Polite Paradise

I forgot to put in my grocery order Thursday night, so I did it Friday morning instead, which was fine. They are back to claiming one or two-hour delivery anyway. I had it delivered Friday night. The woman was able to call me from the panel by the door with no problem, then she came to my apt and handed me a couple bags. I was thinking, hmm, this doesn't seem like as much as I ordered, but sometimes it's hard to tell. I started to look inside and--it was the wrong stuff! For the record, someone was ordering a LOT of hot dogs and condiments! I grabbed my door and called down hall, "Hang on, this isn't mine!" She was waiting by the elevator so she came back and took the wrong thing away, then went back to her car and came up with my stuff. She was very apologetic. It didn't bother me, I was just glad I caught her before she disappeared, because it would have been so much more trouble if she had already jogged down the stairs or something. I think I wouldn't have been able to contact her directly anymore, I might have had to contact the national help line and probably have the goods thrown out and someone else go shopping for my items again. And it would look really bad for her. I wish they would stick around a little bit longer so you can verify you got the right stuff--it's all wrapped up in plastic bags so it could be anything. But they're timed on everything so delays look bad.

DragonKitty, I am surprised they were able to give you the wrong sausage brand, if you are using Instacart. They aren't supposed to be able to change anything without your approval, I thought. At least whenever my shopper has to make a change, I get a notification, and using my phone I go to the website and hit "approve." Or I can click "other options" and choose different products instead, or just get a refund. However, if the customer misses the notification and gives no response, I can see how they might take that as tacit approval, although I think they shouldn't. They are spending someone else's money, after all, and they should try hard to get approval from the person first.

I had another package from Amazon go astray. They claimed they left it in my mailroom, but I've looked all around and it wasn't there. Probably it's in the mailroom of one of the many other apartment buildings around here. I went on Amazon and did the chat, but I think I was just talking to a robot, because I didn't have to type anything, just choose responses from those offered. The robot was immediately like, "Okay, I'll send another one to the same address," and I'm like, okay, yes, that's what I was going for. The time before, I chatted with a person, and although I didn't have to demand or insist they resend the item, I did have to repeat myself a few times--yes, I know they said they delivered it, but it's not here. Yes, I checked there. Yes, I checked there, too. Etc.. I like the robot a lot better! The second copy of the item ended up coming yesterday with some other stuff I had ordered. I expect the original one will turn up eventually.

Then one day this week I happened to be home sick and got a phone call on my landline, and it was someone from Amazon trying to get in to deliver a package to me. Then, while I was talking to him, my cell phone rang from the front door, but I let that run out. I told the guy to call me from the panel by the door, so that rang again, but it was a lady who talked to me. So it was a pair of delivery people, who decided to contact me two different ways at the same time, apparently. When they came to my apt door they seemed nice enough--they had about three packages to deliver (only one for me). But it was just like, who are you that you don't have the official key to get in? (Answer: random people delivering for Amazon as independent contractors, not FedEX etc. employees.) Thank goodness I was home sick, because I probably wouldn't have gotten my stuff right away (which was actually medicine I needed). I really don't like how their answer to their shipping problems is making more work for me.

Set my grocery order up Thursday evening, was delivered Friday evening. It was the guy I don't like again, but otherwise no issues. He started shopping pretty early; I didn't notice what time he actually delivered, but it was probably before my 6pm window. He did his silly knock again, and this time when he said his spiel I understood more of it--apparently if I give him a five-star review, he gets an extra $3 from the company. I almost always give five-star reviews--if you give anything less, they MAKE you say why (although I suppose you could skip rating entirely). So he got only a 10% tip, but 5 stars per usual. He may consider that a good tip, I don't know--the site defaults to only 5%.

Also I deleted the Instacart app from my phone. I don't think it exclusively does anything I really need, and tonight in particular it was very confusing, as it seemed like messages from the shopper were replicated in both the app AND as text messages to me. It was really confusing and irritating. At one point he said they didn't have what I specified, and would "this" be a good substitute? Since he didn't say what "this" was, I figured he must have sent a picture through the app, which indeed he had. I answered there, but he kept talking to me through regular text, but his comments also showed up in the app, even after I had already responded, so it was like we were having these parallel conversations that went past each other. I definitely don't need to keep track of that! So I deleted the app from my phone, and we'll see if that changes anything next time.

Also, I think he tried to call me--at least, there was a call from an unidentified number around the time I expected him to arrive. But, since he's called me before and I want to avoid that, I actually have his number saved in my phone, and the call I got tonight was NOT from that number. So either he's changed numbers or it was someone else (99.99% likely spam) who coincidentally called then. Anyway this guy didn't have any trouble getting in the building, someone must have let him in as he didn't call me for that.

Thank you for the article! I have to point out that it still isn't considered standard formal English for "they" to be accepted as a singular antecedent. In maybe thirty years it will, but it's not strictly correct English and many teachers still object to the usage. I think the usage is fine, I just object to the label "singular antecedent," which I guess is kind of silly for me to object to.

Sorry I just realised that the link didn’t post. https://public.oed.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/

I agree that "they" is plural. It is often used as singular as a non-gender-specific pronoun but in fact, English does have one!
It's "one".
As in "to each one's own" instead of "to each his own" or "to each their own".

It's just not in common usage.