Sometimes, certain information is just confusing as all get out.

If you order something online and see the delivery status listed as “on the way,” would you be confused by the meaning of that update, or would it make perfect sense to you?

Read one customer service worker’s story about trying to explain shipping information to a woman who just doesn’t quite get it.

Here are all the details…

“What does ‘on the way’ mean?”

This is a funny phone conversation I had with a customer yesterday.

This lady called up the store I work at, wondering about the status of her package.

Funny enough, this lady wasn’t alone in this.

This isn’t an uncommon question; a LOT of people can’t seem to figure out how to enter a tracking number into a site or can’t be bothered to do it themselves and would rather read their tracking number to me, so I can look it up online.

I mentally prepare my “you can look it up yourself” script when she asks, “it says that it’s on the way, but it’s not here. I don’t understand what that means. It’s not clear.”

But the employee remained kind.

It takes me a second to try and think of an answer that isn’t insulting to her intelligence before giving up and explaining that it says it’s on the way because the package hasn’t been delivered yet, and that when its been delivered it’ll change to delivered.

She’s quiet for a second before asking her next question.

You’ll never guess what she asked next.

“But it says that it’s still in [Shipper’s city on the opposite end of the country]. How can it be delivered today before 4pm (this conversation took place at 2pm) if it’s in [Shipper’s city]? This is too vague.”

“The tracking information will say [Shipper’s city] until the package has been delivered. Then it’ll change to [current city].”

“But how can it be delivered today if it’s still in [shipper’s city]?”

The OP decided to break it down as clearly as possible.

“Because it’s not in [shipper’s city]. It’s in [current city].”

“So if it can’t be delivered today, does that mean that it’ll go back to [shipper’s city] and then shipped back for delivery tomorrow?”

“No. If it can’t be delivered today, it’ll stay on the truck it’s on or go to a depot in the city and be put back on a truck tomorrow.”

“Okay. But where exactly is my package? The tracking doesn’t say.”

Finally, the Redditor was all out of cards.

“I don’t know. It’s on a truck somewhere in the city. If you want more exact information you’ll have to give [different number] a call.”

“I’ll do that then. Thank you.”

I honestly don’t know how some people figure out which shoe goes on which foot. There wasn’t a language barrier that I could tell.

If English was this lady’s second language, then she had long lost her accent.

Is this tale bizarre? Have other customer service representatives experienced this? Let’s read the Reddit comments below to see if anyone has any similar experiences.

Redditors actually sided with the woman on this one.

People agreed the term was vague.

Others had even crazier stories.

And finally, one reader brought up Sweden’s tech.

This woman was right to be confused.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.