Newcastle broke me a little today, but a lady reminded me why I’m still glad to be here
This is not normally the type of post I’d make, but I just really had to say thanks to someone from Newcastle. Her name was Nicki.
I do Uber Eats, and today was easily one of the worst experiences in Australia that I’ve ever had.
First off, I had a pickup at Woolies. I walked in and said hi to the woman who was standing there with delivery orders, but she completely ignored me. A young woman who works there said hello to me, probably either because she had seen what happened, or she simply knew what the sort of person that woman was.
She then told me the names on the order, and asked me “Yes or no?” in an unnecessary and disrespectful manner, when I said “Yeah” instead of “Yes”
Then, when I was about to pick the items up, she said, “You have to scan first,” but in such an arrogant way. You know when someone talks to you like you’re stupid, not because you did something terrible, but because they want to make you feel beneath them? That’s exactly how it felt. I don’t want to use the term racism here without reasons, but the truth is that is the feeling that I got. And the irony is she had a classic “Karen” haircut, so it all looked quite surreal to me.
After that, the other girl came to my aid and addressed me in a polite way, making me realize that what the first lady said was absolutely unnecessary.
After that, I had a customer getting angry in the chat, asking how much longer I was going to delay their delivery, as if I could just fly to them. It was Saturday, it was really busy, and I was just trying to do the delivery as quickly as I could. I explained that to him, but it still felt like I was being blamed for things I couldn’t control.
Then I made another delivery in the city, where parking is usually tough even on a regular day, let alone a Saturday. I had to park my car somewhere 5 minutes away and then make way to the destination walking through the cold weather. When I was approaching the drop-off point, I was unable to spot the customer who happened to be inside an apartment and failed to give me proper directions.
I texted him asking where he was. After about three minutes, he replied saying he was outside and then said, “This does not happen with anyone else” and that he was cancelling his order. Then, despite being already annoyed, I told him, “Mate, I'm coming. I cannot see you on Uber Maps, so I am using Google Maps.”
Finally, I found him, gave him his order, and explained what happened. But then, I was already tired mentally.
And then there were Maccas events. I was walking when some guy with his friends said “dab me up” and then said something like, “You look like a J.” I didn’t know what he meant. Maybe it was slang, maybe it was an insult, maybe he knew I didn’t understand the context and said it rudely just to get a reaction. Normally I might have ignored it, but after the day I was already having, it really got stuck in my head.
While on my last delivery, right outside that shitty Maccas area. There was a green right turn signal and some lady in a wheelchair who decided to cross the road from behind a place where it was impossible for me to properly see her until I had already started turning.
I don’t even remember how the turning part. All I remember is braking. It happened automatically, without any thinking and helped avoid the accident as I stopped in time. Fortunately, she was lucky, but in a sense I was lucky too.
Because I had to brake suddenly, the order fell off the seat. For the rest of the drive, I was worried that the drinks might have spilled. After everything that had already happened that day, it felt like one more thing going wrong.
Finally, I arrived at my last destination.
A man came out and he was already holding a $5 tip in his hand, which honestly almost never happens. Before I even said anything about my day, they were already being kind.
I told him what had happened and asked if he could please check the order to make sure the drinks hadn’t spilled. His mum came out too. Her name was Nicki
She was incredibly kind to me right away. She told me that even if something was spilled, she would not ask me to pay for it.
That was enough to make me emotional by itself, because I had been having such a bad time all day long with people being rude, impatient, and making me feel like everything was my fault. But then there was this lady who I had never met before treating me like a person.
And I told her that it had been my worst day ever in Australia, and I must admit I was about to cry while talking to her.
She then asked me to wait and gave me another $20 besides the $5 that her son was already giving me. I kept saying thank you because I didn’t really know what else to say. She said she knew how hard it is and hoped it would make my day.
It did…
The money itself wasn’t that important. But the fact that the man was already offering a $5 tip before knowing anything about the situation. They were already nice people before hearing my story. And after I told them what happened, Nicki neither blamed nor judged me – she just understood.
I hugged her, thanked her again and again for helping, and said goodbye after a while. I understand it may seem insignificant to many people, but it was a very important thing for me today.
So Nicki, if you or your family somehow see this post: thank you. You probably thought it was just a kind act towards a delivery person, but you really did change the outcome of my entire day.
The day consisted of rude people, frustrated customers, difficult parking, random comments by random people, and even an almost accident. However, I believe I will remember you more than all of those things put together.
You have shown me that despite everything, there are still genuinely good people around.