Paper maps weren’t hard to use. Many people in large cities just had a detailed map books that gave you street level detail.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1998-thomas-guide-map-los-angeles-3702771636
Also, the 30 minutes gimmick was shortlived in reality, and only for Dominoes. It relied heavily on a very small delivery range from each store.
Ended after too many delivery drivers got into accidents.
https://www.tastingtable.com/1949627/dominos-thirty-minute-delivery-explained/
Paper maps weren’t hard to use.
I remember being taught how to use maps in elementary school. Now I can’t help but wonder if that’s taught at all these days.
I know way too many adults who are 100% reliant on their GPS for everything. I find it kind of sad. I spent my early driving years attempting to get lost, then laughing because I always seemed to figure out where I was. I developed a skill that quickly became rare, learning landmarks, recognizing highway numbers, and eventually navigating on vibes because I was already so familiar with the road system that, deep down, I already knew which way was right (even if I didn’t consciously put it all together.)
I bet that kind of navigation seems like magic to young people today.
I remember being taught how to use maps in elementary school. Now I can’t help but wonder if that’s taught at all these days.
For what it’s worth, I was never taught how to use a paper map but always found it easy to do.
But I definitely agree about over-reliance on GPS is pretty sad. I love the fact that I can just try a different route and see where it takes me. Sure, I sometimes waste 20 minutes doing the opposite direction of what I want, but I also discover new things along the way which is really nice.
Where I grew up, there was a delivery service where you got to order delivery from restaurants that didn’t offer it themselves. It was DoorDash, except instead of tech you had paper menus for restaurants and a number to call.
Felt pretty cool to get a full meal delivered!
I did this for a bit. I knew basically every street in half of a mid-size city, just like… in my head.
They have done studies on London cabbies that have found they have larger brains after passing “The Knowledge”. Professional drivers have amazing abilities to retain mental maps of an area.
And now I have GPS brain like everyone else
I delivered Chinese food in a small city/large town (depending on how you split it) before cell phone GPS. Most of the time it was completely fine, but some errors haunt me to this day, like when a whole factory waited over and hour for their lunch because the boss told me it was behind the Popeyes but didn’t tell me it was the other Popeyes way up north.
I remember seeing paper maps of the local area taped onto walls in take-out places.
That would have been a good idea. I would have made my boss point out which location he meant.
GPS has spoiled people, and it really shows in delivery services like DoorDash. My apartment building is divided into two blocks of apartments, each with their own main door to the street, and each of those doors is clearly labeled with their address numbers. I can’t count the number of times DoorDash has tried to deliver my food to the other apartment door that is clearly labeled with an address that is not mine.
It’s like all they can do is follow their GPS to a dot and then guess which building is the right one. I get that gig work isn’t exactly “skilled labor,” but do they really need a college degree to know how to read the damn address on the door?!
Happens to us, too. The Doordash driver stops at the mailbox where we get our mail (shared with 2 other buildings), because that’s apparently where their GPS shows us being, and then…can’t figure out which building is ours?
![wise men say, forgiveness is divine, but never party full price for late pizza] (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/70/0a/bb/700abb028b5efa915580499242936d64.jpg)
I delivered pizza the year before I got my first smart phone. Had a paper map in the console of my car but after a week I barely needed it. You learn your area real quick. They hung a map in the back that showed our area, and you could memorize a few streets easy before each delivery.
Brands of maps used to be known by name, realtors and service companies used to shell out bucks for updated map books with indexes. Gps maps made that die before internet maps did.
I often use my phone’s map just like I would a paper map. It just takes up less space.
This is why they would ask you for the nearest major intersection or cross street. This one weird trick.
Big Hiro Protagonist enrgy
For those of you not in the know, this is a reference to the hero protagonist of the book Snow Crash. His job, at the start of the book, was as a delivery driver for a pizza franchise ran by the mob. His name was Hiro Protagonist. The book is quite good, I recommend it highly for a fun retro futurism. It pretty much invented the concept of the metaverse. The audio book is my preferred way to “read” it.
The deliverator
Underrated comment
And they didn’t charge you an extra fee either.
Yes we did. There was a delivery fee when I started delivering pizzas and Chinese food in the 1990s. I don’t know what it was for, since we, the drivers, didn’t get the entire fee. IIRC when I started the fee was either $1 or $1.50. Us drivers got $0.75 of that fee.
Hmm, I don’t ever remember having to pay delivery fees back in the late 90s. I recall most places making a big point about “free delivery” in the advertising.
I started delivering in '96, when I went to college. All the big chains had fees by then, maybe some local places were holding out on free delivery, but even the mom and pop Chinese places had a delivery fee, they did actually give the whole thing to the driver though since we were paid under the table.
I still have a paper map of my region in my car to this day. Never know when you’ll be out of range and/or have a dead phone.
Meanwhile with modern delivery apps and services it took over an hour to deliver food that come to think of it I could genuenly just walk to get it
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