Internet Thread Puts "Toxic" Trend On Blast, People Ask Delivery Drivers to Draw on Boxes and Fulfill Special Requests
We all know how this one goes:
- Place an order for delivery; in the "Notes" or "Special Instructions," put a comment asking the delivery driver or pizza place to fulfill some inane request. Be it drawing something, writing a joke on the lid, or some other ridiculous instruction on how to prepare the food. Post a photo of the result on the internet for fake points and clout.
- ????
- Profit.
In the case of the underpants gnomes, phase two might remain forever a mystery, but in this instance, it's easy to decipher what phase two is… "Skip step one and write something on the pizza box yourself. Post a photo on the internet for fake points and clout."
Remarkably, these posts always do well. Just do a quick google search for anything related to the topic, and you'll find more image results of pizza box drawings than Gabby Epstein receives dick pics. I'd be willing to stake a fair amount that at least half of these were drawn by the supposed requesters.
But let's suppose for a second that most of these are real. Is it really ok for us to be asking for special requests from people who are paid a base rate less than minimum wage? Are we cool with that?
Yet we're asking them to perform additional chores for us in order to receive the tip that will push them up to minimum wage. A tip that they should be receiving just for delivering the damn pizza to us. Instead, we ask them to dance and jump through hoops like trained monkeys. Whether we intend it to come across this way or not… Any demand like this is accompanied by a thinly veiled threat that they will not be receiving this tip if they do not comply. It's a power dynamic built into any service industry job that relies on tipping. The Original Poster of the r/antiwork topic uses the term "coercion." At first, I thought that might be overstepping, but that's literally what this trend is upon further reflection.
As a side note… This is why you should never hit on your waitress or anyone in a customer service role… They're not being nice to you because they like you. They're being nice to you because they'd like to be able to afford food and rent. Trying to impart anything onto the relationship other than the already defined "Service Person Serves Customer" is coercion. They are being coerced into not saying no to you in fear of their job or other repercussions that could affect their employment.
Anyways, this whole thing begs the question… Is this just harmless fun and games? Or is this entire trend exploitation?
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This take on the trend was a hot topic of conversation in a r/antiwork thread on the topic. It was posted last week with the title: "Growing trend to ask delivery workers to "tell me a joke" "draw me a picture." Just no. Why is this being normalised and defended so much…?"
A correction of the r/antiwork post I'd probably like to issue is that the post's author defines the trend as "recent" and "growing," whereas google trends shows a decrease in interest over time. Also, this trend is by no means recent, and it has even earned its place in internet history. Know Your Meme's entry on the trend identifies it starting as early as 2007. Which makes this trend just about as old as the original meme that started it all for us here at Cheezburger.
"On October 19th, 2007, the Internet humor blog The Sneeze[1] published an article titled "The Great Pizza Orientation Test," which featured screenshots of a custom pizza order testing to see if they would properly fulfill his requests."
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Regardless, the thread raises an interesting point. The Original Poster starts off the thread with the following statement.
"I've noticed in multiple topics over the last few days in other subreddits, people uploading the picture their delivery drivers did for them (after they included wanting one in their orders), or asking them to write a joke on the pizza box. Anybody who points out that this is wrong and minimum wage workers aren't your performing monkeys gets downvoted into absolute oblivion and called bores or insulted as whining babies."
The commenters were on board with this interpretation of the trend, with some users sharing similar experiences in their lines of work.
What's your take on this? Fun and games? Or exploitation?
The full thread from antiwork and some examples of the trend are included below.
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Some viral examples of this trend from over the years...
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