I'm an Uber Eats driver — yes, we eat your fries, and that's not all that happens behind the scenes
They'll have fries with that.
An Uber Eats driver is spilling the beans on a host of unsavory behind-the-scenes behavior committed by the culinary couriers — from purposefully slowing down when customers are rude, to swiping your precious food.
'I don't make a habit of it, but yeah, I've taken fries,' Tom, 33, who asked to keep his surname anonymous to avoid losing his job, told UK license plate firm Plates Express, The Sun reported.
3 'One night I was out late, and hadn't eaten all day,' the fry-jacker (not pictured) admitted. 'The bag was open, and I took a nugget. Not proud of it but also not the first.'
kapinon – stock.adobe.com
The deliveryman admitted that while he tries to remain 'professional,' sometimes he just can't resist the urge to pilfer from a customer's order, especially when the packaging is unsealed or partially open.
'When you're stuck in traffic with someone's [fries] next to you and you've not eaten in hours, it's tough,' lamented Tom, who copped to skimming more than once.
'One night I was out late, and hadn't eaten all day,' the fry-jacker admitted. 'The bag was open, and I took a nugget. Not proud of it but also not the first.'
The Uber Eats professional claimed that every delivery driver yoinks fries 'whether they admit it or not.'
3 Tom said that open or partially sealed bags are particularly hard to resist.
Steve Cukrov – stock.adobe.com
According to an alarming US Foods study from 2019, more than 1 in 4 delivery drivers were guilty of munching on the food they were supposed to be dropping off.
Taking an unauthorized food tax isn't the only way that Tom bends the rules, he revealed.
The sneaky burger courier claims that he also likes to punish impolite patrons by taking his time during their delivery.
3 Tom (not pictured) said every delivery driver has been guilty of fry-way robbery.
naka – stock.adobe.com
'I do my best to be quick, but if someone starts messaging me saying 'where are you?' or 'hurry up', I slow down,' Tom declared. 'I'm not gonna race across town for someone who's giving me grief.'
He added, 'I get that people are hungry, but I'm juggling traffic, queues, and tight timings. When they're rude, it just puts me off.'
Tom said customers can maximize their chances of getting their food on time — and hopefully untouched — by tipping and saying 'thank you.'
'I don't get the same people often, but when I do, I'll make sure their food stays upright, dry — whatever it takes,' he said. 'But if they ignore me or slam the door, yeah… I'm not going out of my way next time.'
Unfortunately, Uber Eats couriers have been accused of more than simply taking a few fries off the top
Like something devised by Brad Pitt's blue-collar rebel in 'Fight Club,' some mealtime motorists in Australia have been stealing whole orders in an ate-and-switch scam that's left both restaurants and customers high and dry.
The way it works is that the delivery people accept a pick-up gig, arrive at the restaurant, and then pretend to verify that they've collected the order. But instead of delivering the goods, they keep it for themselves.
Once outside, said pick-up is canceled and another delivery provider is assigned the job, only to arrive and find there's nothing to collect.
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He also dissociated at work, spending much of his time on the production line 'thinking I was on holiday…I would dream I was in Spain somewhere — just anywhere but what I was doing.' Now, he said, he lives like a hermit and still dreams about slaughterhouses six to seven nights a week. He also has violent thoughts of hurting people, which he had never had prior to working in meat processing. 'I suffer with PITS as a result,' Tom said, referring to perpetration-induced traumatic stress, a subcategory of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, in which the cause of the trauma is being a perpetrator of violence — in this case, slaughtering animals for food — rather than being a victim of it. Processing Meat A newsletter analyzing how the meat and dairy industries impact everything around us. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Physical injury rates are high in slaughterhouses, making it one of the more dangerous occupations. But much less is known about the mental and emotional toll of slaughterhouse work. Psychology researchers have difficulty accessing slaughterhouse worker populations, and so we're left with a handful of small studies. As a result, it's unknown exactly what share of the world's millions of slaughterhouse workers suffer from PTSD or other mental health conditions. But what's certain is that many do — surveys of slaughterhouse workers show high rates of anxiety and depression, and many have shared stories of mental health struggles with researchers and journalists. The problem is likely to worsen in the years ahead, as more and more slaughterhouses are built around the world to satisfy increasing meat consumption. 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One report involved a pregnant dairy cow who gave birth on a slaughterhouse-bound truck. Because the trailer was so crowded, the calf's head was smashed in by other cows. Pigs lie dying on a bloody slaughterhouse floor in Canada as a worker stands over them before pushing them into a scalding tank. Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals 'I'm a shell of what I was when I walked in that [first] day,' Magna told me. Throughout his career, he'd try to improve conditions, but the deck was stacked against him: regulations are weak, violators face little to no penalties, and higher-ups often didn't take his concerns seriously. Like Tom, the slaughterhouse worker in Europe, Magna drank excessively to cope. He also had dreams in which he was a chicken packed in a crate and then slaughtered. His mother, who had briefly worked on the slaughter line, had similar dreams. Objects like a plate of meat or a truck can trigger flashbacks for Magna. He's dealt with suicidal ideation, and a few years ago, he was diagnosed with PTSD and bipolar disorder. Gathering broader data on the experiences of people who work in slaughterhouses has proven difficult, but there is some. A few years ago, a literature review by psychologists Jessica Slade and Emma Alleyne at the University of Kent found slaughterhouse workers have higher rates of anxiety and depression, and a higher propensity for physical aggression. A small study of slaughterhouse workers in South Africa found that each had recurring nightmares, like Tom and David, and some workers have reported high rates of alcoholism in the workplace. But there's been no large-scale study investigating PTSD rates among slaughterhouse workers, and there's a good reason why: It would be hard to conduct such a study without cooperation from meat companies. And many slaughterhouse workers are undocumented immigrants who might be reluctant to share their stories, even if they were anonymous. 'This system oppresses everyone' Some people who live near factory farms, which produce vast amounts of animal manure that pollutes the air and water, call their communities 'sacrifice zones' for the meat and agricultural industries. In low-income and disproportionately immigrant communities, the meat industry has found its sacrifice populations — people with few economic opportunities who must kill animals for hours on end and suffer whatever physical or psychological trauma may come. 'It is unnatural and inhumane for someone to kill for hours every day,' Susana Chavez, a former slaughterhouse worker in Mexico, wrote in a 2022 op-ed. Former slaughterhouse inspector David Magna holding Peter, a rescued pig, at Dara Farm Sanctuary in Ontario, Canada. David Magna And as MacNair has noted, our high demand for cheap meat creates ever more trauma — trauma that is outsourced to these sacrifice populations. And killing isn't the only potential source of trauma. Employees can also experience physical or sexual violence from colleagues, something some women in slaughterhouses have reported, and experience or witness severe accidents among other workers. In The Dying Trade, Tom recalled a time when a coworker got stuck in a machine and was essentially cut in half: 'I can still hear him screaming.' Activism 'has given me a new lease on life,' he said. 'I'm fortunate; I got out of this system. For whatever reason, I'm here today doing this, and I think of the people that aren't so lucky.' He mentioned a former coworker, Maria, who had to get carpal tunnel surgery like many other slaughterhouse workers, due to intense wrist pain from making repetitive cuts to animal carcasses. When Magna asked her why she's still working at the plant, she told him that because she doesn't speak English, she doesn't have many options. She said she has to continue on to provide for her kids — that her own life doesn't matter. 'This system,' Magna said, 'oppresses everyone.'
