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amazon

This guy understood the assignment.

Sure, there might be a few bad eggs here and there, but by and large, delivery drivers aim to serve in any way that they can. Many even go above and beyond what their actual job responsibilities are, just to make us feel safe and satisfied.

Of course, sometimes this natural inclination to help can backfire in delightfully funny ways, which is why folks are cracking up while watching this viral video of an Amazon driver who found a welcome mat that read “hide packages from my husband” and took it a little too literally.

What makes this clip such a hoot and a holler isn’t that we see—via a doorbell cam, aka the modern day window into the soul of humanity—the driver ring the doorbell, see the doormat, and attempt to hide the package behind a plant. No no no. The hilarity comes when the husband answers the door.

“Oh hey, how’s it goin’? You got a package?” the husband asks, seeing the signature blue Amazon vest.

“Uh…no, I don’t,” blurts the delivery driver, before coming up with this hilarious cover:

“I’m just uh…here to tell you about the historic Gospel of Jesus Christ…?”


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That gets the husband to make up an excuse and leave almost immediately. As the wife wrote in this video’s on-screen text, “he understood the assignment.” Someone put this man on an undercover job stat!

Unsurprisingly, people were totally here for this Amazon driver’s improv skills.

“He switched careers from a delivery man to a holy man in under a minute. LOL.”

"Imagine if the husband was like, oh sure come on in and tell me all about it. He'd have to put on a whole sermon on the fly."

“This driver deserves a raise.”

“Amazon driver saving one marriage at a time 😂”

“I love that he used 'witnessing' to get out of an interaction!!!!”

“I would have a big fat tip for him next delivery. That was awesome 😭😂😂😂 He was such a good sport.”

“We had this door mat for a while and sometimes came home to packages hidden around the porch. It was always fun to get the ‘delivered’ notification then have a bit of a hunt.”

FYI—if you have an Amazon driver you’d like to give back to for their hard work (involving pretending to be a missionary or otherwise) you can search “thank my driver” in the Amazon app after you get a package, and then click on the banner that pops up so that your driver will get a $5 tip.

Pop Culture

Don't worry, Wendy's isn't raising prices during the busiest times. But changes are coming.

People were very upset after hearing that surge pricing may come to the local drive-thru.

A combo meal from Wendy's.

In a world where prices are continuously increasing, prominent companies are turning to surge pricing to raise prices even further during peak demand times. Uber charges people more for a ride when demand is high. Hotels have been changing prices based on demand for years and Amazon uses AI to keep prices constantly in flux.

Recently, Ticketmaster, known for charging high fees, has been charging customers even more for tickets as demand rises.

On Monday, February 26, news reports began circulating that Wendy’s, America's 5th most popular fast-food chain, would implement dynamic pricing at its restaurants. Many assumed that meant a Dave’s Double burger would cost an extra $3 during dinner time or medium fries would cost an extra buck during the lunch rush.


The changes in pricing are part of a $30 million effort to launch digital menu boards at all of its U.S. company-run restaurants by the end of 2025 and to enhance its digital menus at restaurants across the globe.

Many people feared the worst after the reports, but Wendy’s hadn’t provided any specifics on pricing during its announcement. “Dynamic pricing can allow Wendy’s to be competitive and flexible with pricing, motivate customers to visit and provide them with the food they love at a great value,” a Wendy’s spokesperson told The New York Post. “We will test a number of features that we think will provide an enhanced customer and crew experience.”

The news caused a lot of outrage on Twitter, where many railed against what they saw as a plan to start price gouging. They also feared that surge pricing would become ubiquitous in the fast-food industry, where consistency and low prices keep people returning to the drive-thru.

If you can’t depend on the price of a burger and fries on the drive home from work, then what can you depend on?

Prices at fast food restaurants are already on the rise. McDonald's raised its prices by 10% over the last year, and, according to PriceListo, Wendey’s prices have soared by 35% between 2022 and 2023 due to a rise in the cost of labor and supplies.

Adding surge pricing on top of higher prices would force many people to abandon the drive-thru altogether.

After the public backlash against its new pricing strategy, Wendy’s clarified that it has no intention of implementing surge pricing. “Wendy’s will not implement surge pricing, which is the practice of raising prices when demand is highest. We didn’t use that phrase, nor do we plan to implement that practice,” the company said in an email to The Associated Press on Wednesday, February 28.

However, it did add that its new digital menu boards may offer more dynamic menu offerings throughout the day that could save consumers a few bucks for stopping by during non-peak hours. The company said the new digital menus “could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.”

Jeff Bezos at Amazon Spheres Grand Opening in Seattle.

Amazon and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos recently sat with podcaster Lex Fridman for a rare, long-form interview. Over 2-plus hours, he discussed his thinking process, space exploration, Day 1 mentality, Amazon principles, morning routines and more.

During the conversation, Bezos shared some insights into his work philosophy and one big takeaway was his belief in always speaking last in meetings. The advice is helpful for anyone, whether they want to be a better leader or more persuasive in social situations.

The strategy makes a lot of sense for Bezos. As one of the most influential and successful business leaders in American history, it has to be hard to get an honest opinion from your team when you have such an incredible record of success.

When Bezos speaks first in a meeting, it can significantly affect the feedback he gets from his team.


“In every meeting I attend, I always speak last,” Bezos told Fridman. “I know, from experience, if I speak first, even very strong-willed, highly intelligent, high-judgment participants in that meeting will wonder, ‘If Jeff thinks that? I came into this meeting thinking one thing, but maybe I'm not right.’”

“If you're the most senior person in the room, go last,” Bezos continued. “Let everyone else go first. Ideally, have the most junior person go first—try to go in order of seniority—so that you can hear everyone's opinion in an unfiltered way. Someone you really respect says something? It makes you change your mind a little.”

Executive leadership coach Hortense Le Gentil, author of The Unlocked Leader, agrees with Bezo’s approach to leadership and believes that it allows people to become better listeners, which can help them in all facets of their lives.

“Leaders who keep practicing becoming better listeners develop deeper and stronger connections with their teams, which in turn contributes to boosting their engagement and performance,” Le Gentil writes for Fast Company.

Personal Grown Blogger Brian Walsh says that when we speak last, we give greater accountability to the people we communicate with, whether it’s family, a sports team, a community organization, or coworkers.

“Let’s say you have an idea that you think is best and that you want to be implemented,” Walsh writes at An Insight Into Life. “By speaking first, it may result in people feeling like they are being told what to do, removing them from the creation process. However, you wait until everyone else has spoken and find that someone else also has the same idea. Now by allowing them to suggest it and by agreeing with them, they feel like it is their own.”

“This can also be applied to our personal lives,” Walsh continues. “If you are arguing with someone, they often don’t hear what you are suggesting because their emotions have taken over, and you trying to correct them just adds fuel to the fire. Allow them to talk and keep your suggestions to yourself.”

Although Bezos framed his advice around choosing when to speak, the more important lesson may be deciding when to listen. Being a great listener is valuable because it’s a hard skill to develop. It’s not just about hearing what someone’s saying but understanding, empathizing and withholding judgment at the same time.

Being a good listener is the key to connecting with others, but it’s also a vital tool in personal growth. You can’t learn if you can’t listen.

Joy

Neighbor does an amazing act of kindness for father of 3 who lost his wife

“I see him doing the absolute best that he can with what he has.”

Colin McConnell surprises his neighbor with an incredible amount of gifts.

An incredible story out of Detroit, Michigan, shows how the power of kindness can multiply. Colin McConnell is a writer who lives in a duplex next to Donald Wilson, a single father, who lives with his 3 young kids, ages 5,3 and 1. Sadly, the mother of the 3 children passed away a few months ago, leading Wilson to raise them by himself.

"He told me that the kids are going to be around a lot more because their mother had passed," McConnell told WXYZ. "And the kids were walking up the stairs at the time. I just saw their little legs and my heart just broke instantly. I wanted to do something more for them. And he said, 'We don’t really have winter coats.’ I thought he had three daughters because the son was wearing his sister’s clothes — it was because he didn't even have clothes."

McConnell had tried to help the single dad by watching his kids from time to time or picking them up some donuts from the coffee shop. But he felt he had to do more. “I see him doing the absolute best that he can with what he has,” McConnell said. “I know from having conversations with him that he's having a difficult time, and so are his [kids],” he said in a viral TikTok video.


As a writer and entrepreneur, McConnell has a substantial following on social media. So he shared Wilson’s story on TikTok, hoping that maybe 1 or 2 people would help.

“If anyone wants to help me help this family and spread some kindness, you can go to my Amazon and it'll come right to my house and I'll give it to the family,” McConnell said in his video, posted on November 16.

@colin313

My neighbors daughters lost her mom not too long ago. I put some things in an Amazon wish list to try to help them. If anyone’s interested in helping me spread some kindness, please feel free to check out the link in my bio

The video received a tremendous response, and in the 3 weeks since it’s been posted has over 5.7 million views.

"I posted it, and I woke up the next morning and there were already boxes on my porch. I was like, ‘What?!’" he told WXYZ. “I didn’t think it would do that big and all of a sudden, it was thousands! I was like, ‘What! Oh my God!'"

@colin313

Replying to @user3549350178798 heres an update on the video i did @Colin313 o did on the little ones who lost their mom recently. Dad was moved to tears and cant thank you enough. Ill be doing more updates soon #commUNITY #bethegood #spreadkindness.

In a follow-up video, McConnell shared Wilson’s reaction to seeing all of the presents, and he couldn’t believe the generosity of strangers. Over a thousand people sent the Wilson family food, clothes, toys and gift cards. Later, after McConnell shared that the family had no furniture, the children received bunk beds.

The generosity was overwhelming for Wilson, who had difficulty accepting the gifts at first.

"That was the biggest thing for me, not feeling like I’m able to do it, or I’m not capable to do it, but Colin made it easy. He made me feel at home, he made me feel like a brother, like family,” he told WXYZ.

McConnell later shared that Wilson has 3 older children, half-siblings to the younger 3, and he was able to help them out through the donations, too.

santa, colin mcconnell, kindness

Colin McConnell with Santa Claus.

via Colin313/TikTok

The young children are going to get quite a surprise on Christmas day. McConnell found someone to play Santa and deliver their gifts on Christmas morning. McConnell says he’ll be dressing up as Santa’s little helper for the occasion.

Here’s the address to send the Wilsons a Christmas card.

The Wilson Family

℅ Colin McConnell

POI Box 32973

Detroit, MI 48232