DoorDash Driver Confronts Customer On Their Ring Camera After Receiving $8 Tip
Delivery drivers rely on tips, but you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
Tero Vesalainen / Shutterstock How much should you tip? Are you a horrible person for not leaving a tip? Or for leaving too small of a tip? These questions are the pinnacle of the tipping culture conversation, but it seems there will never be a definite answer.
Whether it’s a sit-down restaurant, a grocery delivery, or valet parking, everyone has an opinion of what acceptable tipping looks like. That's especially true for one delivery driver, who took things a step further with a customer.
A DoorDash driver angrily confronted a customer after receiving an $8 tip.
A video showed a DoorDash driver speaking into a customer's Ring doorbell camera, confronting them about the amount left as their tip.
With her face pressed up to his Ring doorbell, the customer watched from inside as their driver spoke to him in an irritated tone.
“Do you realize how far it is?” the driver questioned, angrily naming the town she picked up food from.
“That’s a 15-, maybe 20-minute drive,” the customer responded, seemingly confused.
Immediately shaking her head, she continued to yell at him through the camera. “It’s not... I just drove it… it’s 40 minutes... It’s 12 and a half miles,” she said while holding up her phone.
Repeating herself again, she asked the customer why he would leave a "small" tip for such a long drive. He questioned the driver about her motivation for choosing the order if she knew it would be such a far drive, asking why she accepted the pick up if it was too far. Instead of admitting any wrongdoing, she immediately quipped back that the app doesn't tell you how far the delivery is.
However, a quick search of the two towns mentioned — Commack and Smithtown, two towns in Long Island, New York — gives an estimated drive time of 15 minutes with traffic. And, according to a post in the r/doordash subreddit, dashers indicated that they are able to see how far away an order is before accepting it.
Norma Mortenson / Pexels
Shouting through the Ring camera, the hungry customer asked the DoorDasher what exactly she was looking to get, to which she yelled back, “I think you need to adjust your tip,” still holding up her phone in hopes of an updated tip “to make it right.”
When the driver informed the customer that they gave her an $8 tip, the customer became even more confused, asking what kind of tip she wanted. The driver became defensive and said she was taking the food back, before walking away.
While DoorDash drivers rely on tips to make a living, this worker could have handled the situation differently.
It's no mystery that DoorDash drivers don't get paid an hourly wage, relying on tips for the majority of their income.
As one DoorDash driver explained, "None of these food delivery drivers — Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub — gets paid by the hour. We get paid by the order. And how much do we get paid per order? $2.50... so the majority of the money comes from the tips."
So, as far as tipping etiquette goes for delivery drivers, many seem to believe $1 per mile is a good minimum pay. Some drivers put their minimum a bit higher at $2 per mile, with some only accepting orders that are over a certain amount.
One person commenting said, "Anything under $2 a mile, you're just wasting your time. I only accept that are $2 per mile or $3 per mile if it's over 7 miles. The only time I take orders that are under $2 a mile is if I'm multi-apping and can stack both the orders."
Considering that Commack is about 5.5 to 6 miles from Smithtown, when using this logic, the customer tipped the driver a generous amount — $2 or $3 more than the $1 to one mile ratio. Of course, traffic factors into the time it takes to get from point A to point B, but in terms of mileage, was this customer really that far off the mark?
At the end of the day, the driver could have handled the situation better by not hounding the customer and, if she did want to confront them, not scream at them through the camera, nor take their food after they paid for it. That is technically stealing.
In the future, she can accept deliveries that are closer to her or are for a higher amount, hopefully reflecting a larger tip in the process. She could also find another hustle free from confrontation.
The point is: Always tip your service workers and never confront someone on the front porch of their own home.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health and wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.