Dasher Diary: Are Some Amarillo Restaurants Making Delivery Drivers’ Jobs Harder?

When you sign up to be a delivery driver in Amarillo, your job is to pick up food and deliver it. Sometimes you have to communicate to the customer to let them know if there is a delay. It's in the title of the job, delivery driver.

What it should not include in the job at all is anything that should be the responsibility of the restaurant. Yes, I want to make sure I grab the right order. Yes, sometimes you have to ask for extra ketchup or whatever.

As a delivery driver, I should not be responsible for making the food or pouring the drinks. There are a few restaurants that will just give you empty cups, and you are supposed to fill up the cups and grab the straws, then head out the door.

Seeing a lot of the other drivers, I would not want them with their hands all over the lids and cups. I would think the less driver interaction the better. I have been a server before, so I know as a restaurant employee you have to take a food handlers class.

In that class, you learn the importance of hand washing when touching anything food-related. That does include your drinks. Delivery drivers do not have to have that certificate. Who knows when the last time was that they washed their hands?

Grabbing a sealed bag and a drink holder full of drinks is one thing. Grabbing an empty cup and taking it to the drink fountain, and making drinks has a lot more chances for cross-contamination.

Do you want the restaurant to handle having your drinks ready? Would you rather have your delivery driver, who is snacking on chips in the car, go in and make them? It's a question of it being a restaurant order and should be the responsibility of the restaurant.

This should not be a way that the restaurant can push their work on us for a delivery that DoorDash pays us two dollars to complete. It's not right and can not be sanitary.