Random thoughts 1: Just Sayin'
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hobbsyoyo
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Last night I ordered two pizzas and marinara sauce. I did not ge the marinara sauce.
But I had to go for a walk to get my deliver which is why I was posting.
I didn't want to put it in the rant thread because really it's quite petty of me to rant about it. But I was pissed.
hobbsyoyo
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Most of the time the delivery drivers get lost in the building or cannot figure out which entrance to use. It's frustrating but understandable.
Last night the guy didn't even try. He must've been here before and knew it's a pain because pulled up to a random spot down the street and called me to fetch it. Less than half of the delivery drivers I've had were able to find my unit but he was the first to refuse to try.
And he forgot my marana.
Last night the guy didn't even try. He must've been here before and knew it's a pain because pulled up to a random spot down the street and called me to fetch it. Less than half of the delivery drivers I've had were able to find my unit but he was the first to refuse to try.
And he forgot my marana.
Synobun
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Related, a solid 80% of the delivery drivers in my area don't know right from left. It happens way too many times that I say "turn left" and they go right instead, ending up at the wrong suite because of it.
Then they blame me, because of course.
Then they blame me, because of course.
The road outside my house has a limited speed of 20mph.. it's frequently used by emergency services on route, so they're usually doing like 50.. minimum. Makes me wonder why we even have limited speed on roads. Criminals ignore them, Emergency Vehicles ignore them.. Surely all the safe drivers don't need limits.. so why do we have these rules.
Yeah, the driver doesn't get a tip at that point if they were delivering to me. Call me old fashioned, but I expect people to work for their money, especially when I'm the one paying them.
Surely all the safe drivers don't need limits.. so why do we have these rules.
So local governments have an excuse to squeeze more money out of the citizens. That's why you get a fine for a speeding violation.
Personally, that's why I think there shouldn't be any fines for violations. Only jail time. That way local governments would be forced to toss out all these stupid little laws that only exist to raise money. Because they aren't going to lock people up for speeding or parking violations. That would cost them even more money and would cause even more prison overcrowding.
In other words my basic philosophy towards law is if it isn't worth sending someone to jail over, then there shouldn't be a law against it.
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I hope you didn't pay up front for the meal (one of the online sites I've used a couple of times wants payment in full, including tips, before the order is finalized).
EDIT: The driver is geographically challenged AND he forgot part of your order?
Call the restaurant and complain. Firmly, informing them that if you order a specific meal and extras, that you expect to receive what they expect you to pay for, no matter if what you didn't get might happen to be a couple of containers of dipping sauce. That's happened occasionally with the Chinese restaurant I order from - one of the dipping sauces will be forgotten or not be in the amount it's supposed to be. In those cases I've called the restaurant, and at times the result has been a nice freebie the next time - in one case an entire free meal (I won't turn down a free fish & chips from them, given that they allow substitutions of mashed potatoes, veggies, and gravy instead of french fries).
It's legitimate to complain about the driver not being able to find you. If you give clear, concise directions, there's really no excuse for the driver being lazy like that. The building I live in is a bit confusing; it's shaped like a three-bladed propeller and some people mistake the back entrance for the front entrance. The back entrance doesn't have an intercom, so sometimes I get phone calls from confused drivers who want to be let in. I tell them to go to the main entrance, and they swear they didn't realize they were at the wrong door. I make sure I don't tell them that the first clue should have been a locked blank door and no lobby with an intercom system.
As soon as they do come and buzz to be let in, I open my door and wait, since some of them find "turn right" to be too confusing and end up turning left and circling the central hub a couple of times. So when I see them, I just wave at them and say I'm the one who ordered the food.
That's not as aggravating as living at my previous address, though. One driver decided to argue about where I actually lived. He had it set in his mind that he was at the correct place when it turns out he was a block and a half away and insisted that he was so standing in front of my building. When he finally got to my place, I told him that when a customer tells him where they live, he should believe them. And in that instance he got no tip - delivery was well past late at that point and I was pretty upset.
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Tips are a funny thing.. I know in some places, rather, some cultures, they're expected.. like you see people in movies tipping the bellboy or the baggage carrier.. In the uk, we don't tip, unless given exceptional service. I've never tipped anyone, ever. That's what wages are for, if you don't get paid enough, work somewhere else.
I don't tip most people. Taxi drivers get a tip if they're friendly and helpful. Food delivery drivers get a tip (not an extravagant amount) because it's just expected. The service I've used a couple of times that wants payment in full doesn't give a choice for no tip. You get a choice between 10%, 15%, and 20%. The money gets debited from your bank account as though you had used the debit card at the place itself. When the order goes through, there's a map where you can track the driver's progress throughout the half hour or so from placing the order to the delivery.
Back when I used to go to science fiction conventions, I never had a reason to tip anyone for carrying my stuff; I politely told them I'd carry it myself, or if I was with a group of friends, we just snagged a luggage thingamajig ourselves, piled everything on it, and told the front desk we'd bring it back in a few minutes (which we did). There's never been any hotel room that's been big enough that I couldn't open the curtains myself or find everything. Although one year maybe we should have let them show us everything; it would have saved an hours-long wait for a light bulb for the lamp in the room. The one in the lamp was burned out, and housekeeping (or whoever) took forever to get us a replacement. In the meantime I still had work to do on the costume I intended to wear the next day, so by the time we got the replacement bulb, I'd been sitting on the floor next to the bathroom, sewing, for quite a while.
Do you also pay a delivery charge for getting stuff sent out? Enforced tipping sounds like a scam to me, pay for item, pay delivery, pay extra wages.. I'd rather goto a highstreet shop. Or use amazon, where I get free delivery etc. Only places I seen tips being given out are in like Bars/Pubs for waiting jobs/barman jobs, hotel cleaners/baggage handlers/car valets. I guess probably entertainment type jobs or related.
It's funny that there are jobs where you're explicitly told you cannot accept tips or they must be added to a communal pot and there's people I would tip that aren't allowed to accept them. Like street or toilet cleaners, gardeners etc. I always think people who do cleaning jobs and keep places clean and tidy deserve a little extra, especially if they work outside, but for people who are just doing their job.. not so much.
As for complaining, I don't really do that, at least not for most things, I just buy from someone else in future. I feel unemployment is a great motivator for improving service.
It's funny that there are jobs where you're explicitly told you cannot accept tips or they must be added to a communal pot and there's people I would tip that aren't allowed to accept them. Like street or toilet cleaners, gardeners etc. I always think people who do cleaning jobs and keep places clean and tidy deserve a little extra, especially if they work outside, but for people who are just doing their job.. not so much.
As for complaining, I don't really do that, at least not for most things, I just buy from someone else in future. I feel unemployment is a great motivator for improving service.
hobbsyoyo
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I made the mistake of pre-tipping the driver when I placed the order. The sauce was only $1 so I wasn't going to raise a stink about that though it's dumb.
My building is super confusing, I posted in the rants thread when I moved in that twice I got lost in the parking garage for close to an hour - and I have excellent dead reckoning skills. It's actually four buildings that are only connected at a few points. But from the outside it looks like one massive building. There is no way to know that all of the entrances will not let you access the other buildings, they only get you into a single building with only a few ways to cross over that involve running through an internal maze with no reference points.
So while I get frustrated when delivery drivers can't find my way to my door, I am still understanding and don't undertip them on account of that. Particularly if they actually try and find me and wind up lost. But this guy, like I said, just pulled over down the road at a random spot and asked me to come get it.
The only reason why I didn't tell him to get off his butt and do his job is because of the threat of having my food spat on. I felt I was over a barrel. I thought about pretending I was handicapped or something to guilt him into doing his job but I'm not a ****.
My building is super confusing, I posted in the rants thread when I moved in that twice I got lost in the parking garage for close to an hour - and I have excellent dead reckoning skills. It's actually four buildings that are only connected at a few points. But from the outside it looks like one massive building. There is no way to know that all of the entrances will not let you access the other buildings, they only get you into a single building with only a few ways to cross over that involve running through an internal maze with no reference points.
So while I get frustrated when delivery drivers can't find my way to my door, I am still understanding and don't undertip them on account of that. Particularly if they actually try and find me and wind up lost. But this guy, like I said, just pulled over down the road at a random spot and asked me to come get it.
The only reason why I didn't tell him to get off his butt and do his job is because of the threat of having my food spat on. I felt I was over a barrel. I thought about pretending I was handicapped or something to guilt him into doing his job but I'm not a ****.
Sounds like he's been lost in your building before and figures a tip isn't as important as potentially loosing his job for making multiple late deliveries. I'd have thrown your meal at the main door and just driven off.. like a paper boy does..
Of course.. I'd probably make a poor choice as a delivery driver. Well I am.. I once broke a statue worth £200k in a van, another time I got accused of sexual harrassment for "smiling" at a secretary, accusation was by a third party, not the secretary.. and another time I got stuck in a lift for 4 hours.. and then given the 3rd degree for all my deliveries being late.Delivery driving sucks. And we don't get tips over here.
hobbsyoyo
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Yeah I'm pretty sure that was the calculus he based his decision on.
Of course we all have parts of our jobs we hate doing but have to give it an honest effort. Adding tips into the situation though means he could lose out on income in this instance by giving an honest effort. That is lessened by the higher minimum wage here but not fully negated. Still he's a lazy jerk and I feel bad for actual handicapped people in this building that he pulls this with.
Of course we all have parts of our jobs we hate doing but have to give it an honest effort. Adding tips into the situation though means he could lose out on income in this instance by giving an honest effort. That is lessened by the higher minimum wage here but not fully negated. Still he's a lazy jerk and I feel bad for actual handicapped people in this building that he pulls this with.
The only time I have to pay shipping for Amazon is if I buy through the Marketplace (it's been $6.49/book or $3.49/video, but I think these prices are going up). For all other Amazon orders I make sure to order the minimum to qualify for free shipping ($35.00), and I recently decided to try out Amazon Prime. It's been really nice to know exactly what day to expect the item, and the last time it even came a day early. (please note that the dollar amounts here are in CAD, not USD)
Most takeout places here have delivery charges, and those don't go to the driver (I think they should, but then I don't get the sayso over that). Some places have free delivery if you order over a certain amount (which is always pretty high). So tipping is extra on top of the delivery and GST.
What annoys me are tip jars in food courts. Since the customer is the one who does the fetching, carrying, has to pour their own drink (if they order pop), and clear their own table (dishes in the garbage, tray in the space so it can be cleaned and returned to the kiosk), I can't see what actually merits a tip. I tell the person behind the counter what I want, they pile it on a tray, and I pay for it. It's not like they have to bus a table or bring me anything after that. And the lunch kiosk at the library doesn't even use trays. If you order soup, you'd better have a way to get it to where you intend to eat (at a nearby table or up on the 4th floor quiet area where people are allowed to eat, provided they clean up after themselves).
They won't ever improve if they don't know what the problem is.
Even with grocery orders, I make sure that the store knows if something isn't right. There were several mistakes with my order a couple of days ago. As I told them, I was very specific about what I wanted, the sizes, types, brands, and what I wanted them to do if they were sold out of anything or had questions (the answer is always to call me so I can decide to either substitute something else, ask for a rain check, or just not bother with the item).
Multiple mistakes with this past order means the manager himself is coming over later today (he's the one who usually does the deliveries) to exchange the wrong stuff for the right stuff.
The people involved in putting my order together are going to be reminded to follow the directions. I'm always organized and specific in ordering, and the person who took the order wrote everything down... and the picker paid no attention at all to the notes.
It's still worth a phone call to say "my order is missing something I ordered and paid for. It's a small amount so I won't make a big fuss about it this time, but please don't let it happen again."
As I told the restaurant in my case, fish and chips without tartar sauce is not very enjoyable, particularly when the only other stuff I had around the house was ketchup - which does not go well on fish. That's the time when they gave me a free fish & chips with my next order (they keep notes for such things, and by that time I was a regular customer and I usually order enough stuff to do for several meals, so I'm a customer worth a bit of effort to keep).
Are there no signs on the walls to give people directions? I've lived here nearly 4 years, and still get turned around on the ground floor, since that doesn't have the same standard layout as the upper floors. There are extra offices and other rooms here and some things aren't in the usual location, so even a few months ago I got lost trying to find the laundry room.
At least each residential wing has a sign on the wall saying which range of suite numbers there are.
One of the security ideas a former manager had here was to tell the tenants that if we order food, we should meet the delivery person in the lobby. As far as I'm concerned, I paid for the stuff to be delivered to my suite, and I don't live in the lobby.
I've never felt threatened by any food delivery person here. The Canada Post driver? Yeah, he got verbally abusive because I complained about him. They must have given him one hell of a talking-to, though, because he's been very nice and sociable ever since.
And yeah, there was that incident last summer when another tenant decided he was going to barge in here "for massages" at 12:30 am.
But in my experience delivery drivers mostly just want to get everything delivered, get paid, and go on to the next place. There's one of them who usually chats a little about soap operas; some of his other customers are into them, so after I'd mentioned once that I watch General Hospital, he asks about it now.
In your situation, would it be a reasonable compromise for you to stand outside the building and wave your arms to indicate where you are? Not that you should need to do this, but I did it a few times when I still lived in my house and the drivers were math-challenged as to how to count by 2 (the house numbers in my neighborhood went up by 2 on each side, not 4). Sometimes the driver would park several houses away, and so help me one started complaining and whining about the house numbers, as if it's my fault how the city designed the neighborhood.
There's no reason to tip for bad service. None at all. A tip is supposed to be a gift from the customer, optional and at the customer's discretion.
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