Well, grocery delivery has turned out to be surpisingly convenient

[conuly]

and there are some things I can order that I can't easily get without a long bus trip - blintzes, Ben and Jerry's ice cream*, butter at a decent price** - but I'll be delighted when I feel secure going to the store myself again. The tips are really cutting into the grocery budget, and I don't begrudge the delivery guys their tips - they earn them! - but....

Also, it was impossible to even get a slot for ages, and I've been buying two weeks at a time, but that's died down and I think I should be able to start buying for one week at a time again pretty soon, especially if I'm buying in person (no tips!), and that'll clear up a lot of fridge space.

Now, NYC is talking about starting to reopen June 8th. Give it two weeks to see if cases spike, that puts us now at the end of June so I think I won't make any changes at all until the third Monday after July 4th. If there isn't a spike at the end of a partially reopened holiday weekend then we should be pretty safe. Safe to go grocery shopping, anyway, in the mornings when it's not too crowded and I'm all masked up.

Still not encouraging my mother to go out and about even a little. Hahahaha no.


* I know, it's a travesty.

** All I ask is that they don't gouge!

Comments

[greghousesgf]

I love Ben and Jerry's (and I've met Ben!) what flavor did you get?

[conuly]

Phish Food from the grocery store, Cherry Garcia last time I went to the corner store (not the nearest one or the one with the fancy chandeliers, the one that stocks Mexican coca-cola). But my favorite flavor is Chubby Hubby.

[greghousesgf]

I like Phish Food a lot, Cherry Garcia is a few of my friends' fave, but my fave is New York Super Fudge Chunk. I haven't had it in ages though because I've been on a diet for 6 years.

[conuly]

Ah, well, diets.

[lightbird]

Ben and Jerry's! I love my New York Super Fudge Chunk.

I really feel like June 8th may be too soon (in general, I think states are opening too soon, but it's not up to me and maybe I'm just more of a nervous person). My neighborhood is already super crowded on nice days, and a lot of people don't wear masks, or they wear them under their nose or under their chin, don't social distance, etc.

On the plus side, a lot of people will wait it out 2 weeks anyway, to observe and be sure. I'm lucky enough to work a job where I can work full-time from home, and my firm is already saying that they're going to wait 2 weeks from the official 'open' date before they let people go into the office. It will be flexible when they do, at least through the summer - if people want to work in the office they can, and firm will be making sure numbers and shifts are staggered so there aren't too many people in the office to social distance, and people who want to continue to work from home can.

[conuly]

Well, I'm not gonna start going out clubbing, anyway. I might go to Silver Lake or the beach (not a crowded beach, our local beach which is fairly dead during the week) and the grocery store. Maybe to the ETG book cafe. Not into the city or anything like that.

But I'm going to keep a watch on the numbers and, as I said, I'm not making any changes until after the 4th anyway. Two weeks after, so, like, the 19th or so.

[lightbird]

lol, no clubbing for me neither. I'm arranging to go out to my mom's in NJ once it's safe to do so. I really want to see her, and it will be out of the city.

I live in the East Village, so there's just a lot of people around and the parks are never empty unless it's a really off hour.

[conuly]

The North Shore is pretty built up, but if I'm careful to stay off of a few specific streets* and time my dogwalking carefully I can usually avoid people, thank goodness. Even now I could probably get all the way up to Silver Lake if I go the twisty way instead of straight up Victory - nobody goes the twisty way because the hills are too steep and it's all too turny. But Silver Lake... I don't know. It's a big park, and it ought to be clear enough of people, but then a lot of people might go there to let off steam or allow their kids to run around.

* Unfortunately, one of those streets is my normal route because that's the one with all the convenient garbage cans, so.

[conuly]

(Actually, come to think, the ferry ought to be safe if I sit outside during off-peak hours. But then I'm just wandering Lower Manhattan for the sake of going to Whole Foods.)

[lightbird]

Yeah, I think as long as you're doing stuff during off-peak hours you should be good, and the ferry should be fine if you're sitting outside and it's not crowded.

[lilysea]

The tips are really cutting into the grocery budget, and I don't begrudge the delivery guys their tips - they earn them! - but....

Australian here: do you tip a percentage of the grocery order, or a flat fee, or... ?

Honestly curious.



[When I get a delivery from a supermarket here in Australia I pay a delivery fee to the supermarket, between $15 Australian, $12, $9, $6, $3 and $0 Australian, depending on how much I order - the more $$$ of groceries you order, the lower the delivery fee. Regardless of what delivery fee I pay, the supermarket pay a flat wage to the driver [around Australian $40,000 - $59,000 per year]. No tips expected.]

[conuly]

I've been sort of in between a percentage and a flat fee. I'm not entirely sure what's appropriate here.

There is also a delivery fee. I'm not sure if Peapod is gig work or if the workers get a steady wage or if it's in between (like, they get a wage but have to pay for gas and mileage out of pocket, common with pizza delivery) but I am certain they are not paid what they deserve, even before the pandemic. I'm not actually thrilled with doing delivery... but I feel the net social cost of having one worker go to the store for multiple people rather than multiple people go to the store evens out.

[lilysea]

Oh, I didn't realise your deliveries were by a third party service! I thought the drivers were employed directly by the supermarket! [Here if someone gets groceries home delivered the drivers are almost always full-time supermarket employees]

but I am certain they are not paid what they deserve, even before the pandemic.

Totally not arguing with that, just curious how things work in different countries.

[conuly]

Having the groceries delivered by full-time employees hired by the store would be the smart way to do things, especially if they were able to take the goods directly instead of having to compete with in-store shoppers and some old-school stores may still work like that. Actually, for all I know Peapod might really be like that. If I do enough research to make an informed choice, I'm worried that my informed choice will be that none of it is good, and... last time I was at the supermarket I screamed at some woman. I posted about it. I don't think I'm really in a state where I should be interacting with hordes of people just yet.

[lilysea]

Having the groceries delivered by full-time employees hired by the store would be the smart way to do things, especially if they were able to take the goods directly instead of having to compete with in-store shoppers and some old-school stores may still work like that.

When I order from Woolworths, supermarket staff [not drivers] who would otherwise already be in the supermarket staffing cash registers; helping customers in the aisles; or restocking shelves
get diverted to pulling groceries off the aisles.

The driver doesn't have any contact with shoppers, either in the supermarket or at the delivery end - they're very clear that they don't want the driver to have any face to face contact when he delivers the groceries - they just leave them on your front doormat and send you a text message that they've arrived.

During the height of things in Australia, some Woolworths supermarket branches became delivery-only stores not open to the public - I am not sure if they are still doing that.

[redbird]

Peapod is connected to Stop and Shop (a specific supermarket chain). A lot of other groceries have connections to Instacart (which is gig work). And both of those will (if there are slots available) deliver to my house.

[redbird]

I know there's a union contract for at least some Peapod employees, but my quick googling didn't tell me whether that covers delivery people as well as the "pickers" who find your groceries for you. What I found was on the union's website, and it didn't say anything about location, just "local 400."

[conuly]

Well, if I give a tip, which person gets the tip?

[redbird]

I don't know, sorry.

[marahmarie]

Mayfield Extreme Moose Tracks for me. Haven't bought it (or oysters, for that matter, though the oysters are just a mental block) since before the plague hit over lack of freezer space and fearing ice cream, even if there was room for it, would melt by the time it got here via delivery.

The tips are really cutting into the grocery budget

Yeah, they do that. Walmart, my delivery source, uses a third party delivery service that drives it up to your door in their personal cars so despite the yearly price you pay for delivery you still have to tip each time...

[readerjane]

The one time I tried InstaCart, my shopper was the same person as my delivery guy. I could tell because he made sure to tell me how carefully he had selected the avocados. :-) He was clearly angling for a tip, but that was fine.

My tip was delayed, because we'd been notified of a suspect credit-card charge right after I'd placed the order. (It didn't have anything to do with the grocery order; the suspect charge had been made the day before.) In InstaCart's app, at least at the time, you designated the size of the tip after delivery, so I'd already paid the base charge for groceries, but hadn't yet paid the tip, and now my credit card number was cancelled.

Fortunately the bank issued a new credit-card number later that day, so I was able to switch our CC# in the app, and then entered a generous tip. I felt bad, though, that the delivery guy might have thought I hadn't given him any tip.

[chelseagirl]

I'm in the East Village and I've never stopped going to the grocery, but there are two within a very short walk of my apartment. And I mask and glove and social distance. And also, I'm only buying for two, so it's easy to get most of a week's worth in one trip.

[conuly]

I'm buying for five, we eat a lot of vegetables, and I have to walk up a hill. In normal times I go twice a week.