Autism and Employment (another PennSilverTaco thread)!

I started this morning's Dash in the Fort Washington/Horsham "zone", but it took me closer to Norristown, which is where I ultimately ended up before ending the dash and driving back closer to home; That is close to where I saw the Gulf station advertising over four dollars gallon (see above quoted post)...

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Squatting Pigeon
@Taco critter

I ended up taking the turnpike to get back home, and that it was shortly before getting to the toll booth that I encountered this James Bond wannabe with an improved smoke screen (Spoiler Alert: It's actually snow, though I have no doubt that 007 could drive a semi if he had to!)...

 

For the record, I ended up in the Norristown area BEFORE the Chinese food delivery that took me from Warrington to Newtown; These two PetSmart orders also came in right after I got off the turnpike, but before I made it back to Warrington...



I declined them both, because when I signed up for DoorDash and started doing it back in the summer of 2019, it exclusively consisted of picking up food at point A (the restaurant) and delivering it to point B (the customer's house or workplace); Sometimes I had to use the DoorDash-provided Red Card to pay for the order, but there was none of this "shop for items" and then deliver" bullshit...

Another annoying thing about customers ordering from PetSmart, Walmart, Michael's Arts & Crafts, etc, is that at best they don't seem to realize that a DoorDash driver is handling the delivery and they don't tip as a result. That's the best case scenario; In the worst case scenario, you end with a grumpy behind-the-times older man who has no idea what DoorDash is and thinks you're a porch pirate who is stealing the Walmart order you are actually delivering. This happened to me about a year ago, and it is one of the reasons I absolutely refuse to pick up DoorDash orders from Walmart!

 

After the delivery of the Chinese food to Newtown, I took a break and headed over to visit with some friends in Doylestown for a few hours; At about 4:30, they got ready for dinner and I got back on the road. These two insultingly low orders came in while I was still on their street...



Sometimes the final payout ends up being considerably higher than the initial amount, and sometimes they tip in cash, but I've been doing this on and off for almost three years and have learned the hard way that orders paying less than $6 have lousy tips; I will accept orders of less than $7 accompanying orders of $7 and above (with $4.50 being my absolute bottom line), depending on much farther I have to drive. The lowest payout for a single order that I have ever personally seen (and obviously declined) was $2.75, from a Wendy's if I remember correctly; It was about noon, and it was literally right on the outskirts of Doylestown Borough where there's a lot of retail, and I have absolutely no doubt that it was going to some department store employee who was too cheap to tip!

 

@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Taco critter

That brings us to the first of two really cool vehicles I saw while dashing today; The first was this 1960s Dodge sweptline pickup that I saw in a customer's driveway during the second (early evening) run...

 

@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@Taco critter

"Cool Ride #2" was this GMC Savanna with a Quigley 4WD conversion! I saw it in the parking lot of the new Doylestown Borough Wawa when I stopped for a bathroom break...

 

And that brings us back to why I will not be picking up DoorDash orders at most Asian restaurants for the foreseeable future...

There is a shopping center on 611 in Warrington, located next to Gateway Kia, that has four businesses; These are a jewelry store, an insurance agent, a hoagie place called Slack's that I have also shitlisted, and this Sushi place. I have talked about my grievance with Slack's many times in this thread, and I will tell you again momentarily; For starters, this shopping center is a pain in the ass to get to if you are coming North from Doylestown and leaving it is an even bigger pain in the ass if the food is going South. When coming from the North, you have to wait at a light and then make a U-turn because there is a concrete median there. This same median also prevents you from making a left turn if the order is going South instead of back towards Doylestown...

 

So here's what happened at the sushi place; Despite the fact that COVID-related restrictions on indoor dining were lifted in May 2021, this place has it's entire dining area barricaded with chairs and nobody is allowed to use the restrooms. I had to pee, and I had been there before to pick up a DoorDash order and knew the restrooms were not open to the public when I initially accepted the order, but what I was not counting on was the order taking another ten minutes to prepare. As soon as the guy behind the counter said "ten more minutes", I unassigned the order and walked out; I paused the order and drove to the Wawa in Doylestown, which is where I saw the 4WD GMC van you in the picture above...

 

I have shitlisted Slack's because on two separate occasions I have gotten into arguments with the owner about not having a "warm bag"; The original DoorDash warm bag that I got, which I have not seen since 2020, was utterly useless for most orders due to size. As such, I stopped using it and literally no restaurant except Slack's ever gave a shit. One time in late 2019 or very early 2020, I forgot put the bag in the truck, and the owner of Slack's went batshit. Somehow, I managed to talk him into letting me take the order; Fast-forward to early 2021...

I bought a huge insulated bag on Amazon and secured it in the passenger seat of my truck with the seatbelt; I say again that literally no other restaurant gave a shit whether or not I had this bag. The bag was rather cumbersome to carry around, and kind of wedged between the dashboard and the seat back, so I always left it in the truck. Again, NOBODY CARED!

So, I showed up at Slack's and before I even got inside I noticed that they had revised their info to say that any Dasher without a warm bag was to unassign the order; No problem!

Not wanting a second confrontation with the uppity dude who owned the place, I said that I had a warm bag, but it was rather large and secured in my truck. They didn't believe me, and requested to see a picture as proof...

I there's one thing that's guaranteed to piss me off, it's being called a liar! I insisted up and down that I had a warm bag, and then ended up storming out to my truck to take a picture...

One of the kids behind the counter snidely commented "Do you think he's leaving or coming back?"

I took a picture of the rather large warm bag strapped into my front seat with my phone, went back inside, and immediately got an apology from the teenage staffer who'd made the snide remark; I immediately put the order in the warm bag when I got out to the truck, and I made a decent profit on that delivery. However, the damage was done...

That was back in probably February 2021, and I have declined every order from Slack's since that incident just because the owner is such a jerk about the warm bag! I have talked to a few other local Dashers, and at least one told me of having similar issues with the owner and his warm bag requirement, while I believe another unassigned the order after seeing the warm bag requirement because they had forgotten theirs at home; The snide remark from the employee when I was there tells me that other Dashers have not reacted as kindly as I did...

Seriously, literally no other restaurants give a shit about whether or not a warm bag is used; I stopped using mine because the majority of the orders are too damn big to fit in there anyway. I've also found that I end up getting to the customer's location fast enough that it doesn't get cold; I've had one or two complaints about the condition of the food since 2019, and neither has affected my rating enough to be put at risk of deactivation!

 

@TnShooter

My brief 10-month career as a detailer of cars is well known on here, but I don't know if you know the story; This was a huge family of dealerships, with like 9 different brands in Doylestown alone. Some people have criticized me for having a "typical millennial attitude" about this place, but the issue was that we got paid a flat rate per vehicle, didn't get compensated for shit like cleaning the shop and running cars back to the dealership, and didn't get paid at all when there weren't cars to detail. The primary reason I didn't quit before December 2018 is because in October 2018, I found out that the restaurant where I'd worked as a barback since November 2014 was closing indefinitely due to structural issues with the building in which it was located.

I started looking for a job in HVAC, which is what I really wanted, as early as January 2019; I got passed over for one because of an incredibly minor fender bender on my record from less than a year earlier, and the other because someone with just a tiny bit more experience than me came along and applied.

 

@TnShooter

The third HVAC job I applied for was probably in April 2019...? I swear you cannot make this shit up...

I was all set to come in for an interview, but the final date wasn't set up yet; I was told on a Friday that I would get a call the following Monday. Monday came, but the call never did...

I called either Monday or Tuesday, and was utterly shocked to find out that the guy who was supposed to interview me had suddenly DIED over the weekend; I don't remember exactly how he died, but I believe it was a car accident. Turns out that the guy who died, and who was supposed to interview me, was the son of the company's founder and also a co-owner; I was told that the whole company needed some time to grieve, which was totally understandable, and I may have attempted to schedule a new interview at some point during the summer after I finally lost patience with the detail shop and left, but it was fruitless and I gave up...

 

@TnShooter

So, I was so stressed out over my shitty detailing job by late May that when I took the first Saturday in June 2019 off to go to a car show about two hours from home, I drank more than I should have at a local brewery and ended having to walk it off before I could drive the few miles back to my hotel.

In mid-June, I put in my two weeks, lying to my boss that I'd found a job in HVAC; He was fine with this, though I know that he knows I was bullshitting him because I visit the shop from time to time, and everyone there knows I work for a defense contractor that builds unmanned aircraft now...

Anyway, I started at the detail shop in early September of 2018 thinking I could make a career or at least a lucrative side hustle out of it, and my last day was June 29th, 2019; I barely lasted ten months!

 

As stated above, there was no new HVAC job; I didn't want my boss to know I was quitting because I was burnt out and couldn't take it anymore, so I told a little white lie.

Puck, the bar where I worked for more than four years, had been closed since January 2019; I'd signed up for both Uber Eats and DoorDash in November or December of 2018, but for about six months or so only did Uber Eats. Uber Eats was a nice little side hustle, especially after Puck closed. I also signed up for the Wag! dog walking app, having just lost a year-old Corgi/Lab mix to a rare congenital kidney disease and thinking it would be a good way to both make money and cure my serious dog withdrawal; I took two jobs before writing that gig off as an epic failure, and LOST money!

I completed the signup process for DoorDash in July 2019, and that kept me out of the poor house until I got a more permanent job; I think I made like $2,500 in less than two months, which kept me from decimating my savings.

 

By late August, I had no idea what the hell I was gonna do for a job because literally none of the ones available at the time appealed to me. I was dropped off a DoorDash order at a guy's house in July, and that guy happened to be the manager of a warehouse of some sort; He offered me a job, which I was going to take...

However, in August, my dad informed me that he had told the president and CEO of his company about my plight, and he wanted to hire me part-time! Apparently, this was 100% my dad's boss's idea, and after hearing the story of how I tolerated the neverending bullshit at the detail shop for almost a year he thought I would be a good fit for his company! I started out at $16 an hour with paid vacations and a 401K, I've had two raises since then, and I might actually be staying with this company (NAVMAR Applied Sciences Corporation)!

 

I’ve done very little HVAC work.
And what I did do, was only for helping a friends company.
Basically, I was the under floor and over head guy.
Apparently, no one wants to crawl under floors and in attics.
Neither do I, so I have no desire to be an HVAC Tech.

Same for plumbing, evidently being 145ish lbs makes me the perfect candidate for getting to places other guys can’t. But that doesn’t mean I want to. LOL

I stick to landscape and lawn care for as long as I can.

 

How about the guy who was supposed to interview me dying in a car accident?!?! That is about the craziest thing I've ever encountered when applying for a job!

 

Yeah, that’s pretty crazy.
I don’t have any crazy interview stories.
But I have a good on the job story.

Back years ago when I worked for a lumber company, I had a Coworker call in and tell us he wouldn’t be back to work for a while. When asked why? He said, “I just robbed store”. Boss man laughed at him and told him to bring a Dr. excuse. Or take a vacation day.
Well, it turns out he wasn’t lying. He did rob a convenience store. WTF? He was actually a pretty cool dude. I kind of missed having him around. He was always smiling and really funny.

 

I guess he went to prison or on the run?

 

Local police caught him later that day.
I don’t know how they found him, or even how they knew he did it.

He couldn’t have been trying too hard to get away.
I think maybe it was a desperate plea for help. But in the wrong way.
He had some problems. But I don’t like telling other peoples business, especially when they tell me as a friend. Let’s just say, he wasn’t the type of guy to ask for help. Or want many people knowing he was struggling.

 

Working at a bar, I saw plenty of people get arrested for stupid shit, but never for a felony!