Doordash Doesn't Deliver During Snowstorms

Today we have a new person starting on the team at work and so the manager arranged lunch for everyone. That means I got a gift certificate for Doordash. My daughter is home with me because she can't get up the canyon for her job at Alta due to a massive snowstorm right now. I asked her if she wanted to share lunch with me. We decided on pizza and so I logged onto the site to order it. Guess what? That same snowstorm that is keeping my daughter from getting to work is also keeping Doordash from delivering a pizza. I probably should have figured that one out on my own.

A Free Meal from Uber

A few days ago I got an e-mail from Uber telling me I had a free meal up to a $30 value simply because I have an account with them. I have to admit that since I have not been flying much, I have not needed their ride-share services. I did recently try a restaurant delivery service and enjoyed it and so I thought I would give Uber Eats a try this evening. The catalyst for doing so is because my wife is helping my oldest daughter drive to Alabama for graduate school and I didn't want to cook anything for myself this evening.

The e-mail made it really easy to get a meal as I just needed to click on it. The link took me to ubereats.com. I just had to log into my Uber account and it had all of my billing information. It even showed an old $5 credit I had from using the ride-share service earlier this year. Then I looked for a type of food I might want for dinner. That can be tougher than it sounds.

This evening I selected Greek food. I had up to a $30 credit and so I made sure to get plenty of extra food so I have a few more meals later in the week. After all, my wife won't be back until late Thursday evening and while I am not a bad cook, I am preoccupied with other activities . . . like watching movies, playing video games, and practicing the guitar. I picked up a gyro for this evening along with a salad for tomorrow. The total came to something like $20. As with all food-delivery services, there are other fees to be aware of and my $30 credit didn't cover any of them. Those added up to $10 and so I had to come up with a small sum of money. I knew I would and so that didn't surprise me.

I placed my order and did not feel like it needed to be rushed to my house. Selecting the take-your-time option took $1 off the delivery fee and my estimate is that it slowed down the order by a maximum of only 5 to 10 minutes. It still arrived 20 minutes before the expected delivery time. Then I watched the map with the status of my order. I finished up a few projects from work and just kept the map in the background on my 3rd monitor, glancing at it every few moments.

Eventually a car appeared on the map and it surprised me that the car headed away from my house. I couldn't figure out why until I realized the Uber driver was headed to the restaurant to pick up the order. Then he headed towards my house. He took a much different route than I would have taken but I learned something new, he got there faster than I would have. I will have to remember that route the next time I am in that part of town.

My meal arrived earlier than promised and that is always nice. Furthermore it was still warm. I ate the gyro and put the rest of the food in the refrigerator. Now I just need to hope my youngest daughter doesn't investigate it when she comes home from work.

I still prefer to go out to restaurants as opposed to take-out food. However during these times of COVID-19, I would rank my experience with Uber Eats very similar to that of Doordash. I think they are about equal in price and service. If you get a coupon in your e-mail, I highly suggest using it.

Video Conference Meeting with Lunch

One of the downsides to not attending meetings in the office is not being able to do lunch meetings. My personal belief is that lunch meetings are not very productive, however, they do reward the participants for attending a long meeting. They also have a benefit of allowing meeting attendees to spend a little personal time together and find out more about each other.

Today I had a several-hour long meeting that included lunch at the end. As I am in Utah and most of my coworkers are in the Bay Area, it is tough to eat lunch together during COVID-19. As a reward for sitting through the whole meeting, one of the department admins sent out gift certificates for Doordash. This is the first time I have used Doordash and so I needed to set up an account. Next I went in and added the coupon code from my office and saw that I had a $25 credit. You can kill yourself with $25 in fast food and so I thought I would see what other healthy choices exist.

I have to confess that I spent all free time during the lengthy meeting going through various menus of local restaurants. There are a number close by that I have never visited and so I had fun filling my cart with items and then erasing my order. Ultimately I decided on a local mid-priced restaurant that I know prepares excellent food. 30 minutes before the meeting ended, I clicked the purchase button. I had some of the $25 credit left over and added it to the recommended tip and submitted the order.

A map appeared on my computer and I could see the progress of my order. I saw when the order was completed at the restaurant and when it started driving towards my home. I thought it great to see the order come straight to my house. I guess that is what happens when you include a larger-than-recommended tip. 15 minutes later, the order was at my door and still very warm. My wife answered the door but the website also showed a picture of the order sitting on my front doorstep. I still had 15 minutes to go in my meeting. I didn't care, I just brought my laptop upstairs with my camera turned off.

I have to be very careful with how much and what food I eat. I ordered enough food for two people even though it was a single order for lunch. I split the meal in half and shared it with my wife. She loved sharing lunch with me and I appreciated involving her in my work meeting without anyone else in the meeting knowing she attended. We didn't discuss anything confidential and it was only for a few minutes but has to go down as one of my best lunch meetings ever.

If you are working from home but miss those lunch meetings where food is brought in for everyone, I highly recommend Doordash, Uber Eats, or some other form of delivered food. I will definitely remember this for future meetings. After the meeting finished, I made sure to send the department admin a heart-felt thank you.