I do supermarket deliveries in an area that has a small city surrounded by a lot of rural countryside. Love the job, in spite of the pay being only just over minimum wage.
My overwhelming conclusion is that
- people with not much money are in general really nice and friendly (luckily it's an area without many proper crims and drug dealers etc so I can't speak for those). Always grateful for the delivery. Often have cute young kids that want to help carry the shopping in or get excited if they see a bag of crisps or ice cream etc. Not bothered about substitutions, happy to take what they're given.
- people with
proper shed loads of money, who live in absolute stately homes with glorious private tree lined avenues through their large grounds etc, or James Bond style lairs, are in general really nice and friendly as well. Also always grateful for the delivery, and happy to take a few seconds for a chat. Happy to let us drive up their drive and so on, recognising it makes it much easier for us. Also not bothered about substitutions (except when it's something important to get right for allergies etc), in fact these folks will usually say about their subs, "sounds interesting, let's give that a try".
- it's the relatively small group of people in the middle who are the absolute cuntstomers. The ones that think they've made it, and think their house is amazing, and that I should be grateful they're letting me walk on their drive. Often will be a newish or self-built "grand designs" house, which they're probably mortgaged to the hilt to pay for. But don't dare bring the van on to their drive in case it drips a millilitre of oil or something. These are the ones who'll bark orders to "bring it round the back" etc without a polite please or thank you, and who'll invariably kick off big time over a substitution, who will go through and check the date on everything, or go nuts because they didn't get the paper receipt, or because we weren't taking the bags back for recycling (we are again now), or because they didn't get a text message warning of our impending arrival. The slightest thing tips them off into an absolute rage! The rude ones in that category are the ones we laugh about back at the yard. Always be nice to your delivery driver! There's actually quite a bit of nice stuff and customer care refunds that we are able to give out from time to time, guess who DOESN'T ever get that from us
Being a home delivery driver gives you a whole different take on people and how they live. I see quite a few really sad cases that you think are unique to various Channel 4 and 5 TV shows, but they really aren't. People who can't leave their houses (not necessarily because of covid). Couples that will shout at each other in front of me. People that get 35 lasagna ready meals delivered because that's all they eat. Daughters ordering food for their elderly parents. I've got a hoarder with a kitchen absolutely piled high with crap, not a work surface to put the shopping on anywhere.
Meh like I say above I've worked for a large supermarket (and in fact a different one before that) for most of this pandemic. Very little social distancing out back of either shop, there can't be, there's no space. Plenty of sharing of vans, and various electronic handheld equipment, and warehouse trolleys etc. With a very few exceptions, shops are not where this thing is spreading, and never have been.