Supermarket driver nearly two hours early

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

I had a Sainsbury’s delivery booked for 10 - 11 tonight. I wasn’t particularly fussed about having a late slot, but it was the only one with no delivery charge, so I booked it. I wasn’t planning to go anywhere.

Earlier today, a friend invited me for a drink. I said I’d have to leave at 9.30 to be back, which she said was fine, so I went. At 8.20 I got a call - it’s my delivery driver wanting to know why I’m not answering the door. I explain my slot isn’t until 10, but he tells me I’m the last delivery of the day, so he’s there now and can I answer the door. He doesn’t speak great English, so it takes several attempts to explain that I’m not at home.

Eventually he gets that I won’t be there before 10. After a big sigh, he eventually says again, ‘I’m here now - you’re my last delivery’ - but then says he’ll wait for me. As I was arriving home at 9.45 he was on the phone again, wanting to know where I was.

This has happened to me before with Sainsbury’s, and from the missed calls on my phone, I can see it’s the same driver. I’m torn, as it’s massively frustrating when you’re trying to plan your day to get irate phone calls asking why you’re not in 90 minutes - two hours before your booked slot. I absolutely wouldn’t have minded an early delivery if I had been in, but I can do without being treated like an inconvenience. Because it’s happened before, part of me wants to complain. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want the driver to get the sack over it either.

Should I say something or not? Obviously it’s not a big thing, but shouldn’t I be able to plan around a slot rather than two hours either side ?

I wouldn't complain.

I'm with the "yes, complain" brigade. You book and pay for a timed slot that suits you (doesn't matter if its a free slot, you pay thru the groceries as it's not a charity) and you should be able to manage your own life.

Our Tesco deliveries are occasionally an hour early but they have always phoned to check that's okay. I cannot fault them, even the one I call Mr Grumpy is polite (grumpy politeness!)

@SushiGo

Honestly, don't complain, if you regularly book the free slots you must know that the 10pm ones always arrive early and you can't have made plans to out. That's the flipside of it being free!

It's a shit, keyworker job and the poor guy doesn't need a disciplinary over it.

I regularly book late slots. They never come early and I would complain if they did; I book a slot to guarantee a time I’ll be in, it’s irrelevant whether it’s free or paid for. There is no “flipside”.

He clearly does need a disciplinary if he’s regularly harassing customers; regardless of whether it’s a shit job or not he doesn’t get free reign on his behaviour.

If he doesn’t want to be disciplined then he needs to behave appropriately.

We find that Tesco often deliver early. I generally don’t mind as I always wfh but sometimes I am in a meeting so it’s not convenient. I just wish they would phone or knock before unloading it if it is outside the timeslot.

I actually think you should complain OP. He should have taken no for an answer the first time he called.

I can understand from the driver's POV that he wants to finish work early and instead has to wait, but that's not your fault, and he shouldn't have spoken to you rudely. I'm not sure about complaining. If you do I hardly think he will lose his job over that.

I sometimes get a call asking if I’m home as they are in the area (rural) rather than them driving all the way to another village and then back to mine. If I’m home I always agree. Sometimes they’ve knocked to see if I’m home a bit early. Never been more than half hour though.

I tend to have regular drivers as I choose the same time slot most weeks and they all know that I’m usually ok with the slightly earlier delivery. However I wouldn’t be happy with more than half hour early or to be made to feel I’m in the wrong for not being there.

Does anyone work for a supermarket and know what will happen if Op complains?
My only concern about her complaining is this man is clearly happy to override social norms (ie be polite speaking to strangers) and also knows where she lives. It wouldn’t be hard for him to guess who had complained.
It’s a shit world we live in where a certain sort of man thinks it’s ok to bully and harass women.

from the missed calls on my phone, I can see it’s the same driver.

I always assumed it was a company phone that came with the van rather than their personal phone.

I've had late slots with Ocado (yes, because they were the cheapest!) and they regularly arrived early - different drivers every time. I was always delighted. If you have ever been pleased with an early delivery then you really can't complain about a early delivery. If his English wasn't great, there is a chance he has not come across as he intended.

It's fine for him to ring and ask if you can accept early, but absolutely not to put pressure on you. Complain. Hopefully they will retrain him not just not use him again.

Also, please don't complain. It's a shit job and so very stressful atm

It can't be that stressful if there's enough slack in the system for him to be nearly 2 hours early. That's the very opposite of what I'd expect a supermarket delivery job to be.

They're ruthlessly efficient so are more likely to set a schedule that you can only keep to if everything goes to plan and every traffic jam, long driveway, flat tyre, toilet stop, chatty customer etc etc puts you behind and on the catch up.

I'd be wondering what corners he's cutting if he's getting through his work so much faster than the supermarket expects him to.

Fine to politely ask if you can come early if you're ready to, but absolutely not to be rude to the customer if they're unable to accommodate this. The OP could have booked the slot for after she gets home from work or any other valid reason.

If you expect the driver to come between 10 and 11, that's what you plan for and the biggest risk with a late slot is that they're running behind and you have to wait up for them.

As it happens, DP applied to several supermarkets back in March for a delivery driver job because his main employment is gigs and festivals and at that point, we'd resigned ourselves to him not being able to do this in the short term.

He heard nothing at the time and fortunately he got a job on a building site which he's still doing. He heard back from Tesco just this week and now they'd like to interview him, to which he's said 'thanks, but no thanks' but he's heard anecodotally from several sources that a lot of people taken on at the beginning haven't lasted because the supermarkets were so desperate and took anyone on without a thorough selection process and a signficant minority have proved to be unreliable or unsuitable for the work so have been let go, hence Tesco coming back to applicants they weren't interested in the first time round.

I work in Tesco and was a picker for online orders. Please do complain. That’s NOT what is expected from our drivers. Absolutely fine to ring and ask if they can deliver early, but absolutely not acceptable to harass or otherwise make a customer feel awkward or pressured into an early delivery.
If it’s a single complaint then driver will be spoken to, the more complaints the more action will be taken. From a total retrain down to an eventual sacking. It’s a long road to being sacked although depends on the complaints that come in.

No issues with them calling to see if it's possible to come early, but if you say no then they should come at the booked time. More generally 10 mins either side of the slot is ok, unfortunately I've only ever had late problems including Ocado at 12.20 am!

Ours quite often ring to say they're in our road and would it be ok if they deliver now. I don't mind tbh as they ask politely and when I haven't been able to take it they aren't rude about it.
I don't think they get to sit in a warm van for 2 hours though. I think they have to run the engine to keep the chillers going so they'll have to drive round at intervals. Not exactly a hardship but if I were them I know I'd rather knock off early if I could!

I'd complain about the attitude but not about the fact that he asked.

I think phoning to see is fine, not Sainsbury's, but another supermarket sometimes phone and say we can actually deliver at x time if you're about, or your actual slot- but it is wildly unreasonable when you say you're not in to keep phoning, I would also complain. I can see for him he could knock off early, but wouldn't we all like that! It's also timed pretty well in terms of deliveries, especially at the moment where most book up, wondering where he's making up the time!

Honestly, don't complain, if you regularly book the free slots you must know that the 10pm ones always arrive early and you can't have made plans to out. That's the flipside of it being free!

Why ‘must’ I know this? If anything, I’d have thought there was a risk of it being later because of earlier slots being busy, delays earlier in the evening with traffic etc.

I didn’t choose a slot for the driver’s convenience; I chose it for mine. I live alone, I’ve been working from home for six months without speaking to anyone some days - so yes, when I got invited out I went, rather than staying in just in case.

I had loads of hours-early Ocado deliveries during lockdown. Usually they call, sometimes they don't. Only one that was weird was an early morning one, about 2 hours early (7am for 9am e.g.) where they rang while I was in bed. I said (nicely) if i hadn't answered would they have sat waiting in the van for 2 hours and they said oh yes, it's no bother!?

Complain! I've had Sainsbury's show up two hours early on three separate occasions in the last month. It's really annoying.

I sometimes book a late Ocado slot because it’s free. A while ago we were out but would be back a good hour or so before the slot and I had a phone call to say was it ok to come early. I had to say no.
Driver was fine about it and still nice when he did come.
I probably wouldn’t complain in your case OP but you are right to be pissed off

I can offer some insight in to this as I previously did home delivery for Sainsburys and Ocado for a total of four years

Sainsbury's, or at least the one I was at, were extremely laid back about the order you did the deliveries. If the last customer was okay with you going there first then that was fine. You shouldn't ring and ask why they aren't in though! I think it is worth a phone call tbh as he sounded like a pain and not professional

Ocado on the other hand are v strict. You can't ring a customer more than on hour before their time slot and doing drops out of sequence isn't allowed. Both happen though. Ocado take things like this very seriously

Good luck complaining to Sainsbury’s - they are one of the worst shops for customer service. If you manage to get through to anybody and get a response please update.

I wpild complain as he has done this before. If it is part of policy that he can try earlier then fair enough. If not, he will get called up on it and so should. I have only once had an asda delivery driver come half an hour earlier than expected. It was fine as I was in but I wouldn't expect to be told off for not being in a few hours before my slot. Our asda delivery drivers are always so nice and chatty with my two children who love talking to anyone. Yanbu

*would

We've always had Tesco deliveries. They always use to ring if they were going to be early and ask if it was ok. Since lockdown though they have not rung once despite being early for 8/10 of our deliveries (we normally book 9pm-10pm).

The earliest we've had a delivery is 7.15pm when it was booked from 9-10pm. We had no phonecall and I thought it was quite cheeky to turn up so early without checking, but it wasn't an issue as we were in so I didn't say anything. It wasn't the most convenient time as it was bath/bedtime for our toddler but we still accepted it.

Before lockdown when they used to ring, I had a driver tell me that they weren't allowed to deliver early and they were supposed to park up round the corner until the beginning of our time slot. This was in the days where you had to sign their machine to say you'd accepted the delivery. The driver was about 30 mins early and asked if I was happy not to sign as he would get into trouble if there was a signature before the time slot. He did say they were allowed to call 15 mins early without having to phone. Any more than that and they were supposed to check it was ok.

Standards seem to have gone down since lockdown but I can understand they are probably more rushed off their feet now and have a lot of new, inexperienced drivers. We used to have a few regular drivers before lockdown who were always friendly and professional. Since lockdown we've not seen the same driver twice and there doesn't seem to be the pride in the service like there used to be. It's no big issue though because they are still doing me a favour by not having to go to the shop!

Tesco have done this a few times to me now, there is only one driver on our route who checks its ok in advance, but they've never been more than an hour early, and he did explain sometimes the route planner does silly things and doesn't group addresses in the right order. I've started opting for the 4 hours slots on my delivery saver and then they text me a one hour slot on the day and that's helped a lot.

Iceland however who I have frozen stuff from have sent my last two deliveries over two hours early. I said nothing the first time but the second time it was the same driver and when I asked why he was so early he said oh well we know you're always home during the day (I work from home but am mostly in conference calls so cant come off to unpack shopping!) so I pointed out that I have an evening slot for a very good reason and it would be really good if they could deliver during the slot that I book, or next time I might have to leave him sat outside until my call ends!

Before Covid there was one incident where Iceland sent it 2 hours early on a Saturday and I was out. They rang me, I said I wouldn't be home for an hour but they let the driver go off duty and my shopping came at 8am Sunday morning instead. But the manager had included a free bottle of wine to apologise as it was down to unexpected driver issues.

You could see if its just a one off, I don't envy their jobs at the moment as they're really busy with home deliveries, and this may just be a one off chap in a bad mood - no that its ok, but if its a one off then probably not worth getting annoyed about too much