# My first 8-hour PrimeNow experience



## tofu97 (Apr 8, 2017)

I got a reserved offer of 8 hour PrimeNow block on last Friday (2-10pm). I felt so honored since I had ever been doing 1, or 2 hour blocks here and there. So I decided to take it and in order to do it, I also took a half day of my normal full time job. Wow, what a experience. It's totally different from my past impression got from those 2 hour blocks. It's really stressful and next time I doubt I would accept such kind of offer anymore. And I will share my experience here.
I arrived the warehouse station (UWA1 located in Kirkland, WA) on time and got assigned the first itinerary with 4 deliveries. This one was not very eventful. The only difficult one is a lake front house that is completed fenced off. The fence has a door there but no doorbell and knocking doesn't work either because the distance between the fence and the house. I made 2 phone calls to the customer and the 2nd one was picked up. I finished the last delivery at 3:30pm at Newcastle, south side of the service zone. After that I follow the instruction heading back to UWA1 state along I405 North. Because it was Friday and people leave job early. So the traffic builds up only and at that time I could see the south bound I405 was already crawling.
At 3:59pm I was 1 minute away from UWA1. I was quite happy that I got back on time and ready to start next 2 hour delivery. Ding, I received my next itinerary on my phone and it asked me to pick up my next batch from PCC market, which is located in middle Issaqual. It has a 4 deliveries and last stop is in Kirkland. From UWA1 to Issaqual, it takes about 27 minutes driving during traffic-free time and at that time spot, Amazon GPS put an estimate travel time of 57 minutes. I immediately realized that there is no way for me to finish the work without some late delivery. I made a call to the support and explained the situation. The support asked to continue and when late, calling them again or call customer directly to explain. I had no choice other than turning around. To save time, I used Waze to route and it saved me 7-10 minutes by directing me go through local. On my way to there, they changed my last delivery location from Kirkland to Newcastle, which is closer to the pick up location. I arrived the pick up location at 5:05pm and rushed to get all the packages. Finished the first delivery quickly, then follow Amazon GPS to the next stop. What, it directed me to a drive way that is gated and it still far away from the delivery location. I immediately realized that this is a private way that is no open to through traffic. I had to open Google maps, which directed me correctly, but, added 5 more minutes because of the detour. After that, it became quite smooth although I drove a little faster to save as much time as possible. Miraculously, I was able to finish the last delivery at 5:57pm, 3 minutes before the late window.
Then I was directed to return to PCC market to wait. Half way down there, another Ping coming in and I was asked to picked up from this Pet store in Bellevue. This time, it's not that bad since the store is not that far from my location. I got there at 6:19pm and picked up packages for another 4 delivery. I felt good at that moment, thought this is an easy itinerary and the traffic also cleared up. Once on my way, I realized that this is a terrible itinerary. I need to deliver to Redmond, East Sammamish, East Issaqual and Newcastle, 4 different cities and 20-25 minutes drive between any 2 stops (above speed limit of course). I did my best and the expected to get the last delivery stop 5 minutes before the late window. I checked the customer instruction of the last delivery, it was really long and mentioned something like between xx St & xx Ave, least office, garage, lease office, gate code, elevator blah blah. I immediately had this bad feeling that I had no way to get it done within 5 minutes arrival of the location. Anyway, I got the delivery location following Amazon GPS and look around, it was an apartment block and nothing looks like what was mentioned in the instruction. My feeling is this is not the right location. I had to turn to Google Map again and unsurprisingly, the actual delivery location is 5 minutes away down the road. I started driving again and at the same time called the support to explain. Got there 8:02pm and it's late. And it's a new apartment building and I had no interests to follow the lengthy instruction. So I called the customer there and she was very nice and offered to get down to pick up the delivery. At 8:06pm I finished that 2 hour block and got my first late delivery. 
Finally, the last 2 hour delivery was an easy one and I was able to finish the day at 9:10pm.
So, I ended up working non-stop for 7 hours (8 hours if considering the time taken to drive to and from the work location) and drove 165 miles in total. I didn't use any restroom and eat anything during the work. It is really exhausting and stressful. I was constantly trying to catch on the delivery window. The final gross earning with tips is 209$. 
I think most likely I won't take such long hour block any more, unless Amazon can fix the issue in the app. The app clearly doesn't take consideration of the traffic and the time a driver needs to move the packages, interact with the customer etc. It probably just calculate an itinerary based on the ideal point to point time. 
In comparison, Amazon Fresh is more reasonable scheduled and personally I prefer it also more now. I think 1 hour delivery is also ok. The bad side is you need to spend time getting there and getting back, just in order to work an hour, which makes it economically not very attractive unless you live very close to the station. I also did an Amazon eatery once. It's not bad. However, I have this feeling that eatery is the one that is relatively easy to get you a customer complain. Otherwise, it's good and customer tips well.


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## nighthawk398 (Jul 21, 2015)

Wow you know how to tell a story


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## miauber1x831 (May 5, 2016)

TL;DR


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## Ubercal (Jul 25, 2016)

Trump doesn't need to build a wall, he can just make one out of all the text up above.


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## Shangsta (Aug 15, 2016)

Uw4a is the hardest warehouse to get into in our area so I will first say congrats. That's the issue with driving there the delivery area is too expensive and the 405 is awful. I think the best thing about 2 to 4 hour blocks is you can hit the mid day and avoid traffic.


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## Ubercal (Jul 25, 2016)

Yeah too bad it's starting to become 1 hour and hour and a half at UWA4.


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## DirkDeadeye (Jul 28, 2017)

tofu97 said:


> I got a reserved offer of 8 hour PrimeNow block on last Friday (2-10pm). I felt so honored since I had ever been doing 1, or 2 hour blocks here and there. So I decided to take it and in order to do it, I also took a half day of my normal full time job. Wow, what a experience. It's totally different from my past impression got from those 2 hour blocks. It's really stressful and next time I doubt I would accept such kind of offer anymore. And I will share my experience here.
> I arrived the warehouse station (UWA1 located in Kirkland, WA) on time and got assigned the first itinerary with 4 deliveries. This one was not very eventful. The only difficult one is a lake front house that is completed fenced off. The fence has a door there but no doorbell and knocking doesn't work either because the distance between the fence and the house. I made 2 phone calls to the customer and the 2nd one was picked up. I finished the last delivery at 3:30pm at Newcastle, south side of the service zone. After that I follow the instruction heading back to UWA1 state along I405 North. Because it was Friday and people leave job early. So the traffic builds up only and at that time I could see the south bound I405 was already crawling.
> At 3:59pm I was 1 minute away from UWA1. I was quite happy that I got back on time and ready to start next 2 hour delivery. Ding, I received my next itinerary on my phone and it asked me to pick up my next batch from PCC market, which is located in middle Issaqual. It has a 4 deliveries and last stop is in Kirkland. From UWA1 to Issaqual, it takes about 27 minutes driving during traffic-free time and at that time spot, Amazon GPS put an estimate travel time of 57 minutes. I immediately realized that there is no way for me to finish the work without some late delivery. I made a call to the support and explained the situation. The support asked to continue and when late, calling them again or call customer directly to explain. I had no choice other than turning around. To save time, I used Waze to route and it saved me 7-10 minutes by directing me go through local. On my way to there, they changed my last delivery location from Kirkland to Newcastle, which is closer to the pick up location. I arrived the pick up location at 5:05pm and rushed to get all the packages. Finished the first delivery quickly, then follow Amazon GPS to the next stop. What, it directed me to a drive way that is gated and it still far away from the delivery location. I immediately realized that this is a private way that is no open to through traffic. I had to open Google maps, which directed me correctly, but, added 5 more minutes because of the detour. After that, it became quite smooth although I drove a little faster to save as much time as possible. Miraculously, I was able to finish the last delivery at 5:57pm, 3 minutes before the late window.
> Then I was directed to return to PCC market to wait. Half way down there, another Ping coming in and I was asked to picked up from this Pet store in Bellevue. This time, it's not that bad since the store is not that far from my location. I got there at 6:19pm and picked up packages for another 4 delivery. I felt good at that moment, thought this is an easy itinerary and the traffic also cleared up. Once on my way, I realized that this is a terrible itinerary. I need to deliver to Redmond, East Sammamish, East Issaqual and Newcastle, 4 different cities and 20-25 minutes drive between any 2 stops (above speed limit of course). I did my best and the expected to get the last delivery stop 5 minutes before the late window. I checked the customer instruction of the last delivery, it was really long and mentioned something like between xx St & xx Ave, least office, garage, lease office, gate code, elevator blah blah. I immediately had this bad feeling that I had no way to get it done within 5 minutes arrival of the location. Anyway, I got the delivery location following Amazon GPS and look around, it was an apartment block and nothing looks like what was mentioned in the instruction. My feeling is this is not the right location. I had to turn to Google Map again and unsurprisingly, the actual delivery location is 5 minutes away down the road. I started driving again and at the same time called the support to explain. Got there 8:02pm and it's late. And it's a new apartment building and I had no interests to follow the lengthy instruction. So I called the customer there and she was very nice and offered to get down to pick up the delivery. At 8:06pm I finished that 2 hour block and got my first late delivery.
> ...


Ex soda/beer delivery guy. That sounds like a breeze. Inteneraries are always optimistic as hell, I think if you did it some more and learned your area it gets easier. I've been all over the 5 counties in Tampa Bay throughout my career(s) as a beer/soda rep/driver/merchandiser. It's daunting as hell at first but when you learn the turf and get better the free time slowly comes.


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