Do Your Job!

When did it become socially acceptable to ask the customer to do your job for you? This chapter will focus on the delivery service industry. This specific series of events has happened to me personally several times and seems to be a recurring trend that needs to be stopped immediately!

It's a beautiful weekday morning. This stay-at-home father just cooked breakfast for his 2-year-old son; eggs and waffles per his request. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door, which causes an uproar of joyous anticipation for our online order that has finally arrived to enrich our lives. But wait, there is no package...... simply a person standing there as if having something important to say.

I open the door, give my usual warm earnest greeting, and inquire about their presence. It is at this point that I have been hit several times by the shocking question uttered by several different employees, working for several different shipping companies, on several different occasions. This person had the audacity to sternly request that I, the customer, retrieve my package out of their vehicle and carry it to my home solo. Struck nearly dumbfounded, my heart racing at the indignation, I stood there thinking of the most polite response possible while trying to analyze the situation logically, all the while a force welled up from within that compelled me to say, quite frankly, “Do your job”.

This phrase is always met with shock in the face of the 'employee' as I am sure a lot of decent people simply obliged the request. I was NOT going to be one of those good and silent people. I told the person that THEY are the ones being paid to delivery a package. THEY are the ones on the insurance if someone gets hurt during the delivery process. If I damage packages while pulling out my own, or drop my own package, or slip and break a bone while fumbling with a package, I have no recourse. I'm the one who will be responsible. Shipping is priced with the product, so I paid for this shipping; therefore, I'm not paying money to do YOUR job for you!

Finally, a 'delivery' is not leaving a package in the street after you got it off the truck! Just because you called me outside, it does not mean you delivered the package as promised. A delivery is not complete unless it is on your doorstep or in your house. I mention this because after I explain how I will not be taking the package off the truck, they usually tell me to carry it to my house.

I wrote this article because there are SO many people that need good jobs. Smart, hardworking, mannerly people who go jobless, are poor, or starving in the streets. When I see lazy, incompetent, indignantly impolite people holding good jobs, especially in the service industry, it boils my blood. Also, I think about all those good people who have bad knees, joints, spines, or other injuries and feeling pressured into lifting packages by these lazy employees. I happen to have a neck injury that is not noticeable to others but extremely painful for me every second of the day.

In conclusion, the people who deliver packages are paid to deliver the packages to the doorstep of the customer. As a society, we cannot tolerate any less because essentially you are paying this employee to give you the pleasure to do his/her job for them. I've worked in the service industry for nearly 20 years. I've done food services, shipping, warehouse, retail, customer service, and I was a teacher for eight years. I know how terrible it can be in the service industry and how horrible the customers often are; however, there is no excuse for not having a positive professional attitude and DOING YOUR JOB!