My Top 10 Dislikes 🙅‍♂️

Although I do love my new job, there are so things that annoy me about it.

Today I will share with you my least favorite aspects of my Instacart driving/shopping gig.

This list is in no particular order.

Let's get started...

The closer you are to the store, the earlier you are shown batches. If you want to take advantage of the best batches available in town, you need to be very close to the store. I live within a few miles of nearly a dozen stores, but none are in my backyard. This means that I can get some okay batches from my apartment, but the best ones can usually only be had while sitting in my car in the parking lot of the store. This is fine when you get batches quickly, but sometimes there is a period where there is no work. I've already had multiple days where I spent 30-60 minutes sitting in my car wasting time while I wait on an order. Luckily I end up getting something eventually, but I hate wasting time. It would be different if I got paid to sit and wait, but I earn nothing during that time.

Tips make up a minimum of 50% of my pay and sometimes more than that. There are actually customers who expect you to shop for them and then not be tipped for your work. I'm not sure if they realize it or not, but that's basically like me working for free. There is no way in hell I'd ever be okay with that. This means I have to avoid orders that say zero tips, which there are many of those. People are often so cheap and you never know when somebody will lower their tip after you did a great job for them. Luckily, there are still many generous people and as long as you're willing to wait it out for the good orders, you will be paid handsomely.

I have been driving for 15 years and I know there will always be bad drivers on the road. I didn't have to deal with that too often since I've never had a job that includes constant driving. Now that I'm driving for half of the day, I am stuck behind idiots all of the time. People who drive below the speed limit, don't use turn signals, or just other really dumb things they often do. I can't stand any of it and I get so angry whenever I am on a mission to get my customer their groceries as quickly as possible so I can start my next order and make the highest amount of money in the shortest amount of time.

You know those people who decide it makes sense to park their cart in the middle of an aisle as they stare aimlessly at a wall of items with no idea what they are looking for. There are plenty of walking zombies at the grocery store. I'm not afraid to speak up to let them know to get out of my way, but I feel like they should be more self-aware so I don't have to waste my breath. Don't even get me started on how the store employees take up 80% of an aisle with all of the groceries they are stocking. I get that somebody has to do the work, but why not after dark when there are no customers? Plus, I see employees way too often just standing there on their phones doing literally nothing and forcing me to turn around and go down another aisle just to get to what I need.

This is usually good in terms of pay, but always annoying to have to deal with. I don't want to push around two carts at once (although I have before). If I have two orders I usually carry a basket inside of my cart and hope that the smaller of the two orders will fit inside it. Otherwise, I have to make mental notes of which item is for who. Sometimes I have as many as three orders in one batch and that's when the odds of messing up increase even more. I haven't made major mistakes yet, but it can be stressful keeping everything organized for checkout.

Although the Instacart app does usually tell you what aisle and shelf to look on for an item, it's not always exact. Some stores just say things like "snacks" and you have to figure out where the snacks are located. If it's a store I've been to a million times, I can usually figure things out. Even there I sometimes have to ask an employee. There are other stores that I never go to in my own time and I tend to avoid those orders because I know it will take me longer than usual to complete. I'm sure I'll be familiar with all stores soon enough, but for now, I am still clueless when I go to a few places.

I love the fact that I get to be outside so much for my job, this is going to be very fun in the summer after a few hours at the pool. However, the weather is not always nice. It's been winter ever since I started and although there haven't been any major snowstorms, there has been a lot of rain. I have a nice rain jacket, so I don't get totally soaked, but it's still not fun having to carry a dozen bags of groceries up a steep hill in the rain. It becomes even more difficult to deal with when I have to make multiple trips due to the volume of items in the order.

Who in their right mind orders groceries online for delivery and then doesn't respond to their shopper? Lots of people! We know that most people have their smartphones on them at all times, usually directly in front of their faces. I know this means that some customers choose to not engage and just expect me to figure their stuff out for them. This means I often just replace an out-of-stock item with something similar or I refund it if there is no equivalent. Sometimes I deal with elderly people and they are the only ones I forgive for not answering my messages.

Speaking of out-of-stock items, this can be pretty irritating. Some customers are very picky and when they don't have what they want they just ask for a refund. This lowers my pay slightly and the more things that they get refunded, the less I earn. The app is supposed to be smart and send you to the store that has most of their items in stock, even if it isn't the closest one to their house. Even with that feature, I find myself having to refund or replace pretty much every single order.

Most stores offer self-checkout, but you aren't supposed to use it when doing an Instacart order. That means I have to wait in line at one of the very few human-operated registers that are open. There's always at least one, but I've never seen more than three open at once. Sitting in a queue and wasting my time sucks, but it's part of the job. It's the best place to have a short convo with another shopper and I sometimes even help elderly people unload their carts onto the belt. I still would rather never have to wait in line again.

Not all things are bad 👎👍

It may sound like I feel negatively towards my job, but trust me when I say not all is bad with Instacart.

I posted yesterday about My top 10 favorite things about working for Instacart.

Trust me when I say the positives outweigh the negatives, otherwise, I wouldn't continue doing this job.

Stay tuned for more Instacart-focused posts similar to this one.

Thanks for reading today folks!

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