Redditor @JessGrabbin had an experience with an Instacart shopper she found “a little annoying,” and after posting about it, a conversation erupted about the “entitlement” of some gratuity-based workers.
In her post, Jess shared a screenshot of a conversation she had with her Instacart personal shopper, a gentleman by the name of Anibal. Jess’ message to Anibal reads, “Hello thanks for shopping for me today. When you deliver can you drop this off to my receptionist and say it’s from Jessica. It’s a gift for my staff while out recovering from surgery. Thanks so much.”
Anibal doesn’t seem to immediately respond to her message as there are several notifications in their conversation thread that indicate a few items the Redditor requested had to be replaced.
However, he did have something to say about Jess’ request to the receptionist: “Is that included in the tip? I’ll do my best,” he wrote.
She explained her frustration further in a caption for the post stating that Anibal’s quip was uncalled for. She said the food was going to be dropped off to the receptionist anyway, and all that he needed to say it was from the person who ordered it.
To top it all off, the driver didn’t think a 20% tip on the delivery was good enough either.
“After the delivery was done, he proceeded to make fun of my tip which was 20%,” she said. “I always tip 20%, then adjust it higher if the shopper didn’t take any items (happens a lot tbh) and leaves it at the right address!”
Commenters couldn’t seem to understand what Anibal’s deal with Jess’ request was. One person penned, “The shopper act like you asked them to break out in a full blown musical.”
Someone else said they had a much different experience with a delivery driver who brought donuts to someone as a gift.
“When I sent Donuts to a post office worker that was super kind to me the door dash driver took a photo of him smiling and holding the donuts and sent it to me,” they wrote. “Really made my day.”
One Redditor said delivery drivers like Anibal tend to give everyone in this line of work a bad name, writing, “He deserves a low rating. I’m a shopper and I’m so tired of these ppl. I would never say that to one of my customers.”
Jess agreed, writing that when she was working as an Instacart driver it never once occurred to her and try to talk to a customer in such a fashion: “I even shopped for instacart before and would never say that to a customer lol.”
Another echoed this approach, writing that Jess should’ve taken her tip back.
“I hope that you reported his behavior,” they commented. “IC need to clean house for people like this…I would have reduced his tip and said, ‘sorry I didn’t realize that you wouldn’t like a 20% tip so I adjusted it to reflect your behavior. Hope that’s more to your liking!’”
According to Business Insider, which referenced responses from food delivery drivers, 15%-20% of an order is considered a good amount for a tip. But others believe that percentage-based tipping on delivery orders shouldn’t be made a norm.
Brian Warrener, a professor of food and beverage operations at Johnson & Wales University, told CBS News that folks were being very generous to delivery workers during the pandemic. As a means of rewarding these heroes who braved what could’ve been certain death, they forged ahead on e-bikes and in 150,000+ mileage Kias to make sure other humans at home could have their favorite Pad Thai.
Warrener mentioned that with the significant spikes in inflation since 2021, folks aren’t really keen on the idea of placing much of their extra income on gratuities and that since the pandemic has waned, we should do away with our percentage-based tipping for take-out and delivery orders: $3 to $5 per delivery should suffice, according to the professor.
Redditors who responded to Jess’ post seemed less concerned with the tip percentage she left Anibal, and more with the way the Instacart delivery driver treated her.
One commenter didn’t seem all that confident, however, in the application’s desire to rectify the situation, writing simply, “We know [Instacart] dgaf.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Instacart via email and Jess via Reddit direct message for further comment.
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