GrabFood Rant: Grab have a really interesting way to reward their delivery partners!!

The new incentives for walkers have been release and I'm pretty shocked to know how Grab is rewarding their delivery partners for their hardwork!

I mean, we see a great jump in minimum number of trips to qualify for the Quest incentives while the incentive bonus has been decreased!

What do I mean?

Well, let's see the incentives from last week.

You need to complete 25 trips to get $30 incentives and 15 trips for $15 for the Weekday Quest! Now, that is pretty reasonable, considering the time needed to deliver an order. (You can get a rough idea from my previous post I calculated the hourly rate of a GrabFood Walker and ... )

Now the new Quest incentive is like this:

 

Let's have them compared ... 

You'll need at least 25 trips to even qualify for the incentive and then you get $5 less (it's $30 previously, now it's only $25!) They do add another "tier" which you need 40 trips to qualify... and that, I can tell you is quite impossible! Well, of course unless you work VERY long hours or say, get a PMD!

I work for an average of 7 hours daily and then I could only do about 6-7 trips, and this is the maximum I can do. And there will be days whereby I struggle to get 6 jobs within that 7 hours. I usually rest from 8-8:45pm to watch a show and have my dinner. After that, if I'm lucky, I get another 1-2 order between 8:45-10pm.

It is possible to get 8 trips per day but that would means that you've to work more than 7.5-8 hours per day and you must be fit enough to cover all that distance. Remember, I'm working 7 days a week.

As for the weekend Quest, the incentive decreased from $20 to $18 for 15 trips. And then... the new "tier" ... 25 trips in 2 days ... I'll just say this -  I'm not training for marathon nor do my muscles have that capacity!


Remember, I calculated an average of about $6/hr? Now, it'll just go lower because the incentives have decreased while the higher tiers are impossible to meet.

The other side to the PMD ban on footpaths!

Source

I know this is not going to be popular but I feel there is a need to also present the other side of the story, or at least let others be aware of what the cyclists face on the "roads".

But before I begin, I want to make it clear that this is not a post to side anyone or blame anyone. This is what I experienced while walking around to deliver food and on the few times that I did ride my bicycle to help me deliver fast.

While its a confirmed (plus chop) thing that PMDs will be banned on footpaths, I think the problem won’t be completely solved, not when some of the pedestrians are not willing to use the footpaths responsibly or be accommodating enough to share the path with others, be it bicycles or people.

It’s just sad that some of the pedestrians are showing this “triumph attitude” towards all users who are not on foot! It’s very extreme what some would do to other users.
 
I’ve experienced more than a few times when I’m cycling around when people started swearing, “Hey! You can’t cycle here!”, for no apparent reasons. But of course, sometimes these responses are triggered by the ringing of bell! 

Just the other day, I was cycling as usual and I rang the bell to warn others as the path is pretty narrow, but it's definitely still wide enough to let 2 bicycles pass each other. I was cycling towards an elderly man, and as usual, I ring to warn him. He looked at me with annoyance and then without warning, lifted his umbrella (with a pretty sharp metal tip) and pushed it forward and slightly sideways towards me. Its not totally directed at me but its so close I’ve to stop to avoid any contact with the umbrella! And then he just walked off with a victorious look on his face.

I find his action dangerous and totally uncalled for!! I was going really slow, slow enough to avoid his sudden swing of "weapon" and he still have to do that? Does he not care about the safety of cyclists?

I just hope the pedestrians stop and think for the cyclists too. Don't be hostile towards all of them, not everyone speed and disregard to safety of others.

Also, don’t walk like “pong mahjongs tiles” (row of 3) on the cycling paths! It’s actually safer if pedestrians just avoid walking on the cycling path and stay on their footpaths! There is a reason why the government wanted separate paths for both - to avoid accidents!


Before you started getting angry and leave a bashing comment, stop to ask yourself if you're one of those with the "triumph attitude"? Are you hostile towards all cyclist and are nasty towards them? Do you give way to other pedestrians? If so, why can't you do the same towards a bicycle?

Ordered Lay's Chips Again! Many New Flavours included!

It seems like buying potato chips (especially Lime and Cucumber flavoured ones) have become an annual "tradition" for my family. My mum loves them and when I ask her if she wants them for CNY, she would always say "YES!".

Anyway, I didn't wait for the double 11 sales to get them as I've won a discount coupon for TMall plus TMall is having their own promotion at the time of purchase!

I got 18 bottles of potato chips (14 of them are 104g and 4 of them 90g) and a packet of 145g chips for about SG$25, after all the discounts. But of course, shipment to Singapore is not included.

Unfortunately, TMall doesn't offer the new, more exotic flavours Lay's Chips (more about them later on) and I've to get them from some smaller stores. These exotic flavours chips are quite hard to get as they sell really fast, so I've to buy from 2 separate stores to get all the flavours I wanted.

Surviving Rate

I always trust TMall with for the packing and deliver service as from my previous experience buying from them, the parcel arrived in good condition and the chips well protected. I remember being able to have some whole chips instead of bits and pieces. But well this time round ...

Not so good. It's obvious that the package have not been well packed, hence the packet of chip arrived squashed and all the air have escaped. There are not enough anti-shock airbags to protect the bottles hence the bottles were all over the place too. So its not surprising that when I picked up the bottles, I hear some of crushed, broken chips. I think I can use them in cheer-leading -_-.

I haven't open them to eat yet, I'll update with a photo when I do.

As for the ones from the smaller stores... I was prepared for burst packages as I saw from the photo provided by PingAn International Express when it arrived in their warehouse, that the box was squashed.

But surprisingly, the casualty is little! Out of the 7 packets I bought, only 1 of them had burst open, the rest are still in good conditions. Btw, the chips in the burst package is still crispy.

 

I must say, I'm quite happy with PingAn International Express and the overall packaging of the smaller stores.

Total Costs

Shipping sensitive items like Potato chips from overseas is never cheap and so, take a deep breathe and prepare yourself before I reveal the total cost of everything including shipment!

TMall - ~SG$25
Smaller Store 1 - ~SG$4.50
Smaller Store2 - ~SG$5.50
Shipment - SG$22

Total - SG$57

$57 for 27 items of potato chips, so each item is about SG$2.15! Not very cheap but not really expensive. But since they're not available in Singapore, then well, its worth it!

Update: I just realised that Lime flavoured Lay's Chips (packet version) are being sold in NTUC, but well, its the bottle ones that taste better, trust me on this one!

Exotic Flavours

Well, well, it has finally come to the part which I'm very excited about - The exotic flavours! Care to guess what creative flavours they're this time round?

Packet Chips

 

 Top Row: 1st (from left) Grilled Eel, Sour Plum, Spicy Crayfish.
2nd Row: Fried Crab, White Peach

These flavours only comes in packet form and doesn't comes in bottles. I've yet to try them, so can't comment on its taste. But well, I'm excited over the sour plum and white peach one!

Update: I tried the spicy crayfish chips, it doesn't taste too bad. It's on the saltish side and have... well, it has this faint curry taste quite similar to Twisties'. Do I taste crayfish? Erm... what do crayfish taste like?

Bottled Chips

Left to Right: Chinese yam with pork ribs (brown), Purple Sweet Potato with coconut milk (Purple), Avocado with Wasabi (Green) and Pumpkin with caramel (Orange)

Seriously and honestly, I'm not very excited about these flavours except the Avocado one and it's because I like wasabi. LOL

Hopefully they don't taste too bad! Will update again about how they taste!

GrabFood Rant: I calculated the hourly rate of a GrabFood Walker and ...

I finally found the time to really collate and calculate (roughly) how much I work and how much I earned.

So I can, really divide out how much was earned per hour. But you know these are just estimation and varies daily. But I can quite confidently say that the daily earnings on Weekdays won't fluctuate very much, unless the weather is bad.

Anyway, while I'm able to give you these information, I do think that you guys might not want to hear... LOL. Don't say I never give you warning, it can get quite demoralising.

Note: I can only provide statistics for Walkers, so it may be different for others (Bicycle, Motorcycle and PMD...etc)

I would also like to add that some of these trips were done with the help of a bicycle, so if you're purely on foot, you might do lesser jobs than this (due to time taken to collect and send the food!)

Daily earning

*Note: Time shown are the time when job was accepted, not when it was done!

On a particular weekday, I earned a total of $32.11, completing 7 jobs. Well, that doesn't sound too bad, right?

But what if I tell you that I started working at 4:26pm in the evening and only got home few minutes shy of 10pm, with only an hour of break in between?

That is 4.5 hours for 6 jobs (there is one job which was done in the wee hours, so that doesn't count), making ($32.11-4.70 = $27.41).

Hourly Earning Without Quest Incentives

So if you're curious about the hourly payment, it's $27.41/4.5 = $6.10 (rounded up)/hr. That is less than what you get working at McDonald's.

But let's be fair and factor in the Quest Incentive, shall we?

Hourly Earning With Quest Incentives

The Weekday Quest incentive is at $15 for 15 trips and $30 for 25 trips. Let's assume we'll hit the 15 trips and so, we'll have a $15 bonus.

$15/5days = $3 bonus per day.

So if we add that in it'll be $30.41. And the the hourly rate will be $30.41/4.5 = $6.76. Close but still lesser than McDonald's hourly rate.


Well, let's see another day, still a weekday, I earned $33.83 from 7 jobs.

 

I ended work at 8:21pm. I remembered it clearly because I've wanted to rush home to watch the 8pm show when I got an order which sent me over 2.1km! My Acceptance Rate (AR) was low, so I HAVE TO take it!

This day is a little different, I started at 12:46pm and did 2 jobs till about 2:30pm, after which I just sat at a hawker, waiting for more jobs. There was none, so I headed home and rested for about 1 hour.

Hourly Earning Without Quest Incentives

So I worked for 6 hours (7hours - 1hours of break) and made $33.83 from 7 jobs. So that is $5.65 (rounded up)/hr. Still, we're making less than McDonald's hourly pay of $7!

Hourly Earning With Quest Incentives

$33.83 + $3 = $36.83. $36.83/6 = $6.14/hr! -_-


Ok, the final one.

 Although this is a Monday, it's actually considered Weekend due to it being a public holiday!

Made $28.71 from 6 jobs. I could have done more but I fell and got hurt. It's not serious but since my sister asked me to pack dinner back, I headed home and treated my wound.

I started at 11:41am and then worked all the way till 3:40pm, a total of 4 hours. The hourly earning will be $28.71/4 = $7.18. Finally, we've something about or slightly more than McDonald's hourly rate!

Well, I told you that you'd be demoralised when you find out the hourly rate of a GrabFood walker. It's just about $6/hr, possibly lesser on some days! The only time you perhaps could make more or close to McDonald's hourly rate is during weekends and public holidays.