FedEx driver reveals the five items he hates to deliver: ‘More back pain than the NFL’

A FedEx driver has listed his five least favorite items to deliver door to door.

The man, who goes by Mr. B on TikTok, is based in Mississippi and came to the platform earlier this month to reveal the list.

The post – captioned ‘The Struggle’ – has since been viewed more than 3 million times and contains some articles that might surprise you.

As companies like Amazon and Instacart have turned consumer shopping into a walk-in-the-park, we often forget about the people on the other side of the equation.

And now that summer is in full swing and the delivery drivers are about to go crazy, perhaps a quick perusal is in order.

Tough

The first bane of Mr. B.’s existence is the boxes labeled Chewy – a brand that sells pet food and other pet-related products from Florida.

One of the most recognizable boxes out there, they’re almost always a surefire sign of extreme weight – packed with pounds of kibble and cans of wet food and other physically compact items

“If you order this you will have caused more back pain than the NFL,” the delivery person notes in a caption of the blue and brown culprits.

In addition, Chewy often repeats deliveries, commenters noted — with customers signing up for subscriptions where boxes often weighing as much as 60 pounds are distributed monthly or even weekly.

“Working at Fedex and unloading those tough boxes is absolute hell,” one viewer wrote about pet food deliveries.

“The worst part about the tough boxes is they weigh either 3 ounces or 60 pounds and you don’t know until you lift it,” snapped another.

Tyres

To keep the list current, the next item picked by the carrier was none other than tires – an unwieldy item to say the least, despite its transportation-oriented design.

Ironically, according to the TikToker, the rubber parts are difficult to wheel around in a FedEx truck because they can weigh between 100 and 300 pounds.

What’s worse is that they’re a surprisingly popular item for e-commerce, as customers are often sold on the prospect of having such an incriminating item delivered straight to their door.

But this leaves people like Mr. B. at a loss as to where to place them, as their shape and weight make them difficult to store in the back of a truck.

“You clearly don’t care about any other packages I have to fit in my car,” he wrote in another caption.

Since driving isn’t an option, tires may be better off purchasing them in person through an actual tire pickup, several experts say — citing the fact that different prices match those seen online for the purpose of a sale.

Perishables

Next up was perishables – an increasingly common item given the rise of online grocery shopping.

Furthermore, the prices offered by Fresh Direct and Walmart are often better than those in brick-and-mortar stores, increasing such grocery orders – by customers emboldened by the prospect of not taking them with them.

However, food that spoils creates a time limit – a time limit complicated by the fact that the ice-filled boxes often weigh well into the double digits.

This puts pressure on people like Mr B, who writes how he often finds the ‘bottom of’ [these ice-packed boxes] soaked by time [he gets] your house.’

According to the USDA, perishables are foods or beverages “that are likely to deteriorate, spoil or become unsafe to consume if not refrigerated at 40°F or below, or frozen at 0°F or below.”

This includes dairy products, raw meat, frozen foods and eggs – items that also tend to be heavy.

If left outside for more than two hours, they may become unsafe to consume. However, ice intended to slow this down adds to the weight and, as Mr B mentioned, can turn into equally heavy water on a particularly hot day.

Mirrors

Seven years of bad luck for anyone vain enough to order a mirror, says Mr. B., citing the sarcastic “75 percent chance it will be broken” by the time it is delivered.

That self-proclaimed statistic, he says, also explains the likely reality that “it was broken before it reached my truck.”

That’s why he hates delivering mirrors, which points to the many complaints that such deliveries usually give rise to.

As is the case with tires, they also tend to be heavy and sometimes unwieldy, adding to the difficulty factor when driving around.

They also sometimes consist of sturdy frames made of bronze or other metals, making them even more complicated to transport safely to a destination.

While they are a lovely addition to any household, such pieces may be better off purchased in person, people like Mr. B advise.

Mattresses

Last but certainly not least, when it comes to packaging issues, mattresses seem to be the white whale of the TikToker’s sometimes painful quest to deliver.

They have always been popular and indispensable in any home, but are now regularly made from memory foam – so can be stuffed into boxes a fraction of the size of the full product at the delivery person’s expense.

Such boxes can be heavy, often weighing as much as 150 pounds.

However, these boxes can become even heavier, but at a cost to the driver and the customer, who, at FedEx’s insistence, will have to pay an additional $100 fee if their sleeper exceeds this mark.

This relatively new phenomenon – seen at companies like Casper and Nectar – seems to anger Mr. B the most, given his accompanying caption.

“Putting a mattress in a box should be a crime,” he wrote in a post that has received almost 300,000 likes.

The commenters seemed to understand the FedEx worker’s plight, but weren’t overly empathetic either.

“I apologize to all the delivery people, but I need those online prices and discounts,” one such person wrote, as inflation and rising food costs continue to burn holes in Americans’ pockets.