A young food delivery driver has come out and admitted that he hangs out in wealthier areas just so he can get bigger tips. Clearly, he knows how to work smarter, not harder.
The 22-year-old - who hails from Philadelphia - rides around on his bike delivering food for online food ordering companies DoorDash and UberEats as a "weekend side hustle" for just 10 hours, according to Insider.
He even shares his experiences on TikTok, though he never shows his face.
In one particular video, the delivery driver - who is known simply as Jay but uses the handle @downtownhustle on TikTok - shared that he traveled a mere 2.2 miles to Wendy's to fulfil three separate orders in 39 minutes, during which time he made $40 including tips.
According to the Insider report, Jay revealed he chooses whether to accept or pass on a variety of orders that come in - depending on how much each delivery would pay and how long it will take him to fulfil. Both DoorDash and Uber Eats offer their drivers a base payment, which is dependent on the distance of the delivery and any up-front tip the customer includes.
So, for Jay, his average base payments work out to be between $2 and $2.50, though apparent it's not uncommon for this to reach as high as $4.50 - which means that the customer has included an up-front tip.
"I'm not doing this to gamble. I'm doing this to make money," Jay told the outlet. "So I'm not really interested in playing the game of, 'Oh, maybe I'll do this person's delivery for a guaranteed $2.50. Maybe it might be more.' I don't play that game. And most people don't like to play that game. That's what results and their order's not getting picked up, or it takes awhile for them to get their food."
The New York Times reported earlier this month that customers have cut back on larger tips since the beginning of the pandemic, while Alix Anfang, an Uber spokesperson, told Insider that tipping had increased since 2020. "On the rides side, tipping frequency and the average tip on a trip roughly doubled over the last two years. Food delivery has always had a high tipping rate, but the average tip on a delivery increased even further by about 20%," she revealed.
Jay says that one way to guarantee larger tips is to hang around more affluent neighborhoods as those places are where customers tend to tip better. "I'll sit in Rittenhouse Square in the park, and I'll get an order that's from a fancy Italian restaurant. It's a two-block delivery, and it ends up paying me $20 because this person doesn't want to walk two blocks in the winter cold."
Jay has been working as a delivery driver since the start of 2019, putting in 40 hours a week with DoorDash during his summer break. When the pandemic forced him to move back home to Philadelphia, he continued working as a delivery driver using his car, and noticed that people were tipping quite a lot. "On $250 to $300 grocery orders, people were tipping $100 because they were just so petrified to step foot in the grocery store and they were so thankful that someone else was willing to do it," he said.
Well, it looks like delivering food for a living is pretty lucrative! Where do I sign up?
