Goodbye to That App

Weekly Kvetch: Saying "Kiss off" to Seamless

Note: This kvetch is a little longer than most, so it’s just my kvetch this week and no reader-submitted one. I have a few good ones to answer next week, but if you have one, send it over to weeklykvetch@gmail.com

I picked up the phone and called a stranger the other night. I’ll be honest and admit that it felt a little awkward at first since it’s not something I’m used to doing anymore. They asked me what I wanted; I told them one mushroom pizza and another with artichokes, peppers, and olives on it. Oh, and since they had it as an offering, giardiniera on both.

“Wow,” the person on the other line said. “An adventurous man. Can I get your name?”

No, 1-900 numbers for people with very specific, um, predilections, haven’t made a comeback as far as I know. I’d just been told by Seamless that the place I wanted to order from was closed, and I knew that wasn’t true. The restaurant is four blocks away from me, so I decided I’d just call in my order, walk down the street, and pick it up the way my ancestors would have. When I got there and my pizzas were ready, I looked at my watch and noticed that I was getting them about 30 minutes earlier than I would normally have if I’d had them delivered. That, and I saved money because I didn’t have to tip anybody or give a fee to the app that just plays the middleman in the whole thing.

Giving a tip doesn’t bother me. I lived off tips for over a quarter of my life, and whenever I’m able to give somebody a few bucks for making me an espresso or a haircut, I do it because that person earned it and the extra couple of bucks can add up and go a long way when you’re working a job that almost for sure doesn’t pay you a liveable wage.

And there was no way in hell that the people who deliver the food you order off apps like Seamless or Doordash were making anything you could consider liveable. The job itself is fraught with countless dangers, especially when it shouldn’t come as a shock that half the people who make a living rushing to get you that mushy burger and mushier fries that you won’t be satisfied with are likely undocumented, uninsured, or both. I don’t mean to generalize here, but if you live in a city like New York, there’s a chance that sooner or later you will witness a delivery person on a bike get injured, either hit by a car or wiping out. People will try to help them, but they’ll say something in Spanish, help themselves up, and then slowly ride away. I’ve seen that—multiple times. It speaks volumes as to what people have to do just to try to scrape by.

To make things a little easier on the delivery people, last year, the state passed a law that delivery people must be paid a minimum of $17.96 an hour, four cents shy of being three dollars more than the state’s minimum wage for other jobs. The tech companies were not pleased with this, and the press you read coming out of their world was “nobody” liked the new wage. The “nobody” in this case was “Many workers, labor rights activists, and even the city’s comptroller say the minimum pay – just under $18 per hour – is not nearly enough to cover the costs of living in NYC or the costs of being a delivery driver,” and they’re all correct! Those delivery drivers should get more, but they won’t. Given taxes and the expenses they incur from bike or car upkeep to whatever else, I’d wager they’re mostly netting out the same.

So the tips are just as important as they were before. That should be a given, and you’d hope the apps would understand that and not do the whole Use the delivery people as pawns thing. And yet, a week ago, as I struggled to get myself out of bed after almost an entire day or air travel, I put in my order on the website Caviar and noticed that I couldn’t find the option to leave a tip. I’d been ordering from the site long enough that I knew where it usually was, and there weren’t any other changes to the site that I could notice. So I looked in my wallet and took out some cash to use instead. I’d do that all the time (pro tip: always tip in cash if possible), but I have to imagine the delivery person likes seeing they’re getting tipped in advance. The reason I say that is because, as a former delivery person myself, I know how cheap people can be.

When the delivery guy finally got here, I took my order and handed him some cash. Then I asked him if something was going on with the website because I couldn’t enter a tip.

“That’s the company trying to fuck with us,” he said. “It’s because of the minimum wage thing. It’s one of the ways they’re punishing us.”

Interesting, I thought. So I’m paying $2.50 extra for what is already a pretty expensive bagel with whitefish and a small coffee so the people collecting that delivery fee can use the person doing the actual work as some sort of pawn. I’m not sure I like that. It sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth that I usually reserve for the whitefish and extra raw onions I ask for.

The thing is that food apps did and do serve a purpose. During the worst parts of the pandemic, when nobody was eating in restaurants, it was a financial lifeline for people who worked in the food service industry. And for people who might not have as easy a time getting around because of mobility issues, I can see how having somebody deliver your food to you with a few clicks on your phone would make life a little easier. But as delivery became almost the entire business in 2020 and 2021, it started to look like there were literal armies of guys on bikes and in cars, waiting outside diners and Michelin-starred spots alike. Even today, roll up by the Shake Shack with the Chick-fil-A next to it on Flatbush Ave. and you’ll think there’s some e-bike gang who hangs out there, about 50 or so of them at any time, each waiting for the little buzz that they’ve got a delivery.

The restaurants needed the extra help, but even in the darkest spots of 2020, I still heard friends in the industry complain about their relations with delivery apps. Obvious stuff from technical glitches to the apps just not being prepared (the same way all of us weren’t) for a pandemic boom…for lack of a better word. Since then, every restaurant owner I’ve talked to tends to rank delivery apps alongside the health department and that one neighbor who just moved in and is always calling 311 because “it’s too noisy” among the top things that make them want to turn out the lights, lock the doors, and open a grilled cheese trucking the desert.

But for me, it all goes back to the human factor. The humans who are impacted by this because it’s how they make a living, but also the human interactions that aren’t happening. I’m laying off (Note: not giving up, because you never know when you might need it, I can even admit that) food delivery apps because sometimes the short and simple act of calling somebody on the phone even for something as simple as a transaction, is one less soulless online experience, and cutting as many of those out as possible is becoming a preoccupation of mine. Getting back to being a little human feels nice. I suggest everybody try to do it a tiny bit more each day.