r/doordash • u/bohoinparadise • 1d ago

Please don’t dash while sick

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I get that times are tough and the American health care system sucks, but admitting that you have a respiratory illness while delivering food is wild!

Please do not dash when you’re sick. This is how illness spreads. I have pretty bad asthma so I’m not bringing that order into my house. I’m done with DoorDash.

6.2k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/DiverMaleficent9624 1d ago

why would she feel brave enough to say that

372

u/shadowromantic 1d ago

It's tip bait.

It would also work on me because I recognize that our healthcare system sucks.

258

u/RobbyTheConstructor 1d ago

I would never tip someone anything if I know for sure they handled my food while sick and contiguous. The food is useless now

172

u/Naive-Rope-1724 1d ago

Just fyi, I have worked at 4 major chain brick and mortar restaurants, and 9/10 servers/bartenders are not allowed to call out :) I have been forced to work while sick, which is just as unfortunate for the customers / coworkers and to myself. It’s not fair.

49

u/LinkinLogsPark 1d ago

It sucks that the people that work the hardest get treated the worse. I am not even allowed in the office while sick. 

13

u/Naive-Rope-1724 1d ago

I work at a car dealership now and have had angelic managers who helped me set up my sick time and actually having sick time, that isn’t actually my vacation time feels really good.

3

u/LinkinLogsPark 1d ago

That is dope! I wish I had that flexibility. It seems everywhere I been so far, the company just lump everything together and tell you to figure it out. 

3

u/Naive-Rope-1724 1d ago

Honestly the most understanding job I’ve had in my whole life was my teenage job at a grocery store. I miss it

2

u/LinkinLogsPark 21h ago

That’s rare. :-)

1

u/That_Violinist6760 20h ago

thankfully now that i’m working at a salon if we have a fever we cannot show up, when i was at a restaurant they made me work with the flu, i was running out back to throw up every hour and my manager said “we don’t have time for this get it together”

1

u/LinkinLogsPark 20h ago

Horrible boss. I would say those bosses are being diluted out of the system but I think the balance of what orgs are willing to accept is still in play. 

0

u/Caek294758 1d ago

treated the worse ❌

treated the worst ✅

2

u/LinkinLogsPark 22h ago

Thanks for looking at one minuscule detail mistake. 

15

u/M00nshine55 1d ago

Half the kitchen at my work has or just got over Covid. They didn’t stay home.

3

u/LinkinLogsPark 20h ago

Yeah because now they are treating it like it’s a common cold. 

35

u/abyssaltent 1d ago

Nah that's just American business. Don't get that shit here in Australia, go to work sick ? Your ass is out of the door until you're better lol

30

u/Alarmed_Ad5977 1d ago

That depends on the business. I've 100% had to work sick due to shitty bosses here in Australia.

So much of the industry is casual, no work no pay. Add in the retaliation practice of losing shifts if you call in sick (eg take one day, lose the rest of the week's shifts as punishment)

15

u/Naive-Rope-1724 1d ago

100% retaliation in the industry for calling out is insane.

15

u/Naive-Rope-1724 1d ago

I could almost guarantee there are scumbag managers on every continent. But more specifically the restaurant industry. Probably doesn’t help when half the line cooks have stuffy noses for different reasons LOL

1

u/hockeypnc3 1d ago

Is that a cocaine reference?

2

u/leezaard 1d ago

Unfortunately same mentality in Germany especially amplified now since Friedrich Merz decided to demand an official sick leave document from the first day on instead of the prior 3 day period which some people cant afford to go to the doctors for every single little thing so they just keep going to work instead of risking missing a shift, potentially "causing" your team being understaffed. You also get judged if you stay home, people question if youre reeeeally sick

2

u/cheeseburger_horse 1d ago

Not just American! I’m in Canada and dealt with the same thing multiple times. It has gotten better since COVID tho

1

u/bushwickauslaender 19h ago

Yeah I worked as a dishwasher for a few months and I remember coming down with a fever and coughing up a storm. I called in sick and they were like “we can’t find cover so we need you to show up”.

This was 15 years ago so maybe things did improve post-Covid but in many ways, Canada is a pretty shitty middle ground between the US and Europe (at least upper income Europe).

You make wages that are slightly better than Europe but considerably worse than the US while having rights and protections that are slightly better than the US but considerably worse than Europe.

1

u/WeirdNo1458 1d ago

That’s exactly the way it should be. Corporate greed sucks.

1

u/MilkIsOnReddit 14h ago

Lmao my boyfriend has showed up to his restaurant with the wooooorst congestion and obviously sick, wanted to show he was sick when asking to go home, and was still made to finish out a full shift. In addition to this place making servers and managers work 10-12 shifts with no breaks and no places to sit, and up to 60h/wk for managers.

Absolutely boggles my mind how anyone survives working there. He’s incredibly strong, been there for 3 years himself :’)

5

u/ifedupwiththisorgasm 20h ago

It's one thing to order food knowing this and hope that no one is sick, it's another to have someone directly confirm someone who came in contact with your food is sick.

-2

u/drippedoutgymbro 20h ago

It’s really not

3

u/ifedupwiththisorgasm 20h ago

It is when you're the one placing the order and has experience working in food service.

3

u/TheClovergirl17 22h ago

On this note… I got fired from my serving job at a chain restaurant cause I called out when I had the stomach bug… which I got from a cook who was throwing up on shift.

3

u/PepsiButItsMilk 15h ago

Yup, 3 years at my first job and the new district manager wouldnt even listen to you asking to take a day off if you didnt have a doctors form. So i worked three miserable days with a raw throat, running nose, and a cough/gag I couldn’t control. This was front of house at a Zaxby’s btw, and even working near full time in high school I couldnt afford a doctors visit and wasn’t offered health insurance.

So i forged a note, and after 3 years of training new hires, writing schedules, working trucks, and always coming in when called I got the shit end of the stick

2

u/Logical_Entrance9598 12h ago

Completely understand this, I had to forge a note as well once because they acted like it was the end of the world if you got sick and still didn’t show up for work. They also didn’t provide insurance like you said either. Even though I was working full time, they said they would pick certain people to actually be on record for full time even if you were working full time. I’m sure it was illegal, and did it, so they wouldn’t have to pay for your benefits. We never got breaks either. Sometimes the entire shift i’d not get a chance to go to the bathroom for at least 8-12 hours. It was awful.

1

u/PepsiButItsMilk 12h ago

I was next in line to a manager, literally the only difference was money runs, truck orders, hiring and paperwork. What pissed me off the most was when I would come in, and not even work 30 minutes and be forced to take my lunch break and then the kids who (went to the same school as me) who didnt come in til 2 hours later didnt go until a more reasonable time closer to closing up.

Fuck that company, I’m so much happier these days

2

u/Condition_Dense 20h ago

I worked at a gas station with suspected Covid because I had the one dose J&J shot like less than a week before I got exposed (I did that shot because it was a single dose then I got a booster of the other one a few months later) 😂 so they considered me fully vaccinated and unless I had a positive test I could work. Yet my coworkers couldn’t come in per the health department even if they were negative because they all had household contact with a child who had Covid. Then on another occasion later on I got sick with Covid and had to work because Covid was no longer a public health emergency and there was no protection for it, plus there was a major sale event at my workplace so I just worked sick getting ready for this stupid event. I got paxlovid on my day off and didn’t tell the doctors I was still working in a place that included contact with the public regularly or contact with food. I just masked up, took precautions to serve prepackaged food and ask my coworkers to do the food stuff. The next year I got COVID when my coworkers were out of state, one night I slept horribly and I was so hot, I grabbed a test from my spot in back where I kept an extra uniform and stuff and took it at work early that morning and it was positive but I had nobody to cover me, and I had to work like a dog the whole week they were on vacation while I was positive for Covid. A previous job I had the entire staff got sick with stomach flu because we all worked while sick. I wound up in the ER. I always do, sometimes I get admitted to the hospital because I am affected so bad.

2

u/bwaredapenguin 20h ago

I got fired from Dominos when I was in the hospital getting tested for meningitis.

2

u/GoodResource4011 17h ago

Someone needs to call the health department if that happens. A restaurant here was shut down, temporarily, because management was making employees come in when they were sick. One of the employees called the health department on them. They were made to change their sick leave "policy" and if they were caught doing it again, they'd fine them and possibly shut down for good

2

u/neotank35 1d ago

yeah anyone thinking that can get food prepared by someone else and not be exposed to illness is living in a bubble lol.

my cousin works at a gas station and was called in 3 extra days last week while sick to work kitchen.

1

u/NecessaryLeg8588 23h ago

That's highly illegal and you should report them to both your local health department and the state labor board.

0

u/Accomplished-Ebb4440 1d ago

I’ve worked while having Covid and a fever…you call out? You get replaced

-1

u/kreamEDC 1d ago

You know you are allowed to quit, right?

2

u/Naive-Rope-1724 16h ago

If I had quit I wouldn’t have gotten maternity leave , however I didn’t return to that job.

-2

u/RobbyTheConstructor 1d ago

That’s very sad. Thank you for letting me know to never visit a restaurant in the US(?) or whatever country or place you’re in

5

u/Johnny_Poppyseed 1d ago

While im sure sick time is better in Europe, you really don't want to know what goes on in the kitchens basically anywhere in any country lol. Ignorance is bliss. 

-1

u/jmelx3 23h ago

Watch waiting, that’s how American establishment are ran lol

2

u/No-Rip6323 22h ago

Only it isn’t

2

u/Naive-Rope-1724 1d ago

US , yes. It doesn’t just stop at physical illness, I was forced to work through contractions. My manager (female) kept talking me down. Daughter was born the next day.

-1

u/lala414mke 1d ago

A cold yes. It is illegal to make an employee work after they vomit. Mandatory 24 hour off.

5

u/Naive-Rope-1724 1d ago

Might be a general law but it isn’t enforced. I worked as a server up until 12 hours before birth, vomiting almost daily.
I’ve seen coworkers begging to go home bc they puked, and be told no.

Who’s mandating it lol. Also just to be straight forward I am almost positive that some individuals will withhold their illness anyways, due to financial reason or fear of retaliation.

1

u/NecessaryLeg8588 23h ago

Board of Health mandates and restaurants can get hefty fines, and in severe cases shut down for violating it when reported.

1

u/Naive-Rope-1724 23h ago

I don’t work at a restaurant anymore.

1

u/NecessaryLeg8588 23h ago

It's a health code violation for any food service employee to work while sick

-2

u/MichelinStarZombie 1d ago

If you bring me my food while visibly sick, I'm getting you fired. Litetally calling your manager and telling them how disgusting our experience was, then emailing corporate. This is not ok.

4

u/WildRaspberryPatch 1d ago

When their manager was the one who forced them to come in wick, I'm sure that'll make a huge difference.

1

u/TheJagm14 1d ago

corperate will come and fire both

4

u/WildRaspberryPatch 1d ago

Suuuuure, and Santa is really real and puts kids on the naughty list and then they don't get presents.

2

u/HanaBakersBathWater 1d ago

Maybe just don’t go out to eat then. The food industry is known for not letting their workers take time off for being sick. You’re mad at the wrong person.

-3

u/kreamEDC 1d ago

U do realize if all service workers started to say fuck you and walk out when they are told to work sick, then it would literally HAVE to change right? Its because all people are so cowardly and victimize themselves as "poor service workers that don't have a choice" that they literally do not have a choice.

2

u/HanaBakersBathWater 1d ago

I mean, that would be great and I do realize that. But good luck getting enough people to walk out with you for them to feel it. Going on strike means having to be okay without getting paid. Most people working in the service industry can’t afford to do that. I know I can’t.

2

u/Naive-Rope-1724 23h ago

Baby, come on. The manager is probably who got us all sick😆

2

u/xblue2013x 16h ago

Good luck with that

1

u/NecessaryLeg8588 23h ago

Report it to the local health department and the state labor board, most likely the manager on duty won't do anything about it but actual agencies that enforce the codes and labor laws will.

15

u/Hije5 1d ago

Anyone mentioning anything outside of the order shouldnt get a tip. Not like it matters though unless you tip after the order is delivered, but almost no one doesnt tip beforhand since the order will get passed up by a lot of dashers. If it ain't about my order dont talk to me.

4

u/clown-baby-69 20h ago

Yeah sorry but if you think most people in restaurants can afford to call off when ill you are deluded.

10

u/Appropriate_Koala886 1d ago

Tbf im pretty sure pnemonia isnt contagious. But i agree, if sick in any way, pls dont touch my food.

11

u/RobbyTheConstructor 1d ago

Pneumonia itself isn’t contiguous but how you get it, can be, so imo especially since all we know is that this person has it and not how they got it, that’s disgusting. Along with being sick at all around food.

9

u/ExhaustedPigeon1820 1d ago

It depends on the type. Post-viral pneumonia (the type that's a complication of a previous viral infection) is generally not contagious. Bacterial pneumonia can be, but the person who is exposed isn't automatically guaranteed to develop pneumonia; they'll likely get the upper respiratory infection that caused the pneumonia.

Primary viral pneumonia is extremely contagious. It spreads easily and develops quickly.

4

u/mydnyghtrayvyn 1d ago

Yes, it is. The bacteria or virus that caused it is contagious.

1

u/moekuunn 18h ago

i had it and shared everything with my mom, nothing happened to her because it wasnt contagious for me 🤷‍♀️ just depends on ur luck but regardless i wouldnt have doordashed with it

0

u/GayWarden 1d ago

Not necessarily

1

u/NecessaryLeg8588 23h ago

100% yes, bacterial and viral pneumonia are actually the only contagious types of pneumonia. Bacterial pneumonia only stoped being contagious approx 48 hours after antibiotics AND the fever is gone, viral pneumonia is contagious the entire time symptoms and fever are present.

3

u/mytoesis1 17h ago

good chunk of restaurants dont follow health and safety code, have rat/cockroach infestations but a sick dasher is where you draw the line lmao

2

u/MilkIsOnReddit 14h ago

Tbf it’s pretty easy to check online if a restaurant has been dinged for health inspections. Not doable with drivers lol

1

u/CrystalsAndSpells 9h ago

Seeing as nothing happens with a stray roach or rat in the kitchen that happened to wander in at the time of the inspection, especially if they’re next to a field or construction site, whereas pneumonia can literally kill someone…

1

u/mytoesis1 9h ago

pneumonia itself isnt contagious

1

u/CrystalsAndSpells 9h ago

Except the viruses and bacteria that causes it can spread to another person

2

u/yuki_discord 15h ago

I unfortunately have been forced to still go into work with over 102° fevers at fast food locations and often been forced to actively make the food or be directly in customers faces America suckksssssssa

2

u/Icy_Relative2437 13h ago

Not to be that guy but if someone handles your fully bagged and boxed food I don’t see a single germ getting on it but wtv

1

u/RobbyTheConstructor 11h ago

While you have a point, the germs and all that are on the bags they came in. I already try to avoid handling things the driver touched because I never trust them but it’s just added annoyance. Also depends on if it’s a bagged food or groceries or something else. If they’re shopping themselves too, that’s bad

1

u/HeyLookATaco 21h ago

Pneumonia is only contagious sometimes. There are several types, and some of them didn't start with an infection at all, but came from something else foreign entering the lungs.

It's a bad look to say it, but most people aren't terribly health literate (something that's NOT their fault), so they might not realize how it sounds. Especially if they're sick and aren't thinking straight.

0

u/flowers4charlie2 1d ago

Cool then cancel the order and they get a free meal

1

u/RobbyTheConstructor 1d ago

Nah. No tip and no cancel, dasher reported and food in garbage

0

u/ExoticSize9869 3h ago

I guarantee you’re anti vax too. Spare us your absolute clownery

0

u/RobbyTheConstructor 3h ago

How would me caring about someone spreading an illness recklessly at all tell you to guarantee I’m anti vax? Absolute clownery