Name: Bad delivery decisions.
Age: Ancient.
Appearance: A 10kg package left on top of a sleeping baby.
OK, nice image, but what does it really look like? I just told you. It looks like a 10kg Hello Fresh box dumped carelessly on top of a sleeping baby.
Oh dear, this really happened? Apparently, according to The Times, and a Swedish woman’s Instagram post of a huge cardboard box left by a delivery driver on top of the pram containing her sleeping infant.
Wait, she left the baby outside unattended? Yes, but it seems it is acceptable in Scandinavia. Let’s not make a big thing of it.
But the baby is OK? Yes, thankfully.
That’s awful. The delivery firm and the driver must have been mortified. Well, the baby’s mother rang the delivery company to complain, and the driver – said to be almost in tears – visited with flowers and pralines to make a heartfelt apology.
And the delivery company? It offered her £20.
Yikes! This is an extreme example, but delivery drivers are notorious for leaving parcels in stupid places. Every now and again, the internet lights up briefly because a courier has wedged a parcel inside a bush or hidden it in a dustbin on bin day. Once, I came home to find a parcel in the middle of my living room. The working assumption is that the courier flung it through an open window.
Naturally. The list goes on. In 2019, a driver tossed a package over a garden fence into a paddling pool. Another customer found an Asos package tucked behind her car windscreen wiper like a parking ticket.
Wow, delivery drivers are wild! Enough. Very few workers are exploited as badly as delivery drivers. They are often expected to make hundreds of drop-offs a day on zero-hour contracts and they are so overworked that they don’t even get proper toilet breaks. We’re not blaming them.
OK, calm down. No. If you get a lot of packages delivered when you’re not at home, don’t assume that the driver has time to find a safe place. You know what? Buy a secure drop box and leave it by your front door. It will solve the problem and make life much easier for the poor blameless delivery drivers.
Blameless? One left a 10kg box on top of a baby, remember. OK, mostly blameless.
Do say: “While you were out …”
Don’t say: “We crushed a child with your food delivery.”
