Instacart Shopper Makes Fun Of Customer's 20% Tip After She Asked For An Additional Favor Too
“The shopper acted like you asked them to break out in a full-blown musical.”
Odua Images / CanvaPro Tipping can be controversial, especially when people play the blame game. You either didn’t tip enough, tipped the wrong kind of service worker, or tipped too well, inevitably making everyone else look bad.
Of course, certain unspoken tipping rules regulate the industry, especially for people like food delivery workers or baristas who almost entirely rely on tips for the majority of their income. Many food delivery workers admit they tend to lose money on orders without a tip — especially with rising transportation costs.
Industry professionals suggest a tip of between 15% and 20% for food delivery workers — unless there are outstanding circumstances like inclement weather or an extra large order that would suggest something larger. Drivers on TikTok like Kara urge people to take this seriously. She refuses to take grocery orders for people who don’t tip.
An Instacart shopper made fun of a customer’s 20% tip after they asked for a favor during delivery.
After ordering groceries on the popular food delivery platform Instacart, a customer decided to chat with her driver to make a request. She was out sick from work and decided to use Instacart to pass along some treats to her staff.
However, after getting a response from her Instacart shopper, she couldn’t help but post on Reddit, asking for insight on whether she was wrong for making the request. With a passive-aggressive and slightly rude response from the driver, she considered for a moment that she’d been a little cheap with her tip — but readers wholeheartedly disagreed.
The customer asked the Instacart shopper to mention that the delivered groceries were from her because she was sending them as a gift to her staff while she was sick.
After tipping 20% on the order, which she said was “typical” for her unless something warranted more, she waited until the driver announced they were delivering the order to make a request. She’d ordered the groceries for her staff, planning to have them dropped off directly at work as she was sick at home.
Photo: Reddit
“Thanks for shopping for me,” she wrote in the chat with the driver. “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.”
However, the quick note she’d asked the driver to relay, mostly to clear up their confusion, quickly became a much bigger deal than she’d anticipated. “Is that included in the tip,” the driver wrote, with a laughing emoji. “I’ll do my best.”
While it seemed passive-aggressive but relatively harmless, this customer wrote that they’d “proceeded to make fun of [their] 20% tip” after the order was delivered. “They would’ve dropped off the order to the receptionist regardless… and I always tip 20%. This was a little annoying.”
Despite only asking them to relay a message, the Instacart shopper ridiculed and made fun of the customer’s 20% tip.
Of course, there are situations where extra money should be thrown into a tip, but that’s at the customer's discretion. While some people with certain ailments rely on food delivery to eat, those who use it solely for convenience should always tip the standard 15% to 20%.
Photo: Syda Productions / CanvaPro
If you can’t afford to tip that, you shouldn’t be ordering it — however, that discussion isn’t entirely related to this customer’s debacle, as they did just that! “He deserves a low rating,” one commenter wrote. “I’m a shopper, and I’m so tired of these people. I would never say that to one of my customers.”
“I’m a DoorDash driver and am confused by their argument,” another added. “I only get angry when someone asks me to go somewhere different than the delivery address. You already tipped 20% and are asking them to interact with the receptionist? Crazy.”
While everyone’s entitled to their own opinion on tipping, it never hurts to share some kindness. Clearly, this customer is recovering from a sickness — while the favor they’d requested didn’t seem like a big deal, it would’ve helped them in the long run. It’s all a cycle of kindness, from tipping to delivering to passing along a “thank you” to your team.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health & wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.