Working as a delivery person means dealing with heavy loads and sometimes difficult customers. But some cases are just too much—like the outrageous request shared by Redditor u/Aggressive_Candy_345 on r/InstacartShoppers.
One guy bought 168 bottles and 14 jugs of water and insisted that everything be carried up 17 flights of stairs. When the shopper raised concerns, the customer showed he wasn’t willing to compromise at all and threatened to file a formal complaint if the order was canceled. No tip, no sympathy, just pure arrogance.
Gig work is hard, and a huge reason for that is the customers
Image credits: Kampus Production / pexels (not the actual photo)
But this one seems especially evil
Image credits: Ishaq Robin / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Aggressive_Candy_345
Gig economy workers often feel expendable
Image credits: Sargis Chilingaryan / pexels (not the actual photo)
The fact that this particular customer felt like he could treat the delivery person the way he did, saying he will just hire the next in line if they refuse, kind of represents the state of the whole sector.
Gig workers for Uber, Instacart, and other services made less money on average in 2024 even though the number of hours that they worked rose, according to a report by analytics company Gridwise.
For example, Uber drivers’ earnings for 2024 fell 3.4% to $513 a week, but at the same time, they worked 0.8% more hours.
Lyft-ers, meanwhile, worked 5.4% fewer hours in 2024 and saw their pay decline even more — by 13.9% to $318 a week.
Instacart shoppers saw their pay decline 8% (to $194), however, their hours also fell 4.9%.
The only app where workers earned a fair amount more money for the same or less work was Favor, a service owned by Texas supermarket H-E-B that delivers online orders for the chain. Its workers saw their pay rise 3.4% to $155 a week in 2024 as their hours worked fell 13.1%.
An Instacart spokesperson called the numbers “inaccurate and misleading.”
“Shopper earnings remain steady across the … platform, and we continue to hear from shoppers that Instacart creates rewarding, flexible earnings opportunities that allow them to earn on their own time and their own terms,” the spokesperson said.
The gig economy’s future isn’t just a question of scale, it’s also a question of values, and policymakers need to ensure it evolves with dignity, equity, and transparency. However, if you’re working in customer service, every once in a while, you’re bound to run into someone obnoxious.
As the story went viral, the Instacart shopper provided more information on the whole ordeal in the comments
People were absolutely appalled by the customer
Follow Us
