Next time you want to order 60 boxes of spaghetti from Instacart, please don’t. If you really must order 60 boxes of spaghetti from Instacart, for some reason, at least tip your driver well.
An Instacart shopper explained the ups and downs of shopping for such an order.
What happened?
Instacart shopper and TikToker @instacartier1 shares in a video that they got a notification for a delivery that involved 60 boxes of spaghetti and a few other items. The entire trip was 16 miles, and the batch earnings were about $16.69. Although they knew it wasn’t the best trip, they did it for the plot, knowing it would make for a good story.
The shopper was skeptical about the order, so @instacartier1 reached out to the customer in advance. But, @instacartier1 says the customer didn’t respond.
The shopper says they even called the store for the order, Food Lion, to ask workers there to prepare the 60 boxes in advance. But the Food Lion representative, the TikToker says, said they didn’t get a truck in that day, and whatever was on the shelf is what they had in stock.
“I was like, ‘Great,’” @instacartier1 sarcastically responds to the news from the Food Lion representative. “So I get there, and there’s not a single box on the shelf. So I message this woman, and I’m like ‘Hey, there’s none of these boxes here. Do you want Mueller’s [brand]? It’s 50 cents more a box,’ and she goes, ‘Well, is it pot ready?”’
What is pot-ready pasta?
The TikToker admits they needed to Google “pot-ready” pasta to learn what it is. Essentially, pot-ready pasta is shorter and easier to use.
According to H-E-B, pot-ready pasta is “half the length compared to ordinary spaghetti.” The advantage of pot-ready spaghetti vs. regular-length spaghetti is that you can avoid the burning of spaghetti ends that might extend out of the pot and be vulnerable to the heat from the stove top.
Unfortunately, the TikToker says that the Mueller’s spaghetti available was not pot ready. So, the customer decided they didn’t want the spaghetti after all.
The shopper says they just refunded the customer for the spaghetti on the Instacart app and continued on shopping for the rest of the order.
“Me personally, I don’t know why she can’t just break the [expletive] in half herself, but whatever. I just refund the spaghetti,” the shopper says.
The video, which was posted on Aug. 19, has over 2,000 views.
@instacartier1 #FatTip #creativecollectivecenter #Gigwork #goodservice #GigEconomy #theglassbroker #customerservice #Instacart #instacartier ♬ original sound – InstaCartier
What are viewers saying?
The comments section is filled with other Instacart shoppers venting about the perils of dealing with customers.
“I hate Target batches. They never have the items. Asked a lady once if she wanted to cancel b/c it was clear she was buying a birthday gift & the only thing in stock was the card,” one commenter said.
“My thing is why do these customers think there’s that many in the store like come on,” another wrote.
“Had an order twice for 48 cans of soup and twice for 150 bananas. surprised they had enough both times,” another recalled.
The cherry on top?
The TikToker says that the customer didn’t tip. However, they did a second trip on this same route, and that customer tipped $8.39.
“The point is she wanted me to go shopping for 60 boxes of spaghetti and didn’t tip anything! Like, what is wrong with these people!” @instacartier says.
Previous occasions where Instacart customers didn’t tip their driver well or at all have been well-documented by the Daily Dot. On one occasion, a driver says the customer didn’t tip on a $600 order.
The Daily Dot reached out to InstaCartier for comment via TikTok comment and message, to Instacart via email, and to Foodlion via email.
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