my mind immediately darts to Senna’s famous attempted defense of his F1 championship clinching crashout of Alain Prost in 1990: “And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing, we are competing to win.”

I’ll say right now that I try to be careful not to speed or drive recklessly when I’m out running deliveries. That would be dangerous and could jeopardize my position with Postmates, which has been quite profitable. But when speed equals money, it’s hard not to go for the gap Senna mentions. I scrabble around too-slow texters like some kind of famished mongoose tearing through the underbrush, smelling a pole position at the red light on the horizon. Pole at a red light means a better launch.

These commuters are not my prey. Time is my prey. But commuters hunt time in packs, using their numbers against me, leaving me nothing but the offal of time’s sun-baked carcass, like I’m some filthy scavenger. Commuters mean two deliveries an hour instead of three. They know it, too, because by week’s end, I project that I’ll have yelled at about 73% of the Kansas City metro’s driving populace. They have all been very kindly screamed at to get out of the way, stop cruising in the passing lane, avoid slowing down for green lights, use their signals, and just…please…go. So in one sense, I’m providing a valuable public service. Free driver education. Perhaps they can’t hear me, because their windows are up and so are mine. I’ll have to double my volume.

As in nature, it isn’t running the savanna that puts me in the most danger, but coming to a stop. Parking can be tricky. Postmates allows me to accept or decline any delivery job without penalty, and there are restaurants from which I won’t deliver simply because I know that the nearest parking spot is in Wyoming. Time spent running pathetically in my flip flops from my car to the pickup and back is time wasted. And should I park in prohibited territory, sleeplessly guarded by flocks of blue-shirted Valets just hatched from college, the Kansas City Fundraising Department, officially called “Parking Enforcement” will bear down upon me like so many uniformed lions.

So I roar out my dominance in any parking garages I can find, slowly stalking the aisles until I find that one tiny spot branded “compact” in faded white letters. These spots are always at the end of the row, and usually inhabited by cars that could only be considered compact in the loosest, most modern, and most American definitions of the term. I force my way in, like a dog on the pile.

Don’t get me wrong. Delivery driving has been fun and rewarding. Fun because I have a fair excuse for a spirited drive. Rewarding because I get paid. I just hope that by the time I’ve saved up enough to move on and get my evenings back, I won’t want to spend them in the woods, hunting squirrels with my teeth and claws.

This was originally posted on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but OMG BLEH AS IF!

DISCUSSION (15)

X37.9XXS > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
08/12/2016 at 10:38

Join forces with somebody you REALLY like

Fuck parking spots, one of you keeps the transportation moving

Packs are always more efficient than singletons

Justin Hughes > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
08/12/2016 at 11:04

I used to do courier work, most of it in a marked company pickup truck. It makes a world of difference when you have a name on the side and commercial license plates. You can park anywhere - ANYWHERE - with impunity, as long as you’re picking up, dropping off, and aren’t there for more than five minutes. I’ve literally parked in a hospital’s “ambulance only” space and had a cop hold the door open for me. I suppose it didn’t hurt that I had a clearly marked Red Cross blood bank box with me.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > X37.9XXS
08/12/2016 at 11:04

Oh yeah. That’s the plan, once I find a girl who can tolerate me. “Netflix and chill? No, babe, we need to make some money. Get your shoes on.”

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > Justin Hughes
08/12/2016 at 11:06

Postmates actually gave me a courier tag I can put on the dash when I park. I guess I should start using it.

E92M3 > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
08/12/2016 at 11:24

Be honest, how many times have you sampled the food because ot smelled too damn good?

Do you get a good delivery fee outside of tips? I hope it’s not like the poor Jimmy Johns drivers that get screwed with $3 tips for a hour worth of driving, and only $4 or $5 from the franchise.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > E92M3
08/12/2016 at 12:12

None times, amazingly! And it often does smell amazing. But last night, I delivered something that smelled like steamed broccoli, and I was mad at the customer for ordering it. Why pay all that money for steamed broccoli? To stink up my car?

I keep 100% of my tips, and I get a minimum fee of $4.10 per order. It increases if I have to drive further or wait around at the restaurant for a while. It averages out to about $17/hour, which is more than I make at my desk job.

But that’s fair, since I spend most of my work day tooling around on Oppo.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
08/12/2016 at 12:24

In the bay area we have some delivery services I’ve used, you can order food anywhere and they bring it or even groceries has been pretty good. I used the Google delivery from Costco, the charge wasn’t much at all and then I don’t have to go to Costco!!

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)
08/12/2016 at 12:28

But all the samples!

RallyWrench > Justin Hughes
08/12/2016 at 12:29

The thing you can’t do when there’s a name on the door is drive like a hooligan.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
08/12/2016 at 12:32

And horrible people with kids clogging the aisles for said samples, those people are called grazers. I came from Hawaii, and those Costcos are hit or miss, I had to go to the one in Hawaii Kai because that area is full of old people and families with maybe 2 kids. Go to the Ward one and you get Filipino families with 7 kids all trying to get that shit.

uofime-2 > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
08/12/2016 at 12:49

That doesn't seem like enough after gas, wear and tear, maintenance and tax never mind the massively increased likelihood of accidents. You'd seriously need to do this in a beater for it to make sense I think.

Justin Hughes > RallyWrench
08/12/2016 at 13:01

True. I even occasionally had people call the company and complain that I had the audacity to already be there when they pulled out in front of me without looking!

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > uofime-2
08/12/2016 at 13:03

Meh. Gas is cheap right now, Honda wear and tear is cheap, since I do most of the work myself, and tax does indeed suck, but I get to write off all my miles and maintenance, so that helps. But yeah, my daily driver is a beater. A ‘98 Civic sedan I bought for $760. It isn’t pretty, but it runs great.

I’m not getting rich quick, but I am staying afloat and slowly getting out of debt. By the end of 2017, I should have enough for a down payment on a house, which is a particular dream of mine.

X37.9XXS > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig
08/12/2016 at 13:49

What a fantastic basis for a relationship

At least you won’t have to style it

Kinja'd!!!

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > X37.9XXS
08/12/2016 at 15:11

HAHA! Yeah, I copied that straight out of my eHarmony profile.