Last Friday was the day...

I fucked up. Not even going to sugarcoat it. I delivered a $150 order to the wrong house. It may sound like I'm a complete dumbass for doing that, but I'm willing to bet I can prove it was a mistake that can be understood. I definitely learned a lesson.

My error was delivering to 834 Carrol Rd instead of 837 Overbrook Rd. These are both roads I go down all of the time, but they are still really confusing. The oddest part of it is the fact that the turn for both roads is at the same spot. It is a very sharp left, right off the main road called Oakwood. One looks like an obvious entrance to a neighborhood and the other looks like a driveway, at least from the direction was going.

Let me show you.

I was one street away from being in the right place. I mean I even delivered to 837. Actually, that shocks me that there are two 837s right next to each other like that. I will never make this mistake again because now these road names are eternally etched into my brain.

Now that you see what happened, let me explain how it happened.

I was sitting outside of the River Walk Kroger, which is on the drive home from my parent's house to my apartment. I don't shop there often, but I have a few times at least. Still, it's not my favorite layout, and navigating it isn't as easy as some other grocery stores. It's far from the worst though.

I accepted a double order worth about $25 bucks. The delivery points were both near where I live, so it was going to be convenient so I could go home and cook some lunch.

It took me a bit longer than usual. I would have liked to complete this in under an hour, that just didn't happen though. After I finished shopping I checked out and loaded up the car. Order A in the back seat and order B (the bigger order) in my trunk's cargo space.

The first order went smoothly. Got it dropped off to this sweet old lady. I hated her building though because there are always so many people just chilling in the lobby talking. Plus, the doors are locked and it's not the best part of town so nobody would let me inside while I stood there holding about 20 bags of groceries on one arm and a case of water on the other. Don't worry, I'm built for this.

Next, I was on to the second order. I knew right where it was because I'd driven by the road a million times and there is an elementary school across the street from it that was easily recognizable. I listened to my GPS and turned down the road that I thought was the one. As I explained earlier, I was wrong but I would not realize that until after I left all of the groceries there with some random old lady and was sitting comfortably on my couch when I received a text from the customer saying "Where is my order?"

She claimed she didn't get the groceries and I thought she was insane. I assumed she accidentally used the wrong address and was tripping. Boy was I wrong. I got a phone call from Instacart about 30 minutes later. My customer service rep spoke perfect English and was both happy and nice. I lucked out there. She told me that the GPS said I delivered to the wrong house. I was blown away. She put me on hold to confirm the customer's address. In the meantime, I looked closely at my GPS map. After examining it, I realized my massive mistake. I delivered to the wrong house.

This woman who lived at the wrong 837 came outside to greet me. She was so happy and surprised by her grocery delivery. She didn't say "I didn't order groceries". She instead said, "It was probably one of my daughters being thoughtful" like it happens all of the time or something. I didn't question a thing after that. I mean, who would have thought there was another 837 (the right one) one road over?

The girl on the phone and I agreed that it was obvious what happened and it was a silly mistake, my first one actually outside of forgetting one pizza in my car that I brought back with no issues. She also alerted me that the customer still wanted their groceries. So I left my house to go knock on the wrong 837's front door and like an idiot, ask for it all back. I dreaded that. Luckily, on the way up there I got a call back from customer service saying never mind. The customer literally told them they did not want the groceries since somebody else had touched them and they were afraid of Covid. How the hell are people still using that stupid ass excuse?

She must not have a brain, because I touched all of her groceries. The cashier and bagger did too. Plus the ones who stocked it on the shelf and the many steps of manufacturing before all that. She sounded stubborn to me and probably just wanted to get a free to reorder. At least I didn't have to go see that poor old lady and ruin her day.

I got lucky that the management division decided that there was no need to escalate my ticket. The problem had been solved, and Instacart cut its losses. Somehow I still got paid for it too. It just sucks that I spent over an hour picking out every single item she wanted and then gave it to the wrong person. That means somebody else probably got her same order and had to shop it again at some point. What a waste. On the one positive note, that old lady was happy as hell and I hope she enjoys the crabcakes and 30+ other yummy items that I accidentally gave her.

The pay was shit for all of that stress. I earned only about $15.86/hr off this batch. It says An hour and thirty-six minutes, but it was longer than that when you factor in my stressful phone calls. Oh well, I moved on and still ended up having a good day.

I am just going to have to be extra careful in the future. I cannot make this mistake ever again, because I may not be fortunate enough to get a pass like I did this time.

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