Trick or Treat Behind the Mask of Delivery Driving

Hello friends and Hivers. Today, I will tell you a bit about my delivering driving experience and show you some Halloween decorations I have come across doing it. Hope you enjoy some of them.

It's day 20 of the month as I start this post off. The number 20 has significance to me for two reasons. One is it marks the 20th day of the U.S. Government shutdown. The other is it's the 20th consecutive day I have made my side gig my full-time job. It will be day 21 as they have for the 11th straight time failed to pass the bill to fund the government.

I really have two choices. One is to collect unemployment, which I would have to pay back if we get paid. The thing about unemployment is they will only give you 60% of your weekly salary. On top of that if I earn in any way while getting the amount it gets deducted. I can earn a bit more than 60% of my weekly salary so I have decided to put my head down and delivery drive. It's not all that glorious because I'm putting some serious hours in, mileage on my car, fuel expenses and time away doing things I like to do.

This shutdown has had effects on delivery driving as well. I usually like to do my driving near a military installation. I guess being a veteran, I just prefer to be around a military neighborhood. At the beginning of the shutdown it was unclear if the military would get paid. This made delivery driving feel like I was in a ghost town. I had to find another area to drive and earn. Things are better now in that area as the military is now getting paid, but it's not as good as it usually is due to federal workers not being paid. Currently I do this area again, but throughout the day I change to other areas.

How many places have I tried? I live near the boarder of Iowa and Nebraska. So I have been driving in both States. I've driven in a total of 7 cities. Usually, I try to limit it just two cities, which are Council Bluffs, Iowa (where I live) and Bellevue, Nebraska (Home to Offutt Air Force Base).

How is the typical day for me? I will try to start at 7:00 a.m. and usually hang it up around 7:00 or 8:00 at night. A lot of this depends on the particular day. I do take a break usually between 2:00 and 4:00 because that is usually dead time as not a lot of orders come in. This is the time I usually get a bite to eat.

Here is one of my food choices during this break time. I mentioned a few articles ago about a really good pork tenderloin sandwich. What you see is the famous pork tenderloin from LPLs in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The best of its kind in the area in my opinion. It's sure size makes its a choice for couples to share. Nebraska has nothing close to it , I'd put it up against any other Mid West state. A proud Iowa staple. You have to eat it with pickles, onions, lettuce and some good squirts of mustard. So good, but I can never finish more than half of it. I deliver food so I know all the good spots. I ate at another place worth mentioning that I will share seperately in another post.

Tuesdays are the slowest day of the week, so I haven't been doing as much driving on them. I use this day to catch up on things at home. A laundry list of things really because this is one day I have the most time. Somethings I have accomplished is mowing the grass, paying bills, cleaning the house, and cleaning the car. Yes it's a must to clean the car. When you make anywhere from 140 to 170 deliveries a week it gets dirty. That's a lot of getting in and out the car. Doesn't help fall is here now with leaves everywhere. This Tuesday I have give my son a ride to get a tattoo consultation. I can't talk him out of it but again he's 19, his choice. At least its just a half arm sleeve tattoo. I also have to go look for a new dryer as mine took a dump the other day. I will still drive but more than likely only for a few hours which is ok because like I said Tuesday are slow.

How much driving do I do in a typical day? Again it depends on the day and how busy it is. I range from 125 to 200 miles a day. The google map timeline (shot above) is a nice tool to get your mileage and see where you have been. It also tells you how many stops you made. Pretty cool tool for this kind of work.

Here is my week ending on Sunday above. A few things to note above. I was ready or standing by for orders nearly 60 hours for the week. The 47 hours is the time I was on an order. That includes driving to pick up, waiting at restaurant and delivering to customers. The 13 hour difference is time I either was declning or waiting for offers. I also use this time to to contact customer service on issues I come across. A few variable with this gap of time, Monday thru Thursday aren't busy days. Peak times are ususlly 7 to 9 A.m., 11 to 1, and 4 to 9 p.m. Friday nights, and all day Saturday and Sunday are busy. To give you an idea I nearly made $700 working Friday to Sunday. I got off to late start on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I didnt start until 9:30 and Sunday not until close to 9:00. Sunday I made close to $300 but I worked straight through with no break and quit around 8:00 p.m.

Is my strategy a little different from when I did this as a side gig? In short yes but I still use some of my golden rules. I still look for offers that pay more than a $1 or more a mile. Another was not taking any offers below $5. Did I follow this to a "T."?

Now, as a side gig, I usually only drive during peak time. Doing this full-time I have altered it some during non-peak times. I will take offers that pay $.80 a mile and also have done some $4 dollar offers that are 2 miles or less. I do this so I'm making something and also because I have to keep my acceptance rate percentage at a certain level so I stay in a certain tier. Let me explain this further with a few other things.

Above is my driver rating, which depending on score puts you in certain tiers. Three tiers are Silver (60-74), Gold (75-84) and Platinum (85-100). Currently I'm Platinum which means I get top priority on high paying orders. You want to be at the top tier so you get less upside down offers. You can certainly see a difference in the offers between the different tiers.

This is a fairly new system and at the beginning it had many bugs which caused me to fall as low as 74 points. I don't want to complain because I have earned well enough to get by and I'm very thankful for that. I'll just say the on time rate function would mark me as a late on pick up despite being at the restaurant waiting on orders which I have no control over. Also transit times don't give you much lead way. Often it is right at the estimate navigation time and sometimes less. Now if you hit some traffic lights, road closure and even trains you will be late. So most deliveries you are racing against the clock. A lot of stating and defending my case with customer service. No fun there and often talking to them when I'm driving! Things have gotten better with the system thankfully. Transit times are still an issue which adds some stress when driving. You lose 1 point for every delivery or pick up your late on.

Accepentence rate is my lowest score. You have to find balance on it because it can be the difference on earning well or not. I have bounced from 59% to 77% here. This is why I have accepted some offers below my standards. The area your in sometimes matters on what kind of offers you get. I think its every 5% you gain or lose a point from your score

The other caregories: completion rate, quality rating and customer rating are pretty much straight foward. Completion rate is the percentage of orders you accept and complete. Almost always I stay at 100% but have unassigned from orders in the past. Sometimes you accidentally accept an order or get a really demanding customer which is better to get away from, haha. You lose 2 points for any order you unassign from.

Quality rating is about delivering to the right place, not missing things on order and not delivering damaged items. Its the quickest way to lose points. If customer marks they didn't receive thier order you lose 9 points. If you forget an item such as a drink or mishandled an order you lose 3 points. I have got hit on both of them but both weren't my fault. I had one where the customer come to the door despite it being a leave at door. It was a large catering order. The customer either marked it as never being delivered by accident or tried to get this order for free. Unfortanetly both customers and drivers try to scam the system. It took three days to get this resolved on my account. Another one was someone wanting me to text to her personnel phone number on delivery. Something I don't do due to privacy. I don't want some stranger to know my number. Phone calls and messages can be made on app which are masked but customer had instructions that stated to not call. I did take picture with her address number and food at door. I get dinged for 10 points. One for 9 points as she
marked as not being delivered and 1 point as she gave me 1 out of 5 stars on customer rating. I got the 9 points removed with customer service, took two days. If these are not resolved it takes 100 deliveries to disappear.

The last category is customer rating based on 5 stars. This is a flawed one I think. To remain driving you have to maintain a 4.2 score. I have never been below 4.8 but the thought a 4 star score hurts you is mind boggling. It's based on the last 100 ratings so it can take a very long time to improve your score.

It has been a grueling couple of weeks but I'm thankful this has got me by. I make trips to the bank to deposit every other day as well. Let me know what you think about this kind of work. Also let me know which decorations were among your favorites. This wraps up this post. Sorry, it was a lot longer than my typical post. A lot to explain and lot going on. I hope for an end to this government shutdown! Once back to my full-time job I will certainly take a break from delivery driving.

Take care, stay safe and enjoy the rest of your week until next time!