One summer I didn't do very well in my job search and ended up getting a job as a delivery driver for a local pizza place. Not a great job but with tips and a car with decent mileage I was about to make a pretty good amount of money. It was very easy but every once in a while I would encounter a principal agent problem that was rough to deal with because it was not my fault and not always easy to resolve.
The process was basically an assembly line. The cashier would get a call and take the order, then the cooks would make the pizza and put it in the oven. When it was ready somebody cut it up, put it in the box and called the name of the driver who was to deliver the order. Easy process, generally very efficient. However, every now and then I would get to the house and hand the person their order and they would take a look to make sure it is right. A lot of times if it was wrong, the person would just accept it if it was basically the same thing. There was this one time that I was given the wrong thing and when I arrived at the customer's house to deliver it, they were very angry to see that it was wrong and since they were paying in cash, they refused payment. With the position I held I had no ability to offer the customer anything to make up for the mistake. The company did not like to waste money so they were very hard to talk with on the phone when things like this go wrong. Therefor, I was usually just stuck in the middle of this, trying to satisfy the customer who I have to deal in the present, and also satisfy my employer who I have to make sure if fine with everything I do so that I do not suffer any consequences in the future. I am not entirely sure if this qualifies as a principal agent problem, but it at least has similar qualities in that I am working to satisfy two parties at the same time.
The whole tip situation is another example, and this one is probably experienced by every worker who relies on tips. If customers do not tip I do not receive any money other that the very low hourly wage. It is an issue because the employer doesn't make up for that by throwing a little extra money your way, so I just feel like I wasted gas by driving there because I would have made the same amount of money by staying at the store. I think it would be fair for the company to give me a couple bucks in that situation, because they wouldn't have made any money in that situation if they did not have anybody to deliver it. This is a principal agent problem because I am getting treated unfairly by both sides when this happens.
Let's separate this out into errors first and then tips second.
ReplyDeleteOn errors, somebody else writing about working in a restaurant seemed to suggest they are fairly common. I didn't understand why there. I can imagine it more likely here, since once the pizza is in the box it looks like every other pizza in a box and unless it is marked clearly immediately, a mistake can be made. Given that, errors sound like the cost of doing business. But for you as a driver, where does it leave you? Eat the pizza that the person wouldn't accept delivery on? Obviously the place loses money when this sort of thing occurs. But I didn't hear from you how they might respond, either to you or to the people in the kitchen or at the cash register after the fact. Is there anything to be done then?
It seems to me tips have to be considered on average over a certain period - say the evening or the entire week. Some people will tip generously. Others will stiff you. The company clearly will not put the tip into the price of delivery, because then the price looks higher as compared to competitors.
Now some tipping is performance based - which for this job means it takes a long time from when the person called in till the pizza is delivered. If you're delivering many pizzas on the same trip, the person who is first likely will tip higher than the person who is last. That would seem to make sense.
In any event, I'm not sure this is a great example of the triangle, since you do your delivery job pretty much the same regardless of how the principals behave. It didn't sound like you got captured by one of the principals.
I could see how errors occur in a restaurant but I am sure they are probably made in a different way. I imagine that it often comes from an error on the part of the person who took the order. I have seen what those screens look like that the waiter inputs the order into based on what they write on their paper. There is not much room for error, so it is very easy to put in the wrong thing, especially when it is touchscreen, which it often times is. I could also see it happening because the waiter wants to seem more professional and memorize the order, hoping for a better tip based on their quicker order taking. I also feel like restaurants get a lot more hectic so errors are bound to happen, and I have seen people get unreasonably angry over an incorrect order. One even refused to pay for his appetizers and drinks and stormed out. That being said, the cost of these mistakes is generally much higher for delivery because it takes so much time for a driver to bring the order back, make a new order, and drive it back. Because of that, we would often just lose the money and I would be out a tip.
ReplyDeleteI see what you are saying in that good tips make up for the bad, but I felt that I earned my good tips and people would give me a better that average tip because I would call when I was on my way and give an estimated time of arrival, I was very polite, and I didn't waste time on my deliveries. So when I received a small tip or none at all, I don't feel that that was deserved, so it shouldn't have to take away from the better tips I got.
I know it wasn't a great example of the triangle but I have not really had much experience with a principal agent problem mostly because I have not had any of my own clients. I was usually given a pretty strict schedule and told what to do, so I did not have much flexibility and usually just sent any issues to my employers to resolve.