# SWIPE.. SWIPE.. SWIPE.. Yer all crazy



## TonySanDiego (Mar 21, 2017)

Maybe I am crazy too. But spending several hours constantly swiping the android screen is soul killing for me. So yes, I swiped for two hours yesterday morning and got a block for 11:30 out of RB (DSD1). Loaded the block and got it delivered almost on time with no returns.



I did have an encounter with Cujo on my last stop. Rang the bell hoping someone was home since there was no good place to put the medium sized box. A young lady comes to the door and as I handed her the package, here comes a great white wolf looking thing racing out of the interior. He meant business and luckily the girl got hold of him just in time. Hmmmnnn...



But back to the swiping... Is this really the best way for Amazon to create a stable and proficient group of drivers? I personally have other things in my life. This swiping thing sort of takes over my whole day, at least until I get a result. Then of course I have to plan around the actual delivery.



Seriously, I have other things to do which I cannot attend to if I am going to be "fishing" all the time. I am learning to develop a website using the latest tools and that takes concentration. I could easily hear a notification and answer it, but constantly stopping to swipe.... not so much. Plus I have grand kids... and on.. and on.



I am the prototypical type of person that I would think Amazon would really like to have on board. I am a retired engineer, very stable and dependable, very diligent about what ever I am accepting as a task. I have done 3 blocks with the idea that i would deliver every one of those packages no matter what. Out of about 100 pkgs, I had to return 2. One for a bad address and the other a private gated driveway that neither myself nor support could get a code for.



So one would think that Amazon would think "let's keep this driver around". But does Amazon think, in their most fevered imagination, that I am going to sit around all day every day swiping the screen?



SWIPE... SWIPE... SWIPE... Please somebody tell me "What are they thinking"?



I have a reserved block for today and that may be my last unless I just happen to swipe and just happen to catch a block. This is not likely so much as I can understand. And I will lose interest soon.



So, does Amazon care? This model is working for them.. I guess. I just question the quality of the work force they are getting. Who is willing to sit around swipe.. swipe.. swiping all day??? Who?



Thanks for listening, and any enlightenment will be appreciated.



Tony


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## nighthawk398 (Jul 21, 2015)

All I can say us there is plenty of shifts in my area right now. I haves full time job so can only work weekends or nights


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## Movaldriver (Feb 20, 2017)

Lately when I get the blocks available notification I actually have enough time to.go on and get one. Seems like they are no longer disappearing the minute they come up. Don't know if that's a change they made or not as many people constantly checking.


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## limepro (Mar 7, 2015)

Here is my thoughts on it.

The dispatchers love us that have put the time in, reliable and proven. They don't agree with what amazon is doing either.

Amazon is worried about liability and having someone confused for an employee with the work record to go to court with. With the tap to refresh we found work around by using frep or other auto touch macros. Swiping is a bit harder to get working correctly so it will cut down on those that are always there, thus limiting their exposure to lawsuits.


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## Glamour&Excess SD (Feb 26, 2017)

Tony, I agree.


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## shadowrose45 (Aug 17, 2016)

I'm in Orlando and haven't seen even one block with constant swiping


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## Behemoth (Jan 26, 2015)

I agree, it's not worth it to spend few hours to get a block. I also don't understand what Amazon is doing. They want packages to be delivered in a timely manner, on the other side they don't like their reliable drivers working too many hours.
I have a full time job as well, so I don't care too much about this gig. What I see uber makes more sense for those willing to drive full time.
Also getting a block in Chicago is less likely than spotting an unicorn. They release them (not unicorns) every hour now. So I can't even see exactly what time and day it will be... and they're gone already lol.
Good luck fishing


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## krazo (Nov 10, 2015)

limepro said:


> The dispatchers love us that have put the time in, reliable and prove


It's good to see the limepro back on the forum. I was hoping that the elimination of rooted phones would free up some blocks here in Miami. Unfortunately not. Those with cloaked rooted phones and multiple driver accounts are getting most of the pop up blocks. I drove a scheduled 2 hour warehouse block today, first one in a while, and the supervisor of dispatch gave me a hard time because I have been unable to pick up blocks. I explained to him that i have only one driver account, and that my phone is not rooted. His response was that I needed to get with the program. I guess that means I'm supposed to violate Amazon policy.


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## Shangsta (Aug 15, 2016)

I think the logic at the top is that someone who swipes for new blocks is going to show up for their blocks and give a crap about the job they do. Those who aren't willing to swipe are somewhat weeded out. Granted this is flawed due to bots and the fact some of us are hard workers who just don't have the time to swipe. I get their thinking.



Behemoth said:


> What I see uber makes more sense for those willing to drive full time.


I disagree strongly. Uber/Lyft requires you to work odd hours to make a full-time living. If you drive 9 to 5 for Uber you will make minimum wage, in my market with Flex you can work from 9 to 5 in my market and make 144 a day driving Flex.

Also with all the miles Uber puts on, it's just a matter of time before you have a major repair or need a new car. You can drive a 25 year old beater for Flex. In my market you need a 2007 or newer for U/L.


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## grams777 (Jun 13, 2014)

Same here. I gave up on it about a month ago.

If you get a min wage job instead of using the time you were swiping, you would probably come out ahead.

I did some calculations in another thread that came out to about $7 per hour for the real flex equivalent including expenses, fishing, and other time spent.

Now with the variable base pay, the whole amazon flex thing is really not looking good. In my market, you are driving a lot of miles per block and have quite a bit of unpaid time you are driving or returning to the warehouse. Almost every block you're driving about 20 + miles in each hour. So the expenses add up while the pay goes down.

Some markets you may be able to swipe and get an offer. And some people make more on blocks than others. But I doubt that's the case for the vast majority. Even if you get all the blocks you try for, it still is very questionable as to being worthwhile.

Now, I will say that Amazon probably still beats Uber and Lyft especially when doing more hours. For me, it's nearly impossible to even get near minimum wage on Uber / Lyft for a large number of hours per week (after all car expenses - not just gas). With Amazon flex on the other hand, minimum wage should be attainable (after all car expenses and including all hours fishing and driving unpaid).


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## soupergloo (Jul 24, 2015)

I hardly spend any time at all fishing for shifts anymore .. I know (roughly) when each warehouse manager drops shifts and can usually fill my day with 6-8 hours by spending less than an hour fishing every day.

I'd highly suggest talking to people at your warehouse, or even your warehouse managers to find out when shifts are dropped; it also helps to know other drivers that you can exchange shifts with.

At UCA1, there's a handful of us that are consistently there because we all know when shifts are dropped and I don't give *any *new drivers that information .. all of the other drivers either pick up restaurant shifts (that are somewhat easier to get than warehouse) or give up. I doubt Amazon cares how much time drivers spend looking for shifts because shifts don't sit more than a second here in SF. There are drivers that come from 200 miles away to do this in SF, and it's those same dumbass drivers that don't mind spending countless hours of their day fishing for shifts.


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## grams777 (Jun 13, 2014)

soupergloo said:


> I hardly spend any time at all fishing for shifts anymore .. I know (roughly) when each warehouse manager drops shifts and can usually fill my day with 6-8 hours by spending less than an hour fishing every day.
> 
> I'd highly suggest talking to people at your warehouse, or even your warehouse managers to find out when shifts are dropped; it also helps to know other drivers that you can exchange shifts with.
> 
> At UCA1, there's a handful of us that are consistently there because we all know when shifts are dropped and I don't give *any *new drivers that information .. all of the other drivers either pick up restaurant shifts (that are somewhat easier to get than warehouse) or give up. I doubt Amazon cares how much time drivers spend looking for shifts because shifts don't sit more than a second here in SF. There are drivers that come from 200 miles away to do this in SF, and it's those same dumbass drivers that don't mind spending countless hours of their day fishing for shifts.


I think some areas and warehouses might be considerably different.

I had a pretty good view of when blocks dropped here over the course of a number of weeks.

When drivers drop shifts here, they don't get sent out as available to other drivers. It appears they just get absorbed back to Amazon or perhaps sent as reserved to other people. They will not show up fishing no matter what you do or what time you do it.

We never see next day shifts from fishing. The only things we see from fishing are same day shifts coming up within the next 1-2 hours. 95% of the time they start only in the next 30 minutes or less. The times are somewhat related to when blocks start but they can really be at any time from on the hour to 59 minutes into the hour.

The release times for fishing blocks from what I was told fall into 3 groups:

1) The amazon system will release some based on order demand.
2) The warehouse can drop some.
3) The warehouse can directly assign to a certain driver if they want.

At the warehouse and parking lot there are about 10 people at any given time running various methods of fishing. You've got maybe one or two tenths of a second. The shifts after 8 pm or so you can have as much as one or two seconds. Those are awful blocks though.


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## Basmati (Sep 14, 2014)

krazo said:


> It's good to see the limepro back on the forum. I was hoping that the elimination of rooted phones would free up some blocks here in Miami. Unfortunately not. Those with cloaked rooted phones and multiple driver accounts are getting most of the pop up blocks. I drove a scheduled 2 hour warehouse block today, first one in a while, and the supervisor of dispatch gave me a hard time because I have been unable to pick up blocks. I explained to him that i have only one driver account, and that my phone is not rooted. His response was that I needed to get with the program. I guess that means I'm supposed to violate Amazon policy.


It actually takes a lot more than just a rooted phone or multiple accounts to get blocks in Miami. To get 40 hours a week I spend countless hours researching and testing different things. And once you get a setup that works, it usually won't last for more than a couple weeks before you have to find a better solution.


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## soupergloo (Jul 24, 2015)

grams777 said:


> I think some areas and warehouses might be considerably different.
> 
> I had a pretty good view of when blocks dropped here over the course of a number of weeks.
> 
> ...


interesting .. things at UCA1 are almost completely opposite. when drivers drop shifts, they show up for other drivers in the offers screen. I drop shifts and people drop shifts to me weekly this way.

also, at our warehouse, the managers cannot specifically drop a shift to a driver, if they're trying to hook a driver up with shifts (which they definitely do and have done for me), I have to fish when they're being dropped, but have also missed them because they're also available to other drivers.


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## Behemoth (Jan 26, 2015)

grams777 said:


> I think some areas and warehouses might be considerably different.
> 
> I had a pretty good view of when blocks dropped here over the course of a number of weeks.
> 
> ...


This is mirrored situation in my warehouse. The only difference is that recently they started dropping blocks 24 ahead at even hours. Almost impossible to get them. With occasional same day blocks less than an hour ahead.


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## krazo (Nov 10, 2015)

Basmati said:


> It actually takes a lot more than just a rooted phone or multiple accounts to get blocks in Miami. To get 40 hours a week I spend countless hours researching and testing different things. And once you get a setup that works, it usually won't last for more than a couple weeks before you have to find a better solution.


You still using a rooted phone?


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## Basmati (Sep 14, 2014)

krazo said:


> You still using a rooted phone?


Yes. But even if they find a way to effectively block rooted phones, it won't make much difference. There are numerous ways to bot without root.


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## limepro (Mar 7, 2015)

krazo said:


> It's good to see the limepro back on the forum. I was hoping that the elimination of rooted phones would free up some blocks here in Miami. Unfortunately not. Those with cloaked rooted phones and multiple driver accounts are getting most of the pop up blocks. I drove a scheduled 2 hour warehouse block today, first one in a while, and the supervisor of dispatch gave me a hard time because I have been unable to pick up blocks. I explained to him that i have only one driver account, and that my phone is not rooted. His response was that I needed to get with the program. I guess that means I'm supposed to violate Amazon policy.


I still browse but haven't been doing flex/uber since January so I'm not up to date on what's new.


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## Basmati (Sep 14, 2014)

limepro said:


> I still browse but haven't been doing flex/uber since January so I'm not up to date on what's new.


It's not near as good as it used to be. For whatever reason tips have got real bad for Prime Now. There are a lot of warehouse shifts where I will only get $6 or $7 on tips which is terrible when considering the amount of miles on the car and the tolls incurred. Restaurants are much better at the moment even though you make slightly less, because you put significantly less miles and no tolls. I often drop warehouse shifts now, hoping to get restaurants instead.


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## UberPasco (Oct 18, 2015)

Basmati said:


> Yes. But even if they find a way to effectively block rooted phones, it won't make much difference. There are numerous ways to bot without root.


The latency issues are the biggest advantage of rooted phones. Solid signal + overclocked cpu = blocks. The biggest consequence has been a lot of the chooches paid someone to set up their phones and now with the swipe they have to pay again. It's a beautiful thing to see the transformation of their faces from smug to forlorn.


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## Jagent (Jan 29, 2017)

Not sure how important this info is, but think it's worth letting you guys know. ..

I've done one block in my life. First day finding the right warehouse was confusing (no signs).. ran into a lady who was also on her first day looking for the WH. The difference is, she was being interviewed for an employee driver's job delivering. Starting pay was $13/hr plus benefits. I have no idea if Amazon was going to provide her with a vehicle or fuel. I assume they would provide both at that pay rate. 

Might be something to look into if you enjoy the job, but dislike searching for blocks.


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## Poolepit (May 17, 2016)

Basmati said:


> It's not near as good as it used to be. For whatever reason tips have got real bad for Prime Now. There are a lot of warehouse shifts where I will only get $6 or $7 on tips which is terrible when considering the amount of miles on the car and the tolls incurred. Restaurants are much better at the moment even though you make slightly less, because you put significantly less miles and no tolls. I often drop warehouse shifts now, hoping to get restaurants instead.


Yeah sounds complete opposite to when I first started. Not to mention restaurant only shifts weren't even a thing then.



Jagent said:


> Not sure how important this info is, but think it's worth letting you guys know. ..
> 
> I've done one block in my life. First day finding the right warehouse was confusing (no signs).. ran into a lady who was also on her first day looking for the WH. The difference is, she was being interviewed for an employee driver's job delivering. Starting pay was $13/hr plus benefits. I have no idea if Amazon was going to provide her with a vehicle or fuel. I assume they would provide both at that pay rate.
> 
> Might be something to look into if you enjoy the job, but dislike searching for blocks.


Sounds like she was doing scoobeez. Same job but you are an employee and make less an hour. Still use your own car and pay for expenses from my understanding.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

TonySanDiego said:


> Maybe I am crazy too. But spending several hours constantly swiping the android screen is soul killing for me. So yes, I swiped for two hours yesterday morning and got a block for 11:30 out of RB (DSD1). Loaded the block and got it delivered almost on time with no returns.
> 
> I did have an encounter with Cujo on my last stop. Rang the bell hoping someone was home since there was no good place to put the medium sized box. A young lady comes to the door and as I handed her the package, here comes a great white wolf looking thing racing out of the interior. He meant business and luckily the girl got hold of him just in time. Hmmmnnn...
> 
> ...


You are a poor candidate as you lack desperation. You had a nice ride as an engineer in the boom times of the economy. Hate to break it to you but not everyone can afford to retire and they need every cent they can swipe out of the gig economy that the lovely baby boomer generation has left us.

Why don't you enjoy your golden years and pick up a hobby instead of competing with people who really do need the money. Go volunteer at a school or something, why not put your greed on hold and give a little back?


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## soupergloo (Jul 24, 2015)

DriverX said:


> You are a poor candidate as you lack desperation. You had a nice ride as an engineer in the boom times of the economy. Hate to break it to you but not everyone can afford to retire and they need every cent they can swipe out of the gig economy that the lovely baby boomer generation has left us.
> 
> Why don't you enjoy your golden years and pick up a hobby instead of competing with people who really do need the money. Go volunteer at a school or something, why not put your greed on hold and give a little back?


lol this post made my day


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## Marco55 (Dec 13, 2016)

TonySanDiego said:


> Maybe I am crazy too. But spending several hours constantly swiping the android screen is soul killing for me. So yes, I swiped for two hours yesterday morning and got a block for 11:30 out of RB (DSD1). Loaded the block and got it delivered almost on time with no returns.
> 
> I did have an encounter with Cujo on my last stop. Rang the bell hoping someone was home since there was no good place to put the medium sized box. A young lady comes to the door and as I handed her the package, here comes a great white wolf looking thing racing out of the interior. He meant business and luckily the girl got hold of him just in time. Hmmmnnn...
> 
> ...


I bet Tony you still swiping Now! 
Amazon swipe Now!


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## krazo (Nov 10, 2015)

It is a flawed system where those who choose to follow the rules are at a disadvantage to those who don't.


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## Placebo17 (Jan 20, 2017)

A banged up retired engineer is the prototypical flex driver? I think you're in the same category as the desperate housewives that I see so often. You people are so awesome, everytime I take a block, they save me the ones with bunch of "HEAVY" stickers on them...


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

Placebo17 said:


> A banged up retired engineer is the prototypical flex driver? I think you're in the same category as the desperate housewives that I see so often. You people are so awesome, everytime I take a block, they save me the ones with bunch of "HEAVY" stickers on them...


Saw one today with her rugrat in the back seat. Taking her forever to load the sedan with the kid in there. I wonder if she makes him run out to the door and do the drops? Seems like Amazon might find that worse for their image than an unkempt childless driver...

Great maternity leave policy tho!


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## Movaldriver (Feb 20, 2017)

We can't take anyone in the warehouse at our location


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## soupergloo (Jul 24, 2015)

Movaldriver said:


> We can't take anyone in the warehouse at our location


almost everyone at my warehouse has a child, a spouse or a pet they take with them on their deliveries


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## DFW-Flex (Oct 25, 2016)

At Farmers Branch TX, you see all the wives/girl friends/kids waiting outside the warehouse. A lot of times they bring food and leave trash behind. Makes the place look bad.


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## Shangsta (Aug 15, 2016)

soupergloo said:


> almost everyone at my warehouse has a child, a spouse or a pet they take with them on their deliveries


I think that is universal. The point is most warehouses don't let you take them inside. They often have to wait outside and get picked up


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## soupergloo (Jul 24, 2015)

Shangsta said:


> I think that is universal. The point is most warehouses don't let you take them inside. They often have to wait outside and get picked up


my point is, they do take them inside at UCA1 .. otherwise I wouldn't know.


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## Movaldriver (Feb 20, 2017)

soupergloo said:


> almost everyone at my warehouse has a child, a spouse or a pet they take with them on their deliveries


We can but they have to wait outside


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## BillyBob444 (Mar 18, 2016)

DriverX said:


> You are a poor candidate as you lack desperation. You had a nice ride as an engineer in the boom times of the economy. Hate to break it to you but not everyone can afford to retire and they need every cent they can swipe out of the gig economy that the lovely baby boomer generation has left us.
> 
> Why don't you enjoy your golden years and pick up a hobby instead of competing with people who really do need the money. Go volunteer at a school or something, why not put your greed on hold and give a little back?


If you have to do flex to make a living thats not sayin much about your life choices. Maybe should have made better plans years ago


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## The Gift of Fish (Mar 17, 2017)

TonySanDiego said:


> I am the prototypical type of person


You're only a prototype? What improvements will the production version have?


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

BillyBob444 said:


> If you have to do flex to make a living thats not sayin much about your life choices. Maybe should have made better plans years ago


I make a living at the beach in SoCal and enjoy it. You aren't making a living in the desert in Arizona becasue you need Flex to supplement whatever shit job you have. Have a sweaty life... surfs UP!


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