When surfing the web, one invariably comes across instances where there is a heated discussion over what one might consider a trivial issue. This then leads to thumb-sucking articles (such as this blog post) about What It All Means and What It Says About Our Society. One has to be a little wary of this tendency because it is always possible to find some extreme behavior on the internet and then treat it as if it were more common than it actually is and then draw Deep Conclusions.
I find such brouhahas faintly amusing and even a welcome distraction from the depressing major news that seems to now be part of our daily lives. One such case was the one I linked to recently about a DoorDash driver who was angry at the size of the tip given for delivery of one cup of coffee. Apart from the issue of the tip, I was bemused by someone actually ordering delivery of a single cup of coffee. Whether you like your coffee hot or ice-cold, surely by the time it reaches you, its temperature would have changed somewhat from its initial value to make it less pleasurable?
But it appears that small orders like this may not be such outliers.
This isn’t the first time ordering coffee on DoorDash has spurred a heated discussion on Reddit. It’s been a contentious topic amongst Dashers and consumers alike, with some users saying it’s OK to do so, while others believe it’s lazy consumer behavior. The debate has yet to be settled, which once again begs the question: Is it truly that absurd to order one coffee on DoorDash?
Ordering one coffee might seem absurd to some — but in the age of hyper-personalized convenience, it’s hardly the most extreme ask. DoorDash is designed to deliver food, regardless of size or value, and it’s not uncommon for customers to request everything from a single Hi-C orange to a handful of McDonald’s dipping sauces. A coffee? Practically reasonable by comparison.
The existence of delivery services can be a boon for those who are homebound and have no one they can call upon to help them get what they need. When I was down with a fever some time ago, the only thing that I felt like consuming was chicken noodle soup but did not have any in the house. It never even occurred to me to have a can of soup delivered by the local supermarket even though it does provide the service. I simply texted my neighbor to get it for me, but only when they next went grocery shopping, because it was not urgent. They were happy to oblige and I am lucky to have friendly and obliging neighbors. I would never have troubled them for a single soda drink or a handful of McDonalds’s dipping sauces simply because I felt like it.
Although people have every right to order the delivery of whatever they feel like getting, irrespective of the waste that might be involved, I am not sure what to make of this. I cannot imagine that these orders were necessitated by some kind of real need or urgency. Were these just whimsical, prompted by having a lot of disposable income?
Normally, trade and commerce involve willing buyers and sellers and clear information about the deal being considered. Same for typical door dash sales, I bet.
The issue here is that such deals involve an unspoken agreement about the tipping. But unspoken means uncommunicated.
The traditional US tipping system has been 15%, although when I was young it was 10%. Now, larger amounts are more common.
But for very small items, a percentage might be well replaced by some minimum amount. But what amount? Who decides and how is that communicated?
The person who delivers for DoorDash relies on patron generosity, tradition, and any guidelines from DoorDash in the contracting process. None of these are enforceable except for any DoorDash policies.
So anyone working for tips has no clear recourse.
The theoretical answer is for everyone in the USA to unionize and demand that DoorDash enforce a policy of an adequate minimum tip. Unless DoorDash can’t get drivers, they have no need to help out their drivers. So in practice, every driver has to accept whatever they get without complaint.
The other enforcement concept is that an individual driver would just happen to be the selected driver so often that they would learn who are the cheap clients and avoid their orders. But I doubt that is practical.
The remaining approach is to make a discussion about it on the internet, to promote a better consensus. So this blog post is part of that. But I haven’t seen anything about the ideal minimum tip amount. So I don’t know how this would help either.
Good luck to all.
Why not just charge a standard rate for delivering items, no matter the cost of the order? It works like that for everything else. We don’t tip the UPS driver or the Amazon delivery person. I ordered a laptop online, I’d hate to think I’m supposed to tip the delivery person 15% of the cost of the computer.
A possible problem with a standard rate for delivery is that the time taken for individual deliveries may vary considerably. UPS and Amazon reduce that problem by consolidating deliveries and by cost-averaging over a great number of deliveries. Those strategies are much less available to a DoorDash driver. To exacerbate the problem the customer doesn’t have good visibility of the cost to the driver (at best the customer knows the distance from supplier to consumer; they don’t know how far the driver had go to reach the supplier, road conditions, etc.), so that can’t inform the value of the tip.
The practice of tipping the drivers is probably good for DoorDash. It encourages the drivers to “hussle”. It’s not necessarily good for society; I can see it encouraging unsafe driving practices. (Does it also outsource liability from DoorDash to its drivers?)
I would see the answer (as with many American jobs) is to stop making tips a primary source of income, instead setting the delivery charge upfront, including a fair cut for the driver. A band-aid would be to require the customer here to commit to a minimum tip in advance.
“I cannot imagine that these orders were necessitated by some kind of real need or urgency.”
Vast majority of things you, Mano, do in your daily life are not necessitated by a “real need or urgency”. Stop being so judgemental of others then.
I read an interesting article today about lifestyle being the main difference in environmental impact. Summary: anyone who wants to can do something positive (and examples are given), no matter where they live. One of the commenters pointed out how quickly the USA and the rest of the planet improved in air and land quality during the pandemic.
There’s an ordering service here in Canada called ‘Skip The Dishes’ (there’s also DoorDash and Uber Eats, but Skip the Dishes is local), and for tips they basically give you three options: 10%, 15%, and 20%. Thing is, there’s also an expected minimum that tip is calculated on, which I think is $20, so if you’re ordering something small, the tip values have a lower cap of $2, $3, and $4. That’s on top of any actual delivery fee which is charged from the restaurant side (because they have to do special prep work to hand it off to the driver).
So, yeah, the percentage absolutely is replaced by a fixed minimum for this particular service.