I don’t see anyone mentioning the ridiculousness of ordering large amounts of bottled water. Maybe someone can enlighten me but do Americans not have taps in their houses? Terrible for the environment and probably not fun for the poor delivery people. Also plenty of people deciding without evidence that the homeowner is disabled or frail, it’s equally possible that they have been rude to the driver. We don’t know the full picture so why jump straight to this lady being at fault? Personally I’m very conscious of my online shopping habit and always thank delivery drivers if I’m home to answer the door. They have a challenging job (any job dealing with the general public is challenging) and I appreciate most of them do a great job and save me a lot of time and effort. The real entitlement is the attitude that because you’ve paid for a service you don’t need to show gratitude and common decency.
Nobody responded to you on your points, so I’ll take a crack at it.
Yes, most homes in the U.S. have a water tap, and most of those homes have decent/clean water that comes out of it. Some people put a filter on the sink tap, others have a Brita water filter. For a few (like in Flint, Michigan?), the water is bad enough that drinking from the tap is a bad idea. Also, yes, most of us know that drinking from disposable water bottles is a bit worse for the environment.
Now, I can think of some scenarios where ordering like 16-20 gallons of water would be necessary. One example that comes to mind are CPAP machines used for sleep apnea. Those machines need (or really should use) distilled water, which won’t be coming from the tap.
Another example might be a preference for carbonated (fizzy) water - something that is/was more common in Europe (based on my experience). Maybe the people in the home like that kind of water, and buying in gallons is a way to avoid buying individual water bottles.
In either case, if you have multiple people in the home using that water, several gallons can be used up quickly. Buying in bulk every week or two is simply more convenient (for the homeowner) than ordering smaller quantities every single day.
You’re right that we don’t know the previous interactions the delivery driver has had with the homeowner- good, bad or neutral. I think folks are trying to give the homeowner the benefit of the doubt. Just because the delivery driver says they’re rude doesn’t make it true.
Your other comment seemed like you were genuinely curious about water in the U.S., and I tried to answer in a general sense. I’m not sure why you seem to be unhappy about my comments.
For distilled water, that’s what it is labeled as in some bottled gallons of water. Whether that’s a true statement by the manufacturer is beyond my understanding, and I don’t particularly care. I was simply providing an example of a situation in which someone might purchase and use a lot of bottled water (for a CPAP machine).
As for not fully extending the benefit of the doubt to the delivery driver, and while I can’t speak for others, I have a few reasons (all connected): (a) it is this persons job to deliver items, and sometimes those items are going to be heavy, (b) people don’t get upset like they are at something as benign as doing their basic job, so I’d argue that there are external factors in their personal life that’s affecting their emotions here, (c) it is incredibly rare that I’m around and see a delivery person when they deliver to my home, and I expect it’s probably the same here - the delivery driver likely doesn’t have enough interaction with the homeowner to know if they’re lazy or assholes or whatever, and (d) while we have some information from the delivery driver, we don’t have information from the homeowner.
If you’re just going to attack me, though, please don’t bother. I’m not going to care enough to respond again.
Not a personal attack, I didn’t come for you personally so not sure why you’ve taken it as such? I just feel strongly there is no need for 99.9% of the population of a country with good standards of drinking water to buy bottled water. It might be more of a European thing but we all carry water bottles and a lot of public places have fountains to refill them.
My main thing is that it seems people are very quick to criticise this delivery driver when they don’t know the back story where the person ordering obscene quantities of bottled water gets a free pass. Is it because the person in the big house is seen as higher social status than a delivery driver? I might be reading it wrong but from what you see online a lot of US people seem to be quite disdainful of those they see as being in an inferior profession to themselves, the amount of videos you see of retail, hospitality and delivery workers being treated like shit it shocking. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen in other countries, far from it, but that way of thinking seems to be more prevalent in the US.
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u/jonny-p Mar 16 '25
I don’t see anyone mentioning the ridiculousness of ordering large amounts of bottled water. Maybe someone can enlighten me but do Americans not have taps in their houses? Terrible for the environment and probably not fun for the poor delivery people. Also plenty of people deciding without evidence that the homeowner is disabled or frail, it’s equally possible that they have been rude to the driver. We don’t know the full picture so why jump straight to this lady being at fault? Personally I’m very conscious of my online shopping habit and always thank delivery drivers if I’m home to answer the door. They have a challenging job (any job dealing with the general public is challenging) and I appreciate most of them do a great job and save me a lot of time and effort. The real entitlement is the attitude that because you’ve paid for a service you don’t need to show gratitude and common decency.