Yea…I know I shouldn’t say it, but sometimes I get lazy. On Wednesday, I removed my frozen chicken from the freezer, found a recipe in my cookbook that I wanted to explore, but then nothing. A few hours later I put the thawed chicken in my fridge and decided that I would cook tomorrow. You see, even though I was all ready to go, I just couldn’t force myself to cook. I just didn’t feel like it, and I was a little nervous to stop my productivity streak. The bad thing is, that it was also a snowstorm, so I couldn’t leave the house to get take out. Therefore, I decided to order delivery.
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I hadn’t ordered delivery in years, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was craving a salad so I ordered my favorite salad, however to my surprise the restaurant wouldn’t deliver my salad because it didn’t meet the $10 minimum required to deliver. For a split second I considered just changing the delivery to pick up, but then I looked outside and decided against it. I had to order another item to meet the delivery minimum, but the restaurant was out of everything that I tried to order. I settled for a junior sized pizza to bring the total to over $10. At least I would have two meals, even though I only wanted one.
When the lady told me the order total, I was shocked. I had already estimated what I thought the order would cost and her total was quite a bit more than mine. It turns out that there was a $3.50 delivery charge associated with this meal. That was almost 30% of the cost of my delivery order. For another split second I contemplated throwing on my warm, winter clothes and venturing out into the snowstorm to pick up my order, but then I looked outside and painfully accepted the charge. I was just too lazy to finish what I started in the kitchen. That snuggie was way too comfortable.
After I hung up the phone, I kept thinking about that delivery charge. I told myself that the restaurants must have put the delivery charge on the orders as an “automatic gratuity.” I texted my etiquette guru friend – Ask Scarlet – and told her my theory and asked if I still needed to tip if I had to pay a delivery charge. The answer was yes. It turned out that the delivery charges did not go to the delivery drivers. I then called the restaurant to be certain that it wasn’t an auto-gratuity, and the restaurant confirmed that the driver does not get any of the money.
How many people would have naturally assumed that the driver would share in that charge? As I poked around on the internet a bit more, there were many questions on this very topic. Delivery drivers even weighed in on the discussions and mentioned that many people believed that the driver received a portion of the fee, so they didn’t tip. Given that revelation, and the fact that it was a snowstorm, I added $3 to the cost of my meal to tip the driver. That brought the total cost of my order to $19, and all I wanted was a salad that cost $7.50.
I learned a very important lesson that day. Laziness has a penalty. That penalty may be in the form of a convenience fee, a delivery fee, or another random cost. If I had just spent 30 minutes in the kitchen I could have saved $11 (fees + extra food that I had to order). Next time, I will just cook myself, forgo the fees, and avoid sending someone into the snowstorm to bring my food. Now I know why I almost never order delivery. Lesson learned.
What lessons have you learned when it comes to being lazy?
Have you had to pay extra cost for “convenience”?
How do you avoid these charges?
Share with me!