Walmart is expanding its push to deliver groceries straight into customers' kitchen fridges, even when they aren't home.
Walmart (WMT) said Wednesday that it plans to make InHome, its $148 annual delivery option, available to 30 million US households by the end of the new year, up from six million today. Walmart will also hire around 3,000 workers to deliver orders for InHome, offering them an extra $1.50 an hour from most store jobs, which begin at $12 an hour.
Right, you're going to let a total fucking stranger come into your home, while you're not there, to stock your groceries. And you're going to trust Walmart to do this?
I respectfully suggest that anyone who signs up for this should be checked for undiagnosed brain damage.
My dogs would love the diversion. The house is theirs when we aren't home and I'm not too sure they would allow someone in their fridge either.
ReplyDeleteBesides, we have enough trouble here getting Fed-Ex to come to just the garage and not toss our delivery out at my neighbor's place.
w3ski
Amusing, but nothing new in the big scheme. The local big-$$$ gated community is $500k per lot, and the HOA is $2,500+ per quarter. For that fee plus a bit they offer concierge services like groceries delivered to your pantry/fridge, and such. You have to sign up, provide an access and payment method and such, but it seems they screen their employees to enable them to be confident they can do it without some millionaire getting ripped off (or worse) and suing them into oblivion. Given the HOA revenue is north of $3m a year on the low end, without the club membership fees, etc, they can do it. Lots of sports figures and such.
ReplyDeleteHell, I once tipped the Instacart driver $10 for climbing all of the stairs to get to my door, and had to wear a mask to do it. Now with the four feet of snow on the ground, even getting one to drive down Road 630 off of highway 41 is a hit or miss deal. Last time it took three tries before they found someone who could drive in the snow, and we were so happy to get our groceries that we didn't even complain when they left them on my neighbor's stairs... Zsuzs dug the Subaru out of the snow bank last week though, so we can go to town on our own again.
ReplyDelete-Doug in Sugar Pine
I work a Wal-Mart. Right now our store is at about one third its normal staff, due to Covid, the flu, cold weather injuries, etc. One day, our curbside pickup department, which had nine people scheduled that day, only had three show up. I often wonder about the sanity of the executives who come up with ideas like this. But then, they probably regard us all as disposable pawns anyway.
ReplyDeleteLou, I believe the word you’re looking for is “serf”.
ReplyDeleteI can see it now..
ReplyDeletePerson delivers to fridge and sees cat, realizes he forget his epipen
( or cant afford another) and keels over from anaphylaxis.. later you
come home to that's that smell.
Later you get sued for a unhealthy workplace.
As to 500K for a lot, around here maybe outside the gates,
inside way more. Its all appearances and illusion.
Eck!
You know, I got paid $100/day, which shakes out to be $12.50/hr for an average day, to do home delivery for a popular local department store back in the nineties.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that job. Driving the 20' bobtail was worth the money by itself, but the greatest responsibility involved was the working inside customer's houses, installing the appliances, setting up the furniture, and hauling the old stuff out, all without damaging the premises or pissing off the customers. We were a sales tool for the store and had all of their behavior dropped into our laps when we met the customers for the end point to the last mile. I can't even count the times I had to weasel a huge filthy refrigerator down a twisty staircase in a San Francisco Victorian where the wallpaper cost more for a yard than I made in a day.
I sort of don't see that specie of dedication happening in a Walmart delivery, although I could be wrong: having been judged by our appearance many times before the customer actually saw what we could do, I don't want to put that on any of the folks Walmart gets to do that job.
-Doug in Sugar Pine