The best part about ordering from a food delivery service is the anticipation of receiving your meal. But what if, instead of receiving your meal, you get silent phone calls from the rider?
Well, we shouldn’t be so quick to judge.
Bonda Nor took to her Facebook page to recall how her GrabFood rider had called her several times but didn’t say a word as she waited for her meal that was late to arrive. However, after checking the in-application chat system, she discovered that the rider was disabled (deaf and had a speech disability), and couldn’t find her house.
She wrote, “Earlier, I was craving Yong Tau Fu. I quickly ordered on GrabFood. I followed the system, there was a rider assigned and the food was supposed to arrive at 6.15pm but until 6.45pm, the food still had not arrived. I grew angry as I don’t like opening the house door when it’s nearing Maghrib.”
“In between 6.15pm to 6.45pm, I received many calls from the same number. I’m used to not picking up phone calls from unknown numbers but because I’m waiting for the GrabFood rider to arrive, I picked them up as I was worried he couldn’t find my house.”
But, every time she picked up a call, she only received silence.
“Pick up, silence. Five minutes later, he called again. I picked up, silence. This happened many times. I grew angrier. Are they playing around?”
“It was past 7pm, and it hit me to check the messages on the Grab application. Ya Allah, I immediately started crying. It turns out the rider is deaf and has a speech disability. It turns out that he messaged me many times, asking for my location. But I didn’t check the inbox, I didn’t read it, I didn’t know the circumstances,” she added.
The rider had made the phone calls in an effort to get Bonda to check her inbox.
“For almost an hour, he was riding around in circles looking for my location to send me the food I was craving. The skies had grown dark and he still didn’t know where to send the order. But, he still waited around and tried,”
“Even though the delivery fee wasn’t much, only RM3, but he still tortured himself for the sake of his income. I cried! I felt really guilty,” she shared.
After receiving her order, she managed to give the rider a tip of RM10, the highest tip option on the application.
It turns out that Grab launched an initiative called GrabForGood, back in 2018, with the aim of empowering the deaf community through their platform by providing income opportunities, minimising communication barriers, and improving their application to better support their disabled drivers.
One of the methods implemented to help improve communication between customers and their disabled riders is the Automated GrabChat system.
With about 500 differently-abled Malaysians earning a livelihood under the Grab platform, Grab continues to collaborate with more differently-abled organisations and individuals.
So hey, let’s all be mindful of our disabled brothers and sisters who are working hard to deliver our cravings and meals to us.
After all, everyone deserves a shot at earning a livelihood.
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comment section.
Also read: “Kak, is this real?” M’sian Gives RM1k Tip For FoodPanda Rider, Asks Him To Pray For Her To Conceive
