How did I go from washing dishes to delivering food? Well, I’m always looking for a way to keep my freedom but still pay my bills and keep cash in my pocket. I thought driving for Grubhub would be a great idea because of all the hype around delivering food and making the same salary or more as a nine to five. I jumped on the trend and added UberEats and Doordash as well so that I could maximize my efforts and income. However, I found Grubhub to be a bunch of nonsense and their unfair scheduling caused me to quit.
Grubhub works by mobile app and delivery drivers get notifications that someone placed an order. The notification will tell me where to pick up the food and where to drop it off. The person is supposed to pay a tip, but people rarely do, so I end up making the bare minimum for delivering food. Grubhub lets you choose your weekly schedule, but it is based on premier drivers. Depending on how well you did the week before is how Grubhub allows you to choose. People that never reject an order or miss one will get to choose their schedule on Thursdays at 10 am. They are considered premier drivers and their workflow is somehow superb. Those that missed one or two, get to choose on Friday at 10 am. The more you miss, the further you get pushed back, and you end up choosing your schedule on Saturday at 10 am. If you are new to the app or haven’t done well (according to Grubhub), then you get the scraps or whatever schedule is left over by Sunday at 10 am.
This was my dilemma. Even though I had to choose my schedule on Sunday, there were people who rejected orders and that would allow me to have more deliveries. It was still a horrible schedule because it would often send me four notifications at once. I would get notifications while I was driving to pick up or drop off an order. Checking my phone while I was delivering food was very distracting. It made me feel extremely overwhelmed. That means I was unable to fulfill them all, which pushed me back from getting to choose a good schedule block. At the end of the day, I was exhausted! I had only made $80 that day even though I worked eight to ten hours – that means I only got paid $10 an hour. LA’s minimum wage is $12! Grubhub states that they will pay the minimum hourly rate, but only to those who accept 90% of their orders. They say you get more freedom driving for them, but when you have actual bills and dreams that require financial commitments, you really have to drive over 40 hours a week to even make this happen.
Finally, I quit Grubhub and started doing Doordash and UberEats. They pay about ten or eleven dollars an hour, but I have to start working at 7 am. I thought about going back to UberX, but I remembered it was mentally draining and painful. Sitting in the car for six to eight hours a day really hurt my back and neck. For now, I am content with Doordash and UberEats.
