A reflection on delivery apps.

From the restaurant side of things, they're all really jacked.

At the (Thai) restaurant, we have like 6 of them set up on all of these different tablets and smartphones arrayed around the one cash register, and they all do things differently...

Some send a printout to the associated big-page printer that can print out 2 or even 3 pages at a time even though only 1 is really needed, and some don't, and so you only have the standard order receipt for those other orders.

Two of them send orders that you also have to type in through the standard restaurant order system.

Like two or three of them make you hit some confirm button.

One or two of them sometimes have individual items priced wrong, so you have to adjust individual item prices up a dollar or two sometimes for some individual items.

Others of them have it clearly marked if people want plastic utensils, so with like two or three of them you have to know which default to no utensils, and with another two or three of them you have to know which default to your putting utensils in.

Also, for some of them, they assign drivers, but for others they can assign drivers but they can also make the restaurant deliver, so you have to have a different in-house procedure for both of those situations.

It also can be a whole thing if someone puts in an order earlier with a delay, since somehow (I'm not sure how) it can get mixed up and sent to the kitchen early, though it seems that the bosses are somehow monitoring things for mistakes since like maybe once a shift they run out to stop the kitchen from making something on one of those orders.

On top of all that, only two are maybe used regularly, so it's hard to remember how the other ones operate.

Tips for takeout can be shit, too... It's a lot of work to figure all of this stuff out, and since as waitstaff we also do hosting and coordinate takeout orders, a lot of times you're doing all of this and you get zero tip on top of it, though I'm not complaining overall since I think on average I tend to make about $17 an hour there, which isn't too bad at all, especially for someplace where you get a free basic meal per shift and it's a short walk from your house.