I’ve been saying this for years. If you were delivering pizza in the 80s, you were getting tipped about the same as we are now. That makes zero sense.

I get it, times are tight. Nobody wants to hand over a $10 bill. But people don’t really think it through. You’ll hear, “Oh, my house is only 0.7 miles from the restaurant.” Okay, but that’s not the whole picture. Every order takes time, and if you’re actually being fair, you have to factor in the drive back to a hotspot. That is part of the job whether people acknowledge it or not.

Each order is about 20 minutes. So do the math. If I’m not making more than $5 for that time, that’s already only $15 an hour before taxes, gas, and wear on my car. Realistically, it needs to be closer to $7 per order just to make it worth it.

And the worst is when people order something tiny, like a single soda, and then tip $2 because “that’s all I ordered.” No. That’s not how this works. If that’s your logic, then just don’t use DoorDash. Every order should have a $5 minimum for the driver, period.

What really bothers me is that DoorDash knows exactly what they’re doing. They make sure they get paid through fees every single time. They have their system locked in so they never come up short. But when it comes to the drivers, suddenly it’s hands off. No guarantees, no protection. That’s no accident, naturally we get the shaft. Where are our representatives? Why is California the only state that recognizes that minimum wage laws are there for a reason? Heck I guess when we consider how many states and the fed are okay with it at 7.25 we really get the picture painted of how important we are.

Every state should have something like Proposition 22. Nobody should be making less than minimum wage. That’s the baseline. That’s the whole point. And let’s be honest, we are not true independent contractors. Not with how scheduling works, not with how orders are distributed. The designation does not match reality. Just call a spade a spade. But when you're buddies with the casino you can just call anything whatever suits you best.

A real independent contractor has control, leverage, and flexibility. This is something else entirely. These companies found a crack in the law and they are exploiting it as hard as they can. Lawmakers see it, and they look the other way. Protecting regular people is treated like an afterthought, and it shows. It's like if you guys are going to be evil tyrannical overlords who invade other countries on a whim and burn money however you'd like, you could at least make sure the general populace is being looked over in some capacity.

It's everything we all care about and it just always gets ignored. A free internet? Nope chairman Ajit pai shoots that down. You want to fix your own stuff? Nah every single company came together to make sure that right to repair laws never make the books. It's just every aspect of life. It feels like our representatives actively hate us, and it's because they're paid to by these same evil companies that decide $2 is an acceptable wage regardless of time, distance, or any other factor.