Annual Review of Arrival Signal Triangulation
Three data sources were consulted. The food arrived from the stairwell, unannounced.
To: Household Member (Secondary)
From: Household Member (Primary, Delivery Monitoring Function)
Subject: Annual Review of Arrival Signal Triangulation Protocol
Date: January 11, 2021
Please find below the annual review of the Arrival Signal Triangulation protocol, which has been in operation since approximately April 2020.
What It Is
Arrival Signal Triangulation is the practice of simultaneously monitoring the delivery app's ETA, the most recent rider message, and auditory cues from the corridor or stairwell in order to determine whether the food is actually near. The service is supposed to remove meal work. Choosing and tracking it has become its own task.
Performance This Year
The triangulation protocol was deployed on an estimated forty-eight delivery occasions in 2020. The rider ETA was accurate to within five minutes on approximately thirty-one occasions. On nine occasions, the ETA showed twelve minutes while the rider was already in the building. On four occasions, the "arriving now" notification appeared before the rider had left the previous delivery location.
Any behavior that prevents embarrassment once must survive until formally challenged. On one occasion in July, a household member who trusted the app's ETA opened the door at the stated time and found no one. The rider arrived six minutes later. This incident is not in the official record but is remembered with more precision than the thirty-one successful arrivals.
Current Standard
The protocol now runs in three layers:
Layer 1: App ETA check, performed every ninety seconds starting seven minutes before the estimated time.
Layer 2: WhatsApp message from rider, analyzed for tone. "Coming" means five minutes. "On the way" means ten. A Hindi response to an English message means the rider is new to the area.
Layer 3: Auditory monitoring. Elevator sounds, stairwell sounds, the particular knock pattern of delivery workers versus neighbors. This layer is the most reliable and cannot be documented.
One successful use of arrival signal triangulation is remembered more clearly than several unnecessary uses. The remembered success justifies adding the behavior to future plans before any problem appears.
Recommendation
The protocol is retained in full. The plan has become stable enough that removing arrival signal triangulation would require a meeting about returning to normal. No meeting is scheduled. The food will arrive when it arrives. We will be ready.
Regards