For a lot of people, it’s hard not to have a complicated relationship with food delivery apps like Uber Eats, Postmates, or DoorDash.
On one hand, they’re incredibly convenient and have felt like lifesavers once the pandemic emerged. But much like in other sectors of the service industry, it’s clear that the drivers who work for these services depend on customers’ tips to make any kind of a living.
RELATED STORIES
And when it comes to DoorDash specifically, customers who don’t tip will often see some significant consequences in their wait times since the app lets drivers know ahead of time what they stand to make from a given delivery.
But another way that DoorDash differs from its competitors is that the drivers aren’t the only ones who have to make these deliveries. And based on one engineer’s incensed social media post, that fact isn’t quite sitting well with some of the company’s employees.
If you work for DoorDash in any capacity — including as its CEO — the company requires that you complete at least one delivery a month under its WeDash program.
According to a representative who spoke to Insider, this has been the case since the app was launched but the program was suspended when the COVID-19 pandemic arose.
But starting next year, it’s back on again and those who can’t deliver will have to spend those hours engaged in other duties like shadowing customer service staff.
As the representative said, the idea is to have each employee “learn first-hand how the technology products we build empower local economies, which in turn helps us build a better product.”
However, it seems that one engineer was hired while the WeDash program was suspended and was never made aware of its existence.
As they wrote on an anonymous career-related social platform called Blind, “You need to dash once a month. WILL BE TRACKED IN PERFORMANCE REVIEWS!!
What the actual [expletive]? I didn’t sign up for this, there was nothing in the offer letter/job description about this.”
The tagline of their post also stated that they make $400,000 a year.
At the time of this writing, the post has attracted 1,695 comments both from fellow DoorDash employees and people who work for other companies.
And for some of them, this program seemed like an outrage and a major disincentive to work there.
One Ebay employee wrote, “Not acceptable in any way!” while someone else at DoorDash said, “And most of us would wave bye bye.”
However, it seems that even more commenters approved of the idea and felt this person was overreacting.
For these people, WeDash seemed like a good way to learn how what kind of experiences both customers and drivers are getting from the app.
In the words of one employee, “Most of my coworkers and I are excited. DD pays well and I get to better understand what I’m working on, and hopefully improve the experience for our dashers.”
Someone else who works for a firm called DocuSign was more aggressive in their defense, saying, “Seriously? They’re paying you 400K and want you to deliver food once a month so you can actually experience your product and you’re complaining? What’s wrong with you?”
Some pointed out that this should have been made explicitly clear when the original poster was hired, but most didn’t seem to hate the idea.
h/t: Insider
