There’s nothing more grating, drivers say, than waiting an hour, only to see another driver pull up and immediately hear the chime of an incoming order on their phone.
That driver is often Mr. Huang, who attributed his special knack for nabbing high-dollar orders mostly to luck.
A former wedding photographer, Mr. Huang, 35, moved to Los Angeles from the Chinese province Hunan about four years ago and discovered delivering food was an easy job for someone with limited English skills. Now, he said, he works up to 10 hours a day, seven days a week, and he often makes more than $250 a day before expenses.
Getting a bad tip is frustrating, he said, “but I understand customers don’t want to tip; customers come from different countries that have different cultures.”
Still, certain orders stuck with him. When drivers hit a certain threshold on DoorDash, they are sometimes offered large orders to venues like sports stadiums. Mr. Huang once spent two hours transporting a $2,500 order of tacos to a music studio. His tip was $50.
On one trip in March, he packed five bags of groceries worth about $500 from Erewhon, an upscale supermarket chain, into his car. On his way to the customer, he guessed the tip might be about $30. Instead, it was a letdown: just $5.
Mr. Huang often dreams of a different career.
“My wife always asks me, ‘If we don’t do food delivery, what job would we do to make big money?’ I say, ‘TikTok,’” he said. “I want to be an influencer.”
