"Where's Your House Number?!" The Day an Elderly Delivery Rider Scolded Me for His Own Failing Eyesight

 It started with an angry phone call and ended with a sheepish apology. But the rage I felt exposed a massive crack in our modern, tech-driven gig economy.

It’s 7:30 PM. You’re hungry, you’re tired, and you just want the pad thai you ordered forty-five minutes ago. You watch the little GPS motorcycle icon turning onto your street. You anticipate the doorbell.

Instead, your phone rings.

I picked up, expecting a standard "I'm outside." Instead, I was met with an aggressive, booming male voice on the other end. He sounded older—perhaps in his late 50s or early 60s—and he was immediately hostile.

"Hello? Where are you? You didn't put the house number!" he barked. "How am I supposed to find you if you don't put the number? You people always do this."

My adrenaline spiked. Not because of fear, but because of instant, defensive rage. I am obsessive about checking my delivery details. I knew my house number was there. It’s saved in the app. I use it three times a week.

"I did put the number," I replied, trying to keep my voice level despite my rising blood pressure. "It’s right there in the address line. Number 42."

"No! It is not here. I am looking at the app. No number!" He was shouting now, lecturing me on basic competence while holding my dinner hostage.

I hung up. I wasn't going to argue with a stranger shouting at me over a $15 noodle dish. I immediately opened the app, took a screenshot of the delivery instructions—where "No. 42" was clearly, undeniably visible—and messaged it to him through the app chat.

A minute passed. The doorbell rang.

I opened the door to find a man who looked exhausted. His helmet was off, revealing grey hair and a weathered face. He looked smaller than his voice sounded on the phone. He held up his phone, squinting intensely at the cracked screen, then looked at me.

"Oh," he mumbled, all the aggression evaporated. "I see the picture you sent. Sorry. My eyes... I couldn't see it on the small screen before. Sorry."

He handed me the food and shuffled back to his bike.

I closed the door, and I was furious.

The Rage of the Rightfully Accused

My dinner was lukewarm, but my temper was boiling.

Let’s be clear: everyone makes mistakes. If he had called and said, "Hey, I'm having trouble reading this address, could you clarify?" I would have happily walked out to the street to meet him.

But that’s not what happened. He assumed I was incompetent. He assumed I was the problem. He led with aggression and condescension, only to be proven completely wrong by a simple screenshot. His reflex was to scold the customer rather than consider his own limitations.

And this brings me to a difficult, uncomfortable conversation we need to have about the current state of the workforce.

The Gig Economy Geriatrics Gap

It rages me to think about how many older people are flooding back into the workforce, specifically into gig economy jobs that are fundamentally dependent on technology they struggle to use.

We have a generation of workers re-entering a market that requires sharp eyesight to read small text on glary screens while navigating traffic. It requires quick app-switching and intuitive knowledge of UI.

When these workers struggle—when their eyes fail them or the tech confuses them—they often don't blame the tool or themselves. They blame us. They revert to an "old school" mentality of yelling at the person on the other end of the phone line because that’s how problems used to be solved.

It is incredibly frustrating to be on the receiving end of incompetence masked as authority. It's exhausting to be scolded by someone who can't perform the basic functions of their job because they physically can't see the instructions.

A System Setup for Failure?

As my rage subsided, a sliver of depressing reality set in. Why is a man nearing 60 out on a motorbike at night, squinting at a phone screen to deliver noodles for pennies?

The system is broken. He probably shouldn't be doing this job, and deep down, he probably knows it. His aggression on the phone was likely a manifestation of his own stress, his own fear of falling behind, his own frustration at a world that has turned into tiny screens he can no longer read.

But understanding that doesn't make the experience any less infuriating for the customer.

We are stuck in a weird limbo where digital natives are being serviced by digital immigrants who are resentful of the journey. Until apps introduce "large text mode" for riders, or until the economy allows people to actually retire with dignity, we’re going to keep getting scolded for house numbers that are right there on the screen.