Hanging Up My Hot Bag

I haven't updated in a long time, but since this will be my last week as a delivery driver, I thought it should be documented on my blog.

Between my other job, not getting to spend as much time with my family as I'd like, and the fact that delivery drivers at my store just aren't making a lot of money any more, I've decided I've had enough.

Hot Dog Stuffed Crust?

Even if you've never clocked in to work at a pizza place before, you could probably guess that Friday night is one of the busiest of the week.  So having only two drivers working that night would be a bad idea, right?  Well, that's exactly what we did Friday night.  And you'd be right.  It is a bad idea.  Once the rush started, it didn't take long before the orders started to fall behind and get later and later.  People get mad because their orders are late, so they don't tip.  Meanwhile, the orders are piling up.  Turned out to be a huge mess.

But it turned out to be an interesting night for another reason.  A couple of us were talking about hearing on the radio that Pizza Hut in England has started selling stuffed crust pizzas that are stuffed with hot dogs.  We were talking about whether or not it would be good when we decided, why don't we just make one and find out.  So on the way back from one of my deliveries I stopped and picked up some hot dogs.

After the rush died down, we started out experiment.  Pepperoni stuffed crust with hot dogs.  Sounds like it'd be a little much, and it is.  But, it was pretty good.  Probably not something you'd want to eat all the time though. 

So hats off to the British.  Fighting a war wearing brightly colored red coats may not have been such a hot idea, but they've redeemed themselves by coming up with hot dog stuffed crust pizza.  Cheerio.

Worked 4 hours, had 6 deliveries, and made $25 in tips.

Worthless Thursday

Some days it's not even worth going in, and Thursday was one of those days.  We weren't really that busy for a Thursday night, but we had more drivers than we needed.  On top of that, I kept getting customers that didn't tip or barely tipped.  I got a couple five dollar tips right before I left that helped make it a little more worth it, but overall, it was a terrible night.

Worked 4 hours, had 6 deliveries, and made $22 in tips.

Where's Everybody At?

I walked in the store this afternoon and before I could even clock in, I was asked to run the cut board.  That's where you pull the stuff off the oven, cut it, box it and ticket it.  It's actually pretty fun when done in short intervals.  There were tickets backed up in the oven and I noticed the older lady that usually washes dishes was the only cook at the prep line.  Not a great sign.  I started grabbing stuff off the oven and wondering where everybod was.  Turns out four people either quit or just didn't show up for work.  Granted, a pizza place doesn't exactly have the greatest employee retention rate in the world, but still.  Four people in the same day is pretty crappy.

Turned out to be an okay night though.  Kind of busy, but not anything the few of us that showed up couldn't handle.  I even got to deliver to my friend Brandi's house.  A friendly face is always welcome when orders are running a little late.

I ended the night with two non-tippers in the same run.  The first was to some ghetto apartments that are notorious for not tipping.  In fact, if you get $1 tip there, it's because they paid with cash and accidentally gave you $1 too much.  The total was $30.78.  The lady handed me a $20 bill and told her son, who I guess was about ten, to give her the rest out of his allowance bag.  It almost made me want to tell him not to worry about it, I'd cover the rest for his deadbeat mom.  Almost.

The second was to a customer who'd ordered 2 personal pan pizzas.  We were out of personal pan dough, so they made her a medium pizza for the price of the personal pans.  She complained that it wasn't what she'd ordered, and I told her that the medium is actually larger than the two personals anyway.  She said this was the second time they'd done this to her, and I thought, "Done what?  Given you more than you paid for at no extra charge?"  I called the store and the manager discounted the order $5 and the lady thanked me by giving me no tip.

Luckily, those were the only two bad customers I had the whole night.

Worked 4 hours, had 7 deliveries, and made $31 in tips.

Rain Is No Excuse?

So Friday night wasn't really busy, but it rained most of the night so deliveries were running a little bit behind.  Most people take that into account and tip anyway because of the rain.  All of my customers tipped decent and I had no non-tippers until my last run of the night.

It was pouring down rain and the customer was way out on Montevallo Road in Leeds, so  the delivery was about 30 minutes late.  When I got there, the dude answered the door with, "It's been a minute since I called this in".  I told him that with the rain, we were running a little bit behind.  He paid with a credit card so I handed him his slip.  He signed it then drew a big line across the section for a tip.  He told me, "Gonna have to scratch the tip tonight, because rain is no excuse for getting a delivery late to someone who paid money for a service."  I mentioned that he didn't pay anything for any service because he didn't tip, he just paid for his pizza.  Oh, before I forget, there was no covering over his front porch, so during his little lecture I'm still standing in the rain.  He kept talking about something as he handed me back the slip, but I'd decided that I'd heard enough and just turned around and went back to the car.

FYI, when you decide to get all uppity and lecture your pizza delivery driver, maybe don't come to the door still wearing your work uniform.  Needless to say, the Express Oil in Leeds will never get a dime of my money.

Worked 4 hours, had 6 deliveries, and made $35 in tips.

Slow Weekend

Friday and Saturday night were both pretty slow, so I decided to blog them together.  I made $20 each night. Friday night was non-tipper night.  When you only have six runs in a night and most of them only give you $1 or $2, it makes for a pretty bad night.

I didn't really have any interesting customers this weekend, just ones that haven't learned to tip.

Worked 8 hours, had 11 deliveries, and made $40 in tips.

Where's My $10?

Friday night was pretty busy as usual.  I had good deliveries that all tipped.  Mostly $4 and $5 at each.

One customer ended up giving me a $5 tip, but she tried to rip me off first.  Mostly because she didn't understand math and not because she was trying to rip me off.  I think.  When she came to the door, she asked how much it was.  I told her $29.70  She had four $10 bills and asked if I had change.  I didn't think I did, because it was only my second delivery of the night.  Each night I keep my tip money folded in half in my wallet to keep it seperate from money that is already in there so it's easier to count at the end of the night.  I didn't have change in my tip money, but I had 2 $5's in my wallet.  I gave those to her and she handed me 3 $10's and a $5 tip.  As I'm walking to the car I'm thinking, "Where is the ten that I changed for her"?  She kept it and handed me back a five for a tip.

I went back and her husband came to the door.  I explained that she only gave me enough to cover the pizza plus a tip, but that the $10 that I changed for her wasn't there.  He asked how much the total was and I told him she paid the total, but that she never gave me the ten dollars that I gave her two fives for.  He kept asking if she didn't give me enough to cover the total.  I was beginning to think I was going to have to explain it to him by saying, "If I had ten oranges..."  She came back to the door and acted like I was trying to rip them off or something.  I told her that when I gave her the fives, she should have given me the ten.  That has nothing to do with her total, that's my money.  I finally got them to understand and they gave me the other ten.

Luckily, the rest of the night went by without me having to explain basic math to anyone else.

Worked 4 hours, had 7 deliveries, and made $40 in tips.