The Truth About Delivering Food

You order pizza, sandwiches, or cookies. We know you do. The drivers are delivering like mad. You live on a college campus? That means you attend parties, spend nights studying, and order bad delivery food. Guess what? I’ve been the one delivering that food to you for over a year. I’ve worked in retail, food service, customer service, and delivery jobs. We all do what we have to in order to get by. Delivering food is, by far, the most mysterious job to the people I know. When I tell them how the job works, they are baffled. Let’s begin with all those horrid things that leave people gasping:

1)      Those delivery fees? We don’t get those. We’re tipped workers, so our wage is much much much below minimum wage. We live off of tips. Literally. Having to pay our own gas, repairs, just to drive ten miles for you to tell me you don’t need to tip?

2)      If you don’t tip, we remember you. We know the worst apartments (not complexes, but the actual apartment) and we will take our time to go out to you. It tends to be repeat offendors who don’t tip, so remembering your cruel address isn’t difficult.

3)      We aren’t supposed to wait. Our job is to knock, then call, then leave. When we wait five minutes for you, that’s us being nice. I’ve waited forty eight minutes for somebody to get their door (they kept texting me that they were almost there… what the hell takes forty eight minutes???). Some of it is waiting for the tip, but mainly, we’re just nice. 4)      No, the topper doesn’t make us invulnerable. We get tickets, just like any other bad driver. 5)      We cannot be to you faster than we say. It takes an average of five minutes to make your food from scratch, eight minutes to cook (the oven is a conveyer belt, we can’t affect it any), four minutes to box and prepare, and three minutes to get routed. That’s twenty minutes alone to prepare food. Mind you, this is an estimate of prep during a rush, but nevertheless, we cannot get food to you in less than thirty minutes. We’re gonna try like hell (happy people tip better!), but don’t get mad, we’re doing our best.

6)      We don’t get sent out with only one delivery. It is typical for drivers to take two, maybe three, even four orders at a time since they’re nearby each other. This also contributes to your delivery time. I’m sorry.

7)      Our delivery zones are huge. The location I’m currently working at encompasses Florida State, FAMU, TCC, and more. Anything west of Monroe, south of I-10, and east of Capital Circle. That’s the size of a city, suburbs, and three college campuses. We get sent out from a central location and we try our best to get to those on the fringes. This is why gas is a cruel mistress.

Shocking, right? Delivering food is AWFUL, we don’t make any money when people don’t tip! (Which is crushingly often, some people can go three hours without earning a dollar)

Why do we do it?

1)      It’s sorta fun. I love the people I work with, they’re funny and we have a great time making jokes about each run. It’s a fun work-environment I don’t want to lose.

2)      You spend half of your shift singing in your car.

3)      The money can be incredible. Ignoring wage, imagine leaving your eight hour shift with one hundred and ten dollars. That’s not a story that’s too unimagineable- I’ve made much much more, and I can almost count on a three digit pocket on a good night.

4)      You leave the store every night with cash in pocket. If you can manage the money, invest it properly, it’s easily possible to net your earnings at over 12/hr.

5)      The stories. Delivering to drunk people doesn’t even top the list. The insane things we see, the places we get invited to, the parties we attend- It’s pure cocaine to a writer, but it’s more than enough to keep anybody else on staff.

The hours suck (no weekends off, woo!), the tips are occasionally lousy, and I live in my car.

But I love every minute.

If you’re interested in joining the life, I guarantee that every delivery location in town is hiring. Turn-around is high, so there are always openings for a little part time job. See you on the road.