NILAI: A delivery rider forked out his own money even though he could not afford to do so to make up for a birthday cake that a customer had ordered which ended up being ruined while being transported.
This incident attracted the attention of netizens after Fatin Afifah Zaid, 29, who is the wife of Muhammad Fadzil, uploaded a video on TikTok about the incident that happened to her husband who is a delivery rider when he is not busy with his day job.
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The video that Fatin shot shows her husband sitting on the floor while eating the 'damaged goods' that he brought back home with him, a scene that touched the heart of many netizens who sympathised with him.
Muhammad Fadzil, who is a father of two young children, said that the incident happened about a month ago, but it was only shared recently by his wife on social media.
He shared that the cake was ordered by a customer from a bakery in a shopping mall here.
After picking it up, he carefully placed the cake in his delivery bag on his motorcycle before making his way to the customer's house.
"Upon arriving at the client's house, I noticed that the decorations on the cake had been slightly ruined. So I informed the client and showed it to her so that she could see first-hand for herself.
"Because she did not get the cake as expected, the customer asked me to return the RM60 that she had already paid for the cake," he said when contacted by Harian Metro.
Not wanting to make an issue out of it or prolong it any further, Muhammad Fadzil gave in to the customer's request.
"At that time, the customer's child was also present and being a parent myself, I could not bear to see the utter disappointment on the child's face, so I returned the money to the mother. As a father, I can relate and understand, the child was full of excitement waiting for the birthday cake only to be disappointed by the state it was in when it arrived.
"Deep in my heart, I did not only feel really bad but I was also very frustrated because when delivering the cake I rode as slowly and as carefully as I could but still the cake ended up ruined and there was nothing else that I could do as what happened, happened.
"The price of the cake was RM60 and at the time it was the end of the month and I ended up having to borrow money from my sister to pay for it first. What made things worse for us was the fact that at the same time the baby formula also ran out at home," he said.
According to Muhammad Fadzil, after the incident, he just went home and took the cake back
with him.
"It would have been a waste to throw the cake away so I brought it back home and decided to eat it though I could not finish it all.
"This is because as I was eating it, I was staring blankly thinking about what happened because it is not easy to make money these days and I just had to incur a loss that I could have done without. I did not realise that my wife had recorded the moment and uploaded it on TikTok recently," he said.
Muhammad Fadzil said that he does have a full-time job but he took on being a delivery rider about a year ago to add to his income so that he could better support his family.
"I make deliveries on my off days and on public holidays because it just is not enough for my family and I if I were to depend solely on my salary. What can I say, being a delivery rider is anything but easy, where patience is a must especially when having to wait for an order to come in which can take time sometimes.
"At one point, I was close to just dropping everything and giving up. But then I have to make the extra effort to put food on the table and have a roof over our heads especially with the present state of the economy," he said.
