Sometimes I Really Feel Like Putting Postmates Priority over Doordash

As most readers here know, I am a Doordash driver. This company is the main on-demand food delivery app that I use. I have registered with three other on-demand food delivery apps, and although I have experimented with one, Postmates, Doordash has always been my number one app. I have done about 3000 deliveries using Doordash and close to 100 Postmates deliveries.

Lately, I have began to wonder if I have my priorities straight. Yes, I am now thinking that maybe Postmates should be my go-to app and Doordash should be secondary. Why? Well, if going seven hours without a dash last week wasn't enough, today really got me thinking. You read that right, seven hours with no pings. I have to be honest when I tell you that this was abnormal. I have never experienced anything like that ever with Doordash, but nevertheless, it still pissed me off.

What has me on the edge today? Well, today I had a full day schedule that began at 9:30 a.m. and finished at 12 midnight. The plan for today was to earn at least $50 before 2:30 p.m. Let's just say that things did not work out. For the first hour, I did not receive a call. Finally, at 10:30 a.m. I receive a call. The restaurant was five miles away and while on my way to pick up the food, the customer calls me and tells me that they want to cancel their order. I told them that they will have to contact Doordash directly. It takes about 15 minutes for their order to vanish from my app as Doordash finally cancels it.

The time is now 11:00 a.m., and I decide to put some extra gas in my car and use the restroom. While at the gas station, I receive a ping for a new order. I accept it and continue on with my business. Five minutes later, while still at the gas station, I receive a text from Doordash that says "You don't appear to be heading toward the order. Do you need help"? I ignore it as I will be on my way soon, and I start driving toward the restaurant. After driving a couple miles, a new text appears on my phone from Doordash that says "An order was reassigned after 15 minutes of activity." What? This really made my heart pound with anger. I was on my way to the merchant. Why in the world did they take this order away from me? Of course, I cannot text Doordash and ask them about it since I am not currently on a dash anymore.

During the next half hour, I receive four different orders that I decline. Why? For some reason Doordash started sending me orders that were far away and located in different regions. Finally, about 10 minutes past noon, I receive a decent order in my region. It takes me 20 minutes to complete, and there I was at 12:30 in the afternoon with $7 under by belt. My plan of earning $50 before 2:30 p.m. seemed to be fading away fast.

A whole other hour goes by without a call, but then I receive an order for Benihana restaurant. It is a merchant that I usually will not accept an order for due to past bad experiences. This restaurant is very slow and seems to never have the customer's order ready when the Doordash driver arrives. Upon my arrival, there was no surprise. They said that they had just received the order and that it would be about 20 minutes. The funny thing is that I had arrived at the restaurant 20 minutes past my estimated arrival time. I then texted the customer about the 20 minute wait and apologized that their order would most likely not be delivered by the estimated delivery time. They texted back "Wow! Thank you for the update though. I appreciate it." 

The 20 minutes had went by as I was waiting for this order. I inquired with the workers there and all they would say is that it will be just a little while longer. At this point, I'm starting to get a bit angry. I contacted Doordash support and tell them that I have been waiting at this merchant for over half an hour. I also tell the rep that I would like to be compensated at least a couple of dollars more for this order as I have spent more time than what is normal waiting for this order. The rep tells me that they will leave a note, but the extra pay in not guaranteed. The Doordash rep also tells me that Doordash is going to call Benihana restaurant and inquire about the order. I tell them to go right on ahead and do so.

The Doordash rep then tells me that they called and spoke to somebody at the restaurant. The Benihana employee told Doordash that the food was ready but that there was no dasher at the restaurant to pick it up. Just as I receive this message, a restaurant manager was walking by me and I stopped her. I told her what had just happened and she went to inquire about the situation. I asked the Doordash rep if they got the name of the person that they spoke with, but they did not.

I finally had enough. I told the Doordash rep to take me off of this order. They did not like it, but I was so angry that I did not care. Doordash would not guarantee me any extra pay for this order, and the restaurant was playing games and telling lies to Doordash when they called. I had enough! Too bad too because I could see many bags of food being put on the table for the order. Apparently, they were still waiting for one more item. I walked out the restaurant without telling them anything, and I told Doordash that maybe Benihanas will have the order ready for the next dasher that shows up for this order. The only one that lost out on this deal was the customer, and I felt bad about it, but I had wasted enough of my time. I do not get paid anything extra to wait 40 minutes. Mind you that this order was going to pay only $7!

By the time this whole ordeal was over, the time was 2:30 p.m. In five hours I had earned $7. After leaving Benihanas, it didn't take long for me to receive a new Doordash order. I completed this new delivery by 3:00 p.m. and had a total of $15 earned.

Being frustrated with Doordash, I decided to activate my Postmates app. I never turned off my Doordash app and thought that I might try to work both of them for the rest of the day. I started to receive many calls on both apps, but there was a major difference. All of the Doordash pings were all for restaurants that were 10 to 15 miles away in different regions. Doordash was not giving me the usual restaurants that I do everyday in my region. Postmates was a different story. All of the orders that they were offering me were restaurants in a one mile radius. 

Within the next three hours, I had completed five Postmates orders and didn't do one for Doordash. I had enough, and it was time to turn the Doordash app off. I continued to use Postmates the rest of the day and ended up earning $80 with them in six hours.

Will I put Doordash in the back burner and make Potmates my priority food delivery app? Yes, no, maybe, I'm not sure, but after a day like today, I am really considering it. There just seems to be too many things that go wrong with Doordash. I know that none of the food delivery apps are perfect and they all have their own personal flaws, but Doordash seems to have taken it far and beyond. Mind you, I did not even mention in this article about how Doordash steals drivers tips. I have never done a full day of just doing Postmates, but maybe I will give it a try and see what the outcome is. Maybe I can make much more money with Postmates than I do with Doordash.