Let me start by saying that I worked for skip the dishes for about 2 and a half months. Some weeks I worked 2 shifts, and others I worked 5 – so I have experience working for them in a part-time and full-time capacity. Prior to starting with Skip the Dishes, I did some homework and looked into how the company treated their couriers. At the time there were quite a bit of mixed reviews, but I thought why not give it a try. Unfortunately, my experience was extremely disappointing!
The biggest thing that attracted me to work for Skip the Dishes was the flexible hours, but the scheduling system is not as flexible as you think it is. First, they only offer 4-hour shifts. If you want to work more than 4 hours a day, you have to have 2 separate shifts with long breaks in between. This system kind was disappointing because you can pick a time you're available to work, but that doesn't guarantee that you will be working those hours. For example, if you enter in your availability for 9:00 am - 5:00 pm, you would think that you would be working and doing deliveries for 8 hours straight, but that isn't the case. The scheduling system will see the 9:00 am - 5:00 pm as available hours and will give you a shift that best suits their schedule so you would be given a shift within that time range. For example, 9:45 am - 1:45 pm, 11:00 am - 3:00 pm, or 12:15 pm - 4:15 pm, etc. Now you can still get 2 shifts in one day but with my experience, I only had shifts like that when I gave them an a
Prossome what flexible hours
Conslower then average minimum wage, poor management, poor communication, does not care for their employees
Bad to work for, bad service for low and non tippers, bad for restaurants
Like a lot of drivers I loved it at the start. I worked it as a side job on top of my full time job and made about 300 to 500 a week on average working 20 to 30 hours a week.
My very first shift was crazy good, constant orders and good tips, I made 120 dollars in 4 hours and spent about 15 dollars on gas at the end of the shift. Pretty good profit for just starting a new job.
From reading other reviews this is part of the scam apparently, and it worked on me. I never again made that much in that little time, but I was hooked on that first successful shift. They must prioritize orders and good tips to new couriers as a manipulation tactic.
Lately it's been just horrible. Delivery fees are down, why in the world would I drive 15 km to a customer living in the middle of nowhere where I won't get matched to another order, just for a 5 dollar delivery fee? Even with a 3 dollar tip which is about the lowest it's worth delivering for you're barely making any money for your time.
Another thing, the customers suck and have no idea how little money we make. They don't tip and then wonder why the delivery takes 2 hours or doesn't get delivered at all. Such a waste of time and money for everyone.
For the couriers: I get matched to a no tip or low tip order and have to wait usually 5 to 20 minutes for the order to be reassigned by the "support" team. Not making any money and just sitting around.
For the customer: Pay for the food and don't get it delivered or it takes forever
ProsFlexible
ConsLow pay, waste of time, lots of costs to employees, bad customer service
Considering couriers are the core members of their business, they have very POOR app & customer support:
The App:
1.after the latest update on opening up other zones, they had added other zones to pick up open shifts & displays my preferred zone very rarely
2. When having multiple scheduled shifts in a day, app allows courier to end shift earlier by half an hour. If shift ends earlier, app doesn’t check in on next shift.
3. App do not consistently display customer reviews since the new updates. I had 12 orders yesterday & I never had one single review! I am pretty sure I had at least one positive one!
4. When customer has a phone number outside the coverage area ie long distance, masked phone number on the app drops the call.
5. App allows 0 tips. Higher transit fees should be charged to orders in condos & those customers who requires to be called to buzz & wait times.
6. App does not auto-calculate additional wait times in the restaurant nor at the customer. Note that Skip says it does but during payday, it doesn’t!
Courier Support:
1. Ask them to reach out to Customer but they rarely do
2. Too slow response. Busy on calls & chat all the time
3. Inconsistent! Yesterday, I had a delivery to a condo - which as usual had to be called to buzz. At 2:42 pm when I parked at customer, I called the customer number (masked) 5x but the call was dropping. I also texted the number, no response. I opened a chat with Courier support & sought help for them to contact the
This is the worst place to work. If you’re thinking of trying it, DON’T.
I started working for Skip when I was waiting for a new job to start and was completely desperate and going to the food bank. After my new job started, I needed to catch up on the bills I had accumulated while unemployed. After that, since my new job only pays once a month (ugh) I haven’t been able to break free from convience of getting paid every week.
Skip doesn’t give a flying f about it’s drivers or the restaurants they have “partnered” with, they only care about themselves and their stupid customers. As far as drivers, they are taking advantage of good people who want to work hard and make extra income. Restaurants are on the hook for any costs incurred if anything goes wrong from the customer ordering and the driver making the delivery. They are on the hook for those expenses even though 99% of the time, it’s the stupid customer that has caused the quality of the delivery to go down.
Example of the worst customer ever: A cash-ordering non-tipping customer orders food, lives far away either downtown where there is no parking or in the North End where there is the possibly of being robbed, lives in an apartment, doesn’t indicate an apartment number, or a buzz code, and doesn’t answer the drivers calls when the driver arrives and realizes it’s not a house, nor are they waiting at the door. What happens is that the driver has to wait around for seven minutes, wasting their time, until Ski
ProsNone
ConsBeing desperate enough to work for this company
Been doing this part time for a couple of weeks in the Burnaby/New West area. To be honest its not bad and I am actually making a decent profit. Beware of not having correct insurance doing this, the policy cost me an extra $125 a month, thanks ICBC! Anyway, I average 2 runs an hour, 4 hours a day. The runs have been netting me an average of 10 dollars each. Lets keep in mind I am doing this in a $1500 4cyl Nissan that is very reliable and good on gas, and I can do most of its maintenance myself for cheap. And I souped it up a little just for fun.
I estimate I use less than $2 fuel an hour, and the extra insurance is running about $125 a month. So for me doing this part time, lets say driving six days a week, 4 hours a shift my total monthly expense would be something like this....
Insurance: $125 a month / 104 working hours = $1.20/hr
Gas: $2 x 104 hours = 208/monthly
Maintenance: Hard to say, but lets go to the extreme here and say I break a car every year doing this, or at least put its value back into itself each year in parts/fluids and my time each year.
Total years working hours (24x52) 1,248
$1500/1248 hours= 1.20/hr
Total expense per hour = 4.40
***This does not consider $75 one time expense for bags!***
This means that the 20 dollars an hour I get is more realistically about 15.60. Still that's not a terrible wage for a part time, casual job.
So here is my advice to anyone considering doing this in point form,
1. Get a used Japane
ProsNo Boss!
ConsDoes not explain costs to perspective drivers. Might not be profitable in every area.
I started working for Skip in 2016, took a break and came back in 2020 and I have to say, the Skip system is way better.
The biggest advances are in the courier software app updates. I also feel there are algorithms in place to ensure couriers make at least $20 per hour.
For this reason, I accept all offers sent to me because it all evens out in the end of the day.
A typical day entails driving to an area you may want to work in and wait to be linked to an offer. Once you are, the offer system kicks in and you will soon learn which area you will be working in. Some are better than others and that is just the way it is. When you are close to the end of your shift you will be asked to extend or sign out early. It is usually to sign out early if asked as there are most likely not orders.
What I learned:
1. Best to accept all orders and be a team player.
2. When arriving at a restaurant, don't stress about waiting. This is a part of the job and it is better to have a good relationship with vendors as they are people too.
3. If you arrive at a restaurant and the wait is 15 minutes or longer, let dispatch know so they can assign a new driver and the restaurant wont get penalized. If you need to wait, you may want to let the customer know you are delayed but this means their food will be fresh off the grill.
4. Understand that online delivery is different than dine in. Dine in is limited by number of seats. Online is unlimited. I have been to places that have
Having worked this job for over a year and making over 2000 deliveries, I can say with confidence that you should not think about this job as a full time/part time job. This job is strictly a way to make extra cash while employed with another business, and to try and make a living with this job alone is not possible.
The amount of gas you'll use and the wear and tear it puts on your vehicle will also make it impossible to work this job often unless you have a way of repairing your vehicle on a major discount.
Shifts are 3 - 4 hours long and depending on what availability you take and what time of the year it is, your earnings will vary A LOT. The job will become stagnant for deliveries when the snow melts.
Another problem is the stigma the business has developed from the quality of the drivers they hire. As a customer and driver, I have witnessed other drivers ignore the instructions given to them, run their own errands during deliveries, and even mishandle the delivery. You're being tracked as long as you're on shift for delivery purposes, so the only time you should be doing your own errands is between deliveries or during a pause you can give yourself on the app. Drinks are difficult to keep steady in the delivery bag alone so alternatives should be looked into to secure them (ie. use your vehicle's cup holders if necessary). Have an understanding of reading/writing the English language as your instructions will be given to you in English and not following them WI
I'm just going to lay it out there using actual examples of orders you will be given so you can decide for yourself if the job is worth it. 23 kms, to deliver well outside of your delivery zone. That's 23 kms from the restaurant to the customer, excluding any additional km you drive to come back. Pay-$11.50. Many orders will be 5 km or more paying under $4. Yes you will get some really nice tips, but without them, you will lose money doing this job. Between filling your car up with gas, wear and tear, oil changes, replacing parts here and there, wear on your tires, many of the orders you do get simply aren't worth it. I've had orders paying as low as $2.99. That's not only insulting, it's surprising they don't ask you to just go ahead and buy the food for the customer, and maybe throw them an extra $3 at the door to be nice. Get real. Nobody can afford to deliver for such paltry pay. While it has to be profitable for the restaurant, Skip and the courier, those margins shouldn't be milked out of the couriers. Customers that expect delivery for the bare minimum delivery fee are part of the problem. Don't believe that you will get cash tips upon delivery. This is extremely rare.On average, you'll complete most minimum paying orders without any tip at all, further eating into your profits. Yes, absolutely some people will tip in cash for good service but even with outstanding service, those tips are rare. Very rare. At the end of the day you're providing a service for very low
Pay has gone down who knows if Skip will be around in the future
I started Skip The Dishes this past summer as a side hustle like many Courier drivers, and it was great. The pay averaged out to about $20/hour with tips. I love driving anyways so worked out perfectly.
Recently, Skip has reduced the transit fee pay for deliveries and this is the reason for me to switch to their competitors. Myself and other courier drivers cannot believe our eyes they would have the boldness to start paying us $2.75-$4.00 for short distance deliveries.
How can any Skip courier be motivated to drive when they know in advance they are getting paid peanuts now? Job is not hard at all and no stress other than rush hour traffic shifts....but it is very demotivating to drive to restaurant, find parking, park your car, grab your bag, go inside the restaurant, unless they make you wait and are not ready, grab the food, drive to customer location, sometimes they want you buzz deliver up the building or walk to the back of the house....for under $5.00 or NO TIPS
This company does not like to take blame for faults and would rather pass the blame. Skip would match us to an order to drive all the way out to the University of British Columbia for some hungry student, and would not match you with an order to get you out of the university campus. They expect YOU to use your own gas to drive out of there so you can be matched with an order. Wowz. When you call them out on why, the Skip rep simply says they have no control over who gets assigned orders it is the sys
You will be in charge of maintaining and abusing your own vehicle for as many hours as you choose to work. Between maintenance and fuel costs of your own vehicle you can expect to earn less than minimum wage on most days. You are basically praying on good orders and the generosity of customers tips to allow you to make enough to just barely get by. The hours are very flexible and you can basically make your own schedule which kind of makes you your own boss essentially which is the only positive. Many slow periods of waiting on orders sitting somewhere in your car for long periods of time with nothing but expense occuring. Also new application updates have made it so you must be driving to a restaraunt in a short period of time or you will lose your order and acceptance raiting will be impacted(i got caught waiting for a train and contacted support and told them i was waiting and even though they said it was fine my order was given away and my rating was dropped within 10 minutes of waiting and after trying to contact them after they just continued with automated responses saying you must keep moving or order is lost). Virtually no support from the assistance team aside from automated robotic responses when you have any questions which has gotten worse as the years pass. (You used to be able to contact support anytime. But now you must currently be on an order to even talk to them, which if you do, will be met only with automated responses and no real help to the situations y
5.0
Independent Contractor | Buffalo, NY | Feb 8, 2019
You Can Make What You Put Into It
I have over 4,000 deliveries with STD. When I first started some years ago, I would work 8-14 hours a day, no weekends. I was making anywhere from $850-1,000/week. Recently, the Buffalo area was split into two separate delivery areas because the couriers here complained about the amount of driving they had to do. Umm, you signed up to drive food around the city! Not to mention, the delivery address and delivery zone is clearly published on the driving app.
After the delivery area split, I was unable to even come close to my previous earnings, due to limited shift availability. I also started working weekends, but I only averaged $250-350 week. In my opinion, splitting it delivery area up was the worst thing they did for us here.
Even as such, I read reviews of people refusing to drive 15 minutes for a $6 delivery, which I find just ignorant. They basically refused a $24/hr pay rate. Even those that complain that they have to drive to a "remote" delivery address is rediculous, as if you know the area partner restaurants, there is probably one not that far from where your are delivering. I frequently look at the consumer app for the updated restaurants and compare that to the driver app delivery area. Sometimes, you have to take the small delivery jobs along with the higher paying ones. The dispatchers can be very appreciative and I've had some good working relationships with some.
I have never refused an order and the dispatchers realize that. I've been assigned trip
ProsExtra income, flexible hours, meeting people, finding great restaurants
ConsOverhead - vehicle maintenance/gas, no guaranteed pay rate
Questions and answers about SkipTheDishes
What is the promotion process like at SkipTheDishes?
Asked Nov 7, 2022
Zero
Answered Sep 21, 2023
No promotion
Answered Sep 20, 2023
How often do you get a raise at SkipTheDishes?
Asked Nov 7, 2022
No raise at all
Answered Sep 21, 2023
NEVER. You actually make LESS money over time.
Answered Sep 19, 2023
Do you have to put up a hundred dollars of your own money to start?
Asked Sep 1, 2017
You need a smart phone , a data package , a full tank of gas , you need a float of $60 for cash orders. Before you can start you have to buy the bags which are priced differently depending on where you live and pay $20 for a criminal record check. Your car insurance will go up and vehicle wear and tear is no joke.
Answered Dec 7, 2019
Yes but make it back right after u delivered the food
Answered Sep 21, 2019
How long do you have to work at SkipTheDishes before you can go on maternity leave?
Asked Nov 7, 2022
No leave
Answered Sep 30, 2023
You can quit anytime but no paid leave.
Answered Sep 29, 2023
What is a typical day like for you at the company?
