Doordash gives us drivers a pause option that we can use whenever we want to during our shift. Maybe you want to pause your shift because you want to sit down and have a peaceful lunch, or maybe you just have something else to do. Whatever the reason is, you are always able to pause your dash for a certain amount of time if you need to.
With that in mind, there are some things that you need to know about pausing your dash, and if you don't have full knowledge about this, you can end up losing your entire dashing schedule. If you so happen to have a short schedule, it is not that much of a big deal, but when you have a full day's schedule, it can really bite you you know where.
There's no doubt that it's great to have that pause option available for when you need it, but you have to understand that your pause is for a limited time, and if you do not reactivate yourself on time, you may lose your entire remaining schedule. It has happened to me a few times, and I am sure that it has happened to most other dashers. What can we do though? We live and learn! When you lose your entire schedule, it can really bum you out.
When you put your dash on pause, you will have 35 minutes to unpause yourself. You must remember that the 35 minutes available to you is for the entire schedule. For example, let's say that you have an all day schedule, and you pause for ten minutes, you then use 10 minutes a little later and then use another 10 minutes a third time. You would have five minutes left after that, and at this point you best watch yourself. It's never a good idea to get too close to the 35 minute mark. It is best to think that you only have a 30 minute pause available.
I remember one time I had a full day schedule, and around 2pm I had put my dash on pause. I forgot to unpause myself, and when I remembered 40 minutes had past. I lost the rest of my schedule which was up to 11pm. When something like this happens it can really ruin your day.
There are times when your dash will go on pause by itself, and you may not even notice. You really need to watch out for this happening. When this happens, it is usually because you did not respond to a few dashing opportunities that were sent to you. In other words, you did not accept or decline the calls. Since you are not responding, the Doordash app will pause your dash.
It's safe to say that most dashers glimpse at their phone at least every few minutes and will notice when their dash goes on pause. Maybe their dash was paused for a minute or two before they noticed, but they will eventually notice and unpause it. This is no big deal as the dasher only lost a couple minutes of their pause time.
The real danger in this is when you do not have that much pause time left. Let's say that you already used 33 minutes of your pause time, and you know that you cannot pause your dash again. Then, without you knowing, a couple of dashes come without you noticing. Your dash goes on automatic pause, and you notice three minutes later. Guess what? Yep - you have lost your entire scheduled dash. It's happened to me, and hopefully it has not happened to you!
The Danger of the Doordash pause button
There's no doubt that it's great to have that pause option available for when you need it, but you have to understand that your pause is for a limited time, and if you do not reactivate yourself on time, you may lose your entire remaining schedule. It has happened to me a few times, and I am sure that it has happened to most other dashers. What can we do though? We live and learn! When you lose your entire schedule, it can really bum you out.
How long is a Doordash pause good for?
When you put your dash on pause, you will have 35 minutes to unpause yourself. You must remember that the 35 minutes available to you is for the entire schedule. For example, let's say that you have an all day schedule, and you pause for ten minutes, you then use 10 minutes a little later and then use another 10 minutes a third time. You would have five minutes left after that, and at this point you best watch yourself. It's never a good idea to get too close to the 35 minute mark. It is best to think that you only have a 30 minute pause available.
I remember one time I had a full day schedule, and around 2pm I had put my dash on pause. I forgot to unpause myself, and when I remembered 40 minutes had past. I lost the rest of my schedule which was up to 11pm. When something like this happens it can really ruin your day.
Be aware of the automatic Doordash pause
There are times when your dash will go on pause by itself, and you may not even notice. You really need to watch out for this happening. When this happens, it is usually because you did not respond to a few dashing opportunities that were sent to you. In other words, you did not accept or decline the calls. Since you are not responding, the Doordash app will pause your dash.
It's safe to say that most dashers glimpse at their phone at least every few minutes and will notice when their dash goes on pause. Maybe their dash was paused for a minute or two before they noticed, but they will eventually notice and unpause it. This is no big deal as the dasher only lost a couple minutes of their pause time.
The real danger in this is when you do not have that much pause time left. Let's say that you already used 33 minutes of your pause time, and you know that you cannot pause your dash again. Then, without you knowing, a couple of dashes come without you noticing. Your dash goes on automatic pause, and you notice three minutes later. Guess what? Yep - you have lost your entire scheduled dash. It's happened to me, and hopefully it has not happened to you!
There is another way to get extended pause time
If I want an extended pause time, I sort of plan it out ahead. This has nothing to do with using the pause button on your app. Let's say that I need a couple of hours off. What I will do is complete a dash, but I will never slide that I delivered. In reality, I did deliver the customer's food, so there's not going to be any complaints or Doordash calling me asking me what my status is on the order. Doordash reps are normally not ever going to call you unless a customer calls them with an inquiry about something. When I am ready to start dashing again, I will simply slide that I have delivered, and everything will be normal.
Become a top rated dasher and never worry about pausing
If you never want to worry about pausing, you may want to become a top rated dasher. As a top rated dasher, you can log and off of the platform anytime you wish. Basically, you can take a break from dashing anytime you want.
California dashers - Do not ever take long to slide as delivered anymore
This article was written in 2017, and a lot of things have changed since then. I would not advise any dasher in California to ever not slide an order as delivered to get a longer break time. In California, as most know, beginning in 2021, Doordash must pay dashers under the Prop 22 laws. If a dasher is not sliding delivered when they drop off the customer's order, they will get in trouble and may even have their dasher account deactivated. Especially if it is too common or for a very long time.
Don't they document thay food was delivered especially when there's a delivery time on the app it says when to pick it up and went to deliver it doordash knows by their calculations when it should be delivered so if you slide later doesn't that make it look like you had a late delivery the
ReplyDeleteYes, it will make the delivery a late delivery on record. So, yes, you will get hit with this. The customer had gotten their delivery on time though so they will not be calling Doordash doing any complaining. In all honesty, It really does not matter to me much. My on time percentage is always between 60 and 70 percent anyways. Out of all late deliveries, I would estimate that 99 percent of my late deliveries are not my fault so I don't even worry about it.
ReplyDeleteDon't if u get to many late message you get fired and will not be able to dash ever again I was told that one of the doordash reps told me exactly where n was and I left the merchant n she said I seen that u had left from the merchant they can see your ever move and your pickup times and arrivals times and drop off times also
DeleteI’ve been having this problem for a few days! I never knew it was only for 30 minutes. This helped A lOT thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteSlide for delivered! Attempted this today. Once I was ready I tried to deliver and it caused an error cause I was to far from the location. DoorDash support even called me to confirm the status of the order because I hadn't delivered yet. They believed it was a deadzone that caused the error and completed it for me luckily.
ReplyDeletePerhaps he means he leaves undelivered for just a few minutes not to far from the drop point. Otherwise they have since updated the system since this was posted.
Yes, the system has been updated since I originally wrote this post. Now, when you are too far away from the drop off location, you cannot slide the order as delivered. Well, at least most of the time you cannot. Since this update, there has been a few instances when I was able to, but generally you are not going to be able to. The only way around this is to contact Doordash and tell them that the system will not let you slide the order as delivered. Just tell them that you forgot to slide after you dropped off or that the Internet was not working in the area and prevented you from sliding. It is no big deal really, and they will just go on ahead and manually slide the order as delivered for you. Thanks for bringing up the point about the update though :)
DeleteBut couldnt you slide delivered, and then just leave it on the screen where you rate that delivery?
ReplyDeletedid u try?
Deletedoesn't work, leaving it on the smily faces does the same thng
DeleteGreat question Beauty & The Vape. Yes because if you try to swipe delivered & your too far away it will not let you. Waiting for anyone to answer it.
ReplyDeleteIf u pause doordash and come back can u still got your peek pay
ReplyDeleteOk so I forgot to slide that I completed a dash earlier and I cant get it to confirm dropoff in the app.in order to get more deliveries because I am no longer at the location...what can I do to confirm drop off.?? Im not going back to location and Ive tried everything I can think of but nothing works ...plz help.
ReplyDeleteI've done that a few times. Returning to the location works but I don't know if there's a time limit on that. If you're not too far away it's the easiest way. You just have to drive by slowly and slide th completion. But if you don't want to do that, due to distance etc, you will have to call service. it would probably be a lot faster to just return to the location and get back to work.
DeleteThe only way to get out of that situation is to contact Doordash and tell them what happened. They will manually confirm the drop off for you. I have done this many times before.
ReplyDeleteThis is a catch 22. When I am on the highway going back to a hotspot especially, I can't take any calls. The best I figured out is to put it on pause. But then I only have 35 minutes to do this for the entire shift? The other option is that they send me 3 deliveries I don't respond to so they cancel my dash. Am I supposed to manage my phone at 60MPH? How many people die for dashers doing this?
ReplyDeleteFirst, you drive 60 mph on the freeway?
ReplyDeleteSecond, it's not a Catch-22. You are choosing not to review offers.
If Doordash had a polocy that they don't send job offers to any Dasher travelling at or above 60mph and you must do so to return to yiur chosen hotspot then you would be in a Catch-22 scenario. You're just a pussy. :)
Reviewing offers while driving involves two or three quick glances at the phone (which is in a cradle on the dash) accomopanied by one click to "Accept" or two tqps of In"Decline.k or tw
1. check pay & distance.
2. check delivery location (to estimate return distance)
3. Accept or Decline
4. If Decline, Reason for Declining (without looking) tap somewhere towards the top of the screen.
If you think my treating the "Reason for Declone" with complete disregard is wrong do this; the next time an offer comes in listing the most popular merchant in your area (one from which you normally receive multiple offers per shift will suffice) as the pick-up choose "Decline" and for the reason select, "I don't want to go to this restaurant." Then, see how mamy more offers you get listing the same restaurant as the pick-up.
Either Doordash doesn't care that I don't wamt to go to this restauramt or they are paying no any attemtoon to the choices made on this screen. This, combined with the fact that the "Reason for Declining" screen is the only step requiring the Dasher select from multiple answers makes this useless step also the most dangerous to people currently engaged in the act of driving...and more so for those travelling at the breakneck speed of 60mph.
Since Door Dash doesn't cover for accidents while waiting for an order, I thought I could use pause dash, but thanks for this article, I learned that it is for a combined total of thirty five minutes.
ReplyDeleteNot it's not. Idk when this horseshit information became outdated but it you unpause the app and repause you get another 35 minutes and can do this infinitely.
DeleteThis information was 100 percent accurate at the time of this writing (2017.)Yes, things have changed. All veteran Doordash drivers will know that back in the days we could only pause for 35 minutes in total. A while back though, things changed. At first, it seemed like a glitch. Yes, suddenly we were able to pause, pause again, then again over and over. Every time we paused we would get a new 35 minutes. This continues on to this day, and hopefully it stays this way. Just a heads up for new dashers that are used of this constant pause thing, don't be surprised one day if Doordash reverts to its old ways with pausing. I mean, things are better now that we can constantly pause, just don't be surprised if things change. With that said, let's all enjoy pausing whenever we want :)
DeletePut it on break then take it off and break.. when I go to put it on break again it starts again at 35 minutes usually.. every great once in a while it does the countdown each time I turn it on and off but not using me
ReplyDelete