I’m in the same boat, and I’ve learned that the answer is I don’t want the smell of burning eyeball lingering in my mind no matter how well I see afterwards.
Bruh, my only vehicle for close to two years was a truck that I inherited, a 2002 Chevy Silverado 1500 LS. I believe it got about 8mpg on average, but I dealt with it because I didn’t have any other way to get a different vehicle at the time.
Nowadays I drive a 2018 Ford Fiesta SE. The difference is night and day. Stops on a dime, accelerates quickly, I can fit it anywhere I want, and it gets an average of 34mpg. I went from paying between $75 to $125 every week and a half for gas to spending about $30 over the same time period.
I know a lot of folks don’t like it for a multitude of reasons, but it works well for me. I take it about an hour before I get to work and I’m actually able to focus on work as opposed to why I don’t wanna be there. It’s great. Also helps that my job is pretty great overall, but being able to focus on actually getting up and doing stuff is great.
I can’t even imagine what other folks go through. I’m a white, straight, married, male, and I honestly have it tough. It pains me to know that, in the grand scheme of things, I have it easy.
Lately? I don’t. Uber, DoorDash, all of ‘em can’t bother to pay people what they’re worth, meanwhile customers are overcharged for literally everything.
Furthermore, my experience in Austin, TX is that drivers can’t bother to actually read delivery instructions… or can’t because they can’t read English. This is fine, but translation apps exist and 9/10 drivers just can’t be bothered.
My experience is also that, half the time, drivers can’t be bothered to actually double check whether the restaurant actually bothered to give them everything I ordered, or they’re taking shit for themselves because they aren’t getting paid enough. Whatever, that’s fine, most of the time Uber Eats would refund the stuff that was missing… right up until they stopped outright. I got tired of paying for food I straight up wasn’t getting.
Never mind that Uber seems to be going out of their way to avoid paying anyone a living wage or even call the drivers employees in the first place.
It’s just not worth it. I take less time to get the food myself anyway, and spend less doing it.