Unfiltered Story #205739

I work for a well known Supermarket as a grocery delivery driver. For perhaps 90% of customers shopping is handed over at the door, either they take the trays in themselves, unload it themselves and return the trays or they take items from the trays that I hold out to them. Some customers like shopping to be taken into their houses. there is however a small number of customers who think my job extends beyond this too. Perhaps my best story of this occurred just a few short weeks after I started:

I knocked at the customers door waited… knocked again…. waited…. at this point I begin to wonder if the customer is not it. I call the customer on the phone and he answers. NOTE, the customer in this appears to be a young adult around 19

Customer: Yes… hello?

Me: Hi it’s, [My Name] from [Supermarket] Home Delivery, I’m at your address but no one appears to be in.

Customer: The door is open!

I try the door and sure enough it is. I hang up on the customer and call out.

Me: Umm hello?

Customer: Yes! In the Kitchen the door was open!

Me: Oh… I didn’t hear if you yelled.

Customer: I didn’t

At this point I’m very confused, how was I supposed to know the door was open.

Me: Yes, where would you like your shopping today?

Customer: In the kitchen cupboards of course!

At this stage I’m losing my patience, I will unload shopping for elderly or obviously disabled customers but only after first asking if they would like me to do so as a general rule we do not unpack a customers shopping.

I start to take items out of the trays and stack it on their counter, assuming the customer will take care of the actual putting it in cupboards part of the transaction.

Customer: NOT THERE! MY CEREAL GOES IN THE CEREAL CUPBOARD!

At this point I have no idea where that is, but still being new to my job I don’t want to cause a fuss.

Me: I’m terribly sorry sir, but I have no idea where you keep your cereal or in fact any of your shopping, I can make a rough guess about some items but I wouldn’t want to assume. In addition I don’t have the time to sort your shopping for you. So I will just leave it on the counters.

Customer: WHAT! How will it get into the cupboards?

Me: Umm you can put it there?

Customer: But how?

I actually lost my patience with the customer at this stage and said that if the customer would not accept me unloading the shopping to their counter tops I would have to take it all away. the customer eventually relented and allowed me to put it on the counters after I got his signature I reported the whole incident to my manager in case any complaints were filed, my manager said it was fine, I wasn’t expect to pack peoples shopping away for them.

My manager later received a call from the customers mother, who explained she hadn’t been in to take the order like she usually did and it had been left to her son. Who for some reason assumed I would just turn up, let myself in, put all their shopping away for them and then leave without a word. The mother was incredibly apologetic and said that she didn’t want anything to fall back on me since it was entirely her sons fault.

To this day I still wonder how the son had come to the conclusion that was how grocery deliveries worked.