A male Instacart shopper looked so lost while doing his job that a customer stepped in to help him, not once, but twice.
Male Instacart shoppers have been repeatedly called out for consistently getting the wrong items, not seeing items that are in stock and right in front of them, and making illogical substitutions.
Many women and nonbinary people have shared that they cancel their order when they see they have a male shopper or otherwise prepare to be disappointed or to be on standby to have to walk him through the entire order.
In a viral video, Nia (@niaisnexxxt) shared a recent situation in which she felt compelled to step in and help a male Instacart shopper who clearly didn’t know where to find an item.
In the TikTok, Nia explains that she was in Target’s fresh fruit aisle when a man came up to her looking “frazzled” and asked her if she knew where the item on his screen was and showed her his phone.
She says he was looking for frozen garlic bread for the last five minutes—in the fresh fruit aisle.
“Baby, we not even in the right area,” Nia says.
She says she instructed him to go two aisles down to the frozen food section. Keep in mind, Nia does not work at Target; she was there as a customer.
She says that when she walked over to the same area to grab frozen chicken, she saw the Instacart shopper again looking at frozen chicken.
“Baby, just come with me, just come with me. Cuz you’re gonna get these folks the wrong thing,” Nia recalls, seeing that even with help, he wasn’t figuring it out.
She says she took him to the correct aisle and section, and he stood there staring at the freezer and reached in to grab garlic knots. Again, he was supposed to get garlic bread.
“Let me just go ahead and get the item for you, because what the f*ck,” Nia says.
The video gained over 600,000 views in about 24 hours.
@niaisnexxxt like its really not that hard #fyp #instacartshoppers ♬ original sound – niaisnexxxt
There have been several TikTok videos and other social media posts calling out this issue in recent years as the grocery shopping service has become more popular since the pandemic hit.
In another instance, a male Instacart shopper sent the customer a picture of the dip section to see if she wanted anything else since the buffalo chicken dip requested was out of stock. But the customer could clearly see several containers of the dip in the picture. She circled the item on the image and sent the picture back to him.
“The dip is in the picture, and you saying the dip ain’t in stock. Like, this is why I rather have women Instacart shoppers ’cause what was you looking at?” the customer said.
Some people have said it’s sexist to not want a male Instacart shopper. Others have pointed out that the reason men seemingly mess up orders more often than women is that they haven’t been socialized toward domestic tasks in the same way women have been.
Some say it’s a case of weaponized incompetence, which is when a person “consciously or unconsciously demonstrates helplessness in order to avoid certain tasks or responsibilities, resulting in others stepping in and doing the task for them,” Verywell Mind reported.
People in Niasis’ comments were equally perplexed by the male shopper’s incompetence.
“There is NO EXCUSE, there is a map of the store WITH PICTURES in the instacart,” the top comment read.
“And you know he was about to substitute it for a clove of garlic,” a person said.
“More than once I have had them send me a photo of the shelf as proof that my items isn’t there, WITH THE ITEM CLEARLY IN THE PHOTO,” another added.
The Daily Dot reached out to Nia for comment via email.
