15 Things Delivery Drivers Hate

Life on the road is tough. Here are some things you should avoid in order to be your driver's favorite customer!

1. Not Knowing Your Address

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We understand that you may not be at home, and that you might not normally need to have the address of your current location memorized, but "The blue house with white shutters by the baseball field" doesn't cut it for us. If you don't know where you are, how do you expect us to?

2. Complaining That We Don't Deliver to Your Area

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More than likely, the area a restaurant will deliver to is not set at the store level. Corporate tells us where we can and can't deliver, so yelling at us is doing absolutely no good at all. We're not going to suddenly change our minds because you swore at us. We have to follow the rules. If getting a delivery is that important to you, maybe you should move to somewhere we do deliver.

3. Not Knowing What You Want Before You Call

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You might have questions about our menu, and that's fine. But when you call up and we ask what you'd like, and you say, "What do you have?" what do you expect us to say? Do you really want us to read our entire menu to you over the phone? At the very least, have some idea of what you'd like so we can suggest something. If you have multiple people ordering, figure out what everyone wants before calling so we don't have to wait while you gather information.

4. Not Giving Us Enough Information

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If you work in a five-story office building with hundreds of employees and the only information you give us is that your name is John, we hate you. Give us a last name, an extension number, a floor, an office number, something! Don't make us go to 5 different people to figure out which John ordered delivery. Work in a department store? Tell us which department you're in. Apartment building? Give us the number we're supposed to buzz. In short, tell us exactly how to find you, and you'll get your food a whole lot quicker.

5. Not Having Your Credit Card Ready

You need to pay for your food. You know you need to pay for your food. Dig in your purse before you call; don't wait until we ask you for your card number to go looking for it.

6. Impatience

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We get it. You're hungry. You're hungry now. You want your food. We'll get it to you as fast as we possibly can while obeying stop lights and (mostly) speed limits. But if we tell you it's going to be a wait because you called us in the middle of our busiest time of day, or right before the Superbowl starts, or when the roads are icy and dangerous, don't get upset. We're doing the best we can under the circumstances, and calling to complain about an issue we already told you was happening only makes things take longer. Best solution? Call us an hour (or more) ahead of time and tell us when you'd like it delivered. It's much more likely to be there when you want it.

7. Bad Drivers

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We could go into way more detail, but for now we'll just say this: Know the rules of the road. Use your blinker. Don't be the slow guy in the passing lane. Know the rule of right-of-way. Just...pay attention. You make us angry when you don't.

8. Hard to See Addresses

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Your address is how we know where you are. If your house numbers are hidden behind a tree, it makes it incredibly difficult for us to find your exact house, especially at night. Turn your outside light on for us. And maybe give us a landmark we can look for, like "The house with the basketball hoop," in addition to the address. It can help a ton.

9. Hard to Reach Front Doors

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Please, if you're ordering delivery, don't make us run an obstacle course while holding two bags of food and four drinks just to get to the door. If it's winter, have your sidewalk shoveled. Is it icy? Throw some rock salt down. Move your kid's bicycle off the sidewalk. Don't have a sprinkler on and pointed at the driveway. Be considerate. We're people, too.

10. Making Us Wait

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The more deliveries we take, the more money we make. If we get to your place of work and have to wait for 10 minutes while you take your time getting to us, that's money out of our pocket. We understand that you may be talking with a customer or client when we get there, but have your cash at the front desk, or tell the receptionist how much you'd like to tip so they can sign for it. Also, if you're expecting a delivery, don't hop in the shower, or run to the gas station. Sitting outside of an empty house waiting for you to get back doesn't sit well with us.

11. Disputing the Price After We Get There

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If you're wondering why your order costs so much, ask while you're on the phone placing the order. We give you the total then, so why not ask about it then? Once we're at your door, there's literally nothing the driver can do. We're not at the store, so we can't make changes to the order, and we're responsible for the amount charged, so we can't knock off a few bucks, because that's our money, not the restaurant's. Get it resolved before we get there.

12. Not Having Your Payment Ready

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If you're paying cash, have it ready so you don't have to make us wait while you go digging in couch cushions. We give you a total on the phone; if you don't have exact change for what you're paying us, know how much change you'd like back from your $20 so we can give it back to you faster.

13. Having Someone Else Sign Your Credit Card Slip

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Mentioned before, but worth mentioning again. Having someone else sign is fine, but if you don't tell them how much you want to tip, chances are we're getting stiffed. Tell them, because they don't want to spend your money.

14. Stiffs/Bad Tips

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Fairly obvious, and I could write a book on why and how much you should tip, but here's the short version: Because of tips, we usually get paid minimum wage. We use our own car and gas for delivering, which means more oil changes, fill ups, and overall maintenance. Tips are what make being a delivery driver worth it. How much should you tip? If you tip less than a dollar, it's basically an insult, even worse than nothing. If you stiff us, we could at least assume that you just didn't know you were supposed to tip, or that you forgot. Fifty cents basically says, "I know I'm supposed to tip you, but your time and money isn't important to me, so I'm giving you a crappy tip." A one dollar tip is also not quite up to par, unless you're extremely close to the restaurant. Also, in general, the further away from the restaurant you are, the more you should tip. It takes more of our time and gas to get there. Here's the rule of thumb: Tip what it's worth to you not to have to go and pick it up yourself. In other words, if you were going to pay a friend to go pick up your food, that's how much you should tip us.

And last, but not least...

15. Stealing Our Pens

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Seriously, don't do this. It's a dick move. We'd probably rather be stiffed. Pens are like gold to delivery drivers. It's actually a form of currency at some places. We need them. Don't take them. Please.