An Amazon driver’s workday came to a screeching halt after encountering a messy situation in the back of her delivery van. While transporting orders, Jillian (@seekinglife_) says she caught an undeniable and persistent whiff of paint emanating from inside her vehicle. So she pulled her van over to give it a once-over and see where the smell was coming from.
It didn’t take long for her to realize that something had gone terribly wrong with one of the packages she was delivering, and the more she investigated the source of the unsavory smell, the worse the situation became.
In the video, Jillian records herself scoping out the Amazon work van she drives to complete deliveries. After opening the side door, she sees that brownish paint leaked into a section of the vehicle: “Um so I was smelling like a strong paint smell, there’s paint all the way like I was looking back there right, it’s like dripping and then I opened this back…”
After walking to the rear of the van and cracking the door open, she discovers that the paint spill is much worse than it initially seemed. “Oh my f*cking God,” she exclaims after seeing the extent of the damage caused by the spill. Brown paint covers nearly the entirety of the van’s back door. The floor of the van’s storage area is covered in the substance, and the bottoms of cardboard boxes containing customers’ orders are visibly soaked in paint as well.
The Amazon worker repeats “Oh my God,” as she continues to assess the severity of the spill. “What do I f—- do?” she asks. “What do I even do?”
In the caption, Jillian urged Amazon customers not to order paint via the online retailer.
Commenters who saw Jillian’s video sympathized with her plight. One person penned: “I hope you didn’t get in trouble for that. 100% not your fault!”
Another offered up some helpful advice on the situation, delineating clear steps she could take in order to report the incident to her manager. “Not your fault. that means packages will be replaced and truck must be cleaned. call boss send video,” they suggested.
“Call your dispatch and mark them all as damaged and you can [go] home early,” one user shared.
Someone else said that seeing Jillian’s video made them more understanding of delivery delays: “Next time I get the “order delayed” message, I’ll remember this video & I won’t be so upset”
Another TikToker’s comment suggests that paint spills in Amazon delivery vans might be more common one may think. “This must’ve happened to my driver cause one time I got 4 packages covered in white paint,” they wrote.
However, someone else said the error was more than likely a result of an Amazon worker’s negligence in correctly preparing the packages for transportation and delivery. “Lol the amazon packer didn’t pack the box right and probably didn’t mark it with the right lable either,” they claimed.
As unfortunate as Jillian’s paint spill was, at least it was contained to the bed of her vehicle. In September, road commuters were subjected to a deluge of paint that spilled from a truck traveling through Henrico County, Virginia.
A Facebook post uploaded by Henrico County police showed at least one commuter vehicle covered with the stuff, windshield included, along with a large section of a local road that needed to be closed off.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Amazon via email to learn more about the correct protocol for dealing with this type of incident, along with Jillian via TikTok comment for further information.