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hkhanna • today at 1:07 PM • 12 replies • view on HN

Instacart fired my wife for running for office. My wife asked for approval to run from her boss, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, who approved it and the company was excited for her to run.

A couple days after my wife launched her campaign, Instacart did a 180 and told her they had to fire her for running. Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!

My wife was also pregnant and she told them. They fired her the next day.

Congratulations on the merger.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/15/instacart...


Replies

assimpleaspossi • today at 1:54 PM

My son lost his job so did InstaCart for a while. He got really good at it and started making good money. Then they sent him to an apartment complex but didn't give him an apartment number.

He called support who contacted the customer and said they were on their way and could he wait five minutes. Of course he did but 30 minutes went by.

Contacted support again who said customer would be there in five minutes but, 15 minutes later, support said to just take the goods back to the store.

He took the goods back to the store but the store refused to accept them. Support said he could just donate them or keep them.

Despite showing the back and forth text messages, he was deactivated for not delivering to the customer.

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patentatt • today at 1:29 PM

Fascinatingly, this is not prima facie illegal in many US states! Wow. We live in a corporatist hell hole don’t we?

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thinkindie • today at 1:22 PM

I see this totally wild she even had to ask permission for running for office, or at least from an European perspective.

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AdmiralAsshat • today at 1:16 PM

How's the lawsuit going?

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another_twist • today at 2:04 PM

Wow. Cant you sue for wrongful termination ? I am assuming this was considered and not followed through. What are the legal details here ?

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willio58 • today at 1:48 PM

It should be illegal to do what instacart did to your wife.

herval • today at 1:27 PM

They always had a slimy reputation. I interviewed there very early on and two of the engineers interviewing me told me they fire people 1 day from vesting constantly...

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freejazz • today at 3:20 PM

Sounds like your wife has a good case for a lawsuit

thatwasunusual • today at 2:58 PM

And still people will continue to use their services. :(

mondomondo • today at 1:18 PM

[dead]

reticulates • today at 1:15 PM

I am of course very sympathetic to your wife and think it is outrageous that someone should lose their job this way but also given the insane behavior of the Trump administration, it seems like Instacart had no choice. I hope she wins the lawsuit and gets paid out but I can’t hate Instacart for being pragmatic.

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worldsavior • today at 2:57 PM

> Bad for business to run for office and criticize a Republican incumbent!

I think it's a fully justified reason. If I'm in a senior position and I say something that in someway hurts the company reputation/income, I would be fired. If the company liveness depend on me being fired, the I think the decision is justified.

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