I'm taking a break from Foodpanda. Here's why.

 As of today I've completed 711 deliveries since August 2021, 631 of which were with Foodpanda (FP). I quite liked FP for their clear shift schedule, high surge feed during peak hours, and I got familiar with the stalls that they assigned me to.

However, since I got approved on Deliveroo last month, I've been delivering less with FP because of the following reasons:

1. Inability to control schedule - Once you book a shift you have to stick to it unless you are able to swap it out. This doesn't work well with the unpredictable weather these days. If you request for break during your shift to wait for the rain to stop, you get penalised and your Actual vs Planned (AvP) percentage goes down. I don't like how FP doesn't care about safety of riders and create such a rule that inadvertently puts riders in harm's way in order to keep their ranking.
2.  McDonald's - I've realised that Singaporeans eat a lot of fast food, and more during the weekends. McDonald's is by far the most popular, and during peak hours, the wait time to pick up an order from McD could be crazy. I've waited 60-90 mins for McD orders before.
3. Pandamart and other marts - FP sometimes assigns crazy stacked orders at Pandamart or other grocery stores. I've encountered situations where I had to reject one of the stacked orders while at Pandamart because of weight. There has to be a way to assess the contents and assign riders accordingly. Many of the heavy items that customers order, e.g. 1.5L sodas, waters, 6-pack beer cans, ice, etc. should be automatically assigned to car drivers because riders get penalised if we reject an order. This doesn't make sense right?
4. Cash orders - I've not encountered prank orders or people not willing to pay for their deliveries, but I just do not like to collect cash. Period. lol. When will FP stop allowing cash orders? I don't know.

So now with Deliveroo, I don't have such issues. I'm able to reject orders, start delivering without booking shifts, and there's no McD or heavy grocery items to deal with.

Rain has stopped, time to go delivering! 

❤️ Bernie