On my third day in Seattle, I took on the busy lunch shift (12:00 PM to 1:00 PM) and the beast that is downtown traffic during the dinner shift (7:00 PM to 9:00 PM). Here’s how it went.
Lunch: Batch Assignment
At 12:11 PM I got an order to Mammoth. This place quickly became one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle. Why? Plenty of parking!
On my way, I was assigned another order for Mammoth. I had a hunch it was two orders from the same person when I saw in the app that the drop-off was in the same area in Westlake.
I was right. The woman placed a second order when her boss requested some food from the same restaurant.
These kind of scenarios are really good for couriers. Caviar will typically assign these batched orders to the same courier and the result is a larger payout for the same amount of work.
By the time I finished the batch assignment, my 1-hour shift was over.
Dinner: The Beast Downtown
Later that night, I went back on duty and lurked near downtown, expecting a flood of orders.
The first order was for Japonessa at the border of Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market. I read the instructions and got an easy parking spot in their 3-minute zone.
The drop-off was in an even busier area of downtown: the Sheraton Seattle Hotel. I drove in circles around the Sheraton to look for parking. I rejected an order because I didn’t know how long it would take to complete Japonessa’s order. When I told the valets I had a delivery for the 29th floor, and asked where I could park, they allowed me to turn on my emergency lights and park my Prius in front of the hotel.
While I was at the hotel, I was assigned an order to Barrio. After delivering the Japonessa order, I completed Barrio’s order 27 minutes later. And at that point, I was assigned to Lotus Asian Kitchen and Lounge.That order took me 32 minutes.
Two minutes after the Lotus’ order, I was sent to Gnocchi Bar on 12th Ave (8:24 PM). This restaurant was particular about couriers arriving before the pick-up time (screenshots below). They don’t want couriers arriving early. I arrived at 8:31 PM and waited until 8:39 PM to enter.
This was a waste of time in my opinion since Caviar’s payout structure doesn’t pay for waiting time at the merchant like Postmates’. It was especially a waste of time since the restaurant was empty and the food was waiting for me when I entered the restaurant. Caviar couriers aren’t racing against a ticking clock like Postmates’ couriers do but still, this lengthens the delivery time unnecessarily which reduces couriers’ earning per hour.
The drop-off was in Greenwood, which is a long drive from the Downtown area. I delivered the food three minutes short of the designated time of 8:59 PM.
Late Night Postmates
At this point, my Caviar shift was well over. So I switched over to Postmates and freelanced. I picked up an order for a Taco Bell south of Ballard High School.
I was glad to see it was located in the city.
I had 47 minutes to complete this order (compared to the usually 60 minutes). No idea what that’s about. The customer was just five blocks away from the Taco Bell. I finished the delivery in 19 minutes and made $4.50. The drive to Taco Bell was 8 minutes. If you ignore this time, which Postmates does in its payout formula, then it works out to be about $24.5 an hour. This is consistent with that they advertise if you ignore the time it takes to get to the pick-up location.
After a long day, I drove back to Kent.
Note
This was the last night I tested the waters to get comfortable with Seattle. The next three days, I worked much longer shifts with the intent of making solid money. Training wheels were off. I will provide a summary of what I learned from those shifts in a future post.
