Wednesday, September 30

A Bit of A Break

I will not be delivering for the next couple of weeks. This weekend I will be attending the funeral of Grandma-Red, my great-grandmother.

Then the weekend after that I will be taking off to party. Honestly, I'm a little burnt out on delivering pizza. It's been a while since I had a weekend off and between having to be up and at work (non-hungover) on Saturdays and Sundays and my children, it is hard to get any fun in. You have plenty of drunk Tweeting to look forward to that weekend if you catch me at the right time.

Monday, September 28

9/25-9/27 Checks

My heart wasn't in delivering this weekend. Friday night I took three runs (5 deliveries) and went home. I made a whopping $11 after getting stiffed twice. Saturday was a little better money-wise. I made $72 off of 17 deliveries. I got one of our new Boppers in trouble. Here's what went down:

I go out to a house. I have the payment type listed as cash on my delivery slip. The customer gives me a check. Our check policy requires me to call in the check for electronic approval before I can leave. I call the store and our new Bopper answers. I ask for a manager because I need to change the payment type on an order. The Bopper decides he can take care of it himself (and I give him the benefit of the doubt because as long as he's on a manager's terminal he technically can perform the necessary actions in the system if he knows how). He then comes back on the line and makes it clear that he thinks I am the customer and says, "Here's the thing about checks ma'am, I have to take your checking information over the phone, so here's what I'll do, I'll put it as cash and when the driver gets there they'll take the check." I somehow can't get it through his head that I'm the driver, the customer by this time has gotten impatient with standing at the door while I make the call and gets me cash, so I say, "this is the driver, we're going to talk about this when I get back to the store" and hang up. When I get back to the store I start by introducing myself to the Bopper and then discussing with El Jefe, in front of the Bopper, that we need to get these new Boppers trained on the check policy because they're wasting my time and costing me tips by not following it. Of course the Bopper tried to back-pedal and say that he was getting the check information over the phone but I didn't let him get out of it. That poor kid cringed ever time I walked by for the rest of his shift.

Sunday was super-super slow. I took 14 deliveries (including the previously blogged church delivery) and made $49. Day Driver came in around 11:30 and stayed in the store, not clocked in, until 4:30 or so. I wish I had nothing to do all day but hang out at work and not get paid. I take that back, if it was me, I would have insisted on clocking in after an hour or going home. They can't make me sit around all day off the clock!
Dear congregation,

Yesterday when you had bible study you enjoyed 19 delicious pizzas, and I hope you enjoyed them. I made those pizzas; my manager and I prepared them, put them in the oven, cut them, counted them, stacked them, bagged them; we made sure that they arrived precisely at 5 as requested (a task that requires careful timing and coordination); I put Parmesan cheese and red pepper packets in a bag to bring with me without being asked because I am thoughtful; I loaded five hotbags full of pizza into my car; I drove them to your location, unloaded them, carried them to your meeting room, allowed you to borrow our hotbags as your coordinator ordered the pizza half an hour earlier than you needed it; and when it came time to pay for the pizza, $140 worth, no doubt out of a church fund, your coordinator gave me zero gratuity.

As you are probably aware, from receiving pizza deliveries in your own home it is customary to tip the pizza driver. It is normal to tip $3 for a standard pizza delivery, one where I drive one or two pizzas to your home and drop them off at the door. I will refer you to Tip the Pizza Guy for more information on tipping in regular situations. Instead, I'd like to give some reasons why as a church I should expect more from you.

My employer, a secular corporation, assumes that I will be reimbursed for my efforts through tips. They pay me less than minimum wage. Really, they don't pay me at all for delivering to you, they pay me for the portion of the job which I perform in-store (which is significant) and expect that my customers will pay me for delivering to them. So when I receive a zero tip, you have stolen my time and efforts. "Thou shalt not steal" (Exodus 20:15). I had already prepared myself to be under-paid for my work (whether you like to admit it or not, I have found that delivering to churches often yields low tips), I was preparing myself for a $10 tip (7%). If I was delivering this many pizzas to a private home I would expect $20-$25 especially considering that I didn't just leave them in the lobby (as is my right to do) and made you carry them back and set them up.

The only conclusions that I can draw are as follows:
  • You are not grateful for my service. I know this not to be true because you thanked me.
  • You do not know that you are supposed to tip. I know this not to be true because last time I delivered here you tipped me.
  • You feel that you do not need to tip because you are a church. For that I offer several Bible verses (because even if you don't recognize the authority of social norms, surely you recognize the authority of your own god):
1 Cor 10:24
Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. (KJV)

Rom 15:1-2
We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.

1 Cor 16:14
Let all your things be done with charity. (KJV)

Luke 6:36-38
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

So yes, I ask for your charity. I am at your mercy to tip me. I can't demand it that you pay me for my services. I can't beg or even remind you that you should tip. I can't tell you that without being paid for my work I have a hard time paying my bills. I can't even make sure that this gets to you specifically, so instead I will put this out there for others to read and hopefully take to heart.

Sincerely,
Pizza Girl

P.S. I spent my childhood (and much of my youth) as a Christian though I was never comfortable with proselytizing. I once asked my pastor how I could get my friends to accept Jesus without being heavy-handed. He told me that I should let them see the light of Christ within me in my every action. He told me that that when they saw the joy and love within me that by being near me and feeling that warmth they would be feeling the warmth of Jesus and it would start to seep into them and before I knew it they would ask me to come to church activities. It worked. What started with just me spread to my group of friends and we soon all went to church together. I'm not saying we were perfect, but I'm sure some of them are Christians to this day. I am not a Christian now, perhaps because I have seen too many instances where instead of warmth I felt cold and as small a thing as not tipping the pizza driver is, it felt cold. It is too late to save me, but maybe you should take a look at the small things in your life and ask yourself if you're giving off the warmth of your faith.

Tuesday, September 22

Pictures - Pink Blowies and A Dark Road


A pretty pink blowie. There were a few of these off some weeds in a lady's yard. She gave me a pitiful tip, I made sure to spread some of the beauty in her yard.


The mess I have to clean up after massacring tomatoes.


The driveway for a house out in the country. The house numbers on this county road are wonky so I ended up missing the driveway and having to call.

J/K's legs on a slow Saturday chilling under the driver station.

A statue on a customer's porch. I love the way she looks like she's been split in half and is reforming with goo.

Monday, September 21

9/19 Store Gossip

I'm starting to get tired of work. I'm afraid that I'm getting burnt out again. I spent most of the day ready to go home already and fortunately we were busy enough that I was able to spend most of the day on the road.

Store Gossip:
  • Thing One almost got fired. He has a habbit of no call-no showing and then coming in five hours late when his girlfriend is scheduled.
  • Monkeywrench broke off her front tooth. It's kindof gross. That's what she gets for doing drugs that rot your teeth.
  • Bambi has a new hole in her face.
  • Lil Nicky's psycho girlfriend is supposedly going to start working here. I can't wait to transfer.
  • Speaking of...still pestering Big Red, the GM of the other store to bring me on.
  • Big Black is coming back, finally.

I made $83 off of 22 deliveries.

Sunday, September 20

9/19 Wanna See A Snake?

Another long night.  Monkeywrench stood up for me and told ArmyCook to take me off dishes and put MexiDriver on them, but somehow I ended up on dishes anyway.

The customers were pretty good to me tonight, I had 8 $5 tips!  I was only completely stiffed once.

Amusing:
-pack of chihuauas barking at me in the trailer park, I think they're feral
-the Longhorns beat Texas Tech!
-I was listening to the radio and one of those txt-to-win things came on and I won!
-delivered to a group of people chilling in the garage watching the game and one of the guys says "Wanna see a snake?" I had no idea I he had a snake or was about to show me his penis.  Luckily it was an actual snake.

Not amusing:
-bugs, the variety of bugs I've seen around has increased, now it's not just crickets, but also beetles and moths and gnats and little green flying things.  I love summer, but I can't wait till a hard freeze kills these things
-I'm super tired.  Working 20 hours a weekend is starting to wear on me.

Made $83 off 17 deliveries. 

Damn straight this came from my iPhone

Saturday, September 19

9/18 The Dishes Rant Again

I'm pretty sure MexiDriver now thinks I'm a bitch and I think he's lazy and does the very minimum to get by. Tonight's events have also cemented my confidence that I'm on El Jefe's short list of employees he knows will put up with a lot of crap without compromising the quality of our work. Here's what happened (and I think I've ranted on this before when Gelwyn did it):
I was assigned dishes with MexiDriver. I told him to rinse the dishes and fill up the sinks and I would wash all the dishes because, nothing personal, but last time I opened after a night when he did dishes half of them weren't clean enough to use. I was particularly concerned about this tonight because El Jefe scheduled Monkeywrench to close tonight and work an opening double tomorrow; I didn't want her to have to do extra work because dishes weren't clean. Anyway, MexiDriver ended up taking some deliveries instead of working on dishes, I rinsed and filled the sinks then went on some (8) deliveries, and when I got back El Jefe had sent him home after doing a pitiful dozen dishes, sticking me with the rest (which I got to start around 10:30).

Then we got hit by a big rush and I hit 4.5 hours in and took 17 deliveries ($62 an average tip of 2.50)

Amusing/happy things:
-Lil Nicky rotated the Pepsi cooler instead of sticking all the warm ones in front, I wante to hug him
-Bambi let me borrow a hairband when I forgot mine
-Damned the man by stopping for Red Bull between deliveries on the same run

Not amusing:
-Fucking teenagers accounted for most of my shitty tips tonight
-Kid ordered $50 in pizza, checked that I got everything right, made me wait while he hunted for tip money, couldn't find anything but 20s, I offered to give change, he tipped 2
-Got stiffed by a guy that smelled like warm pineapple, if he had tipped I'd have be in heaven

Damn straight this came from my iPhone

Monday, September 14

9/13 Eyebrows Gripes

We are located in a fairly small shopping center as I'd imagine most pizza places are. We have four or five parking spots right in front of the store and these spots are unofficially the "carryout customer" spots. There is an unspoken understanding that employees park in any spot other than the customer spots. Eyebrows has taken to constantly parking in the closest customer spot to the door and I've been holding my tongue about it. No one wants to be that uncool kid who cares about customer service. But at the same time, I find his parking there to be incredibly rude and inconsiderate. We're getting paid to be there, we're getting paid to make it as easy as possible for customers to come get pizza. Essentially he is getting paid to walk his lazy ass the ten feet from the acceptable parking spaces to the door.

Another Eyebrows gripe: he tried to trick me into switching shifts with him. He called me up Saturday night to ask if I wanted to trade. I asked him what his shift was, he didn't know. I asked him what my shift was, he didn't know. I told him to call me after he'd looked up the exact times of our shifts and then I'd give him an answer. He wanted to switch my opening shift for his his closing shift. Um, no!

And it's a good thing we didn't switch because yesterday afternoon was crazy busy. We hit a football/lunch rush that killed us (it was just me, Day Driver, and Stoner Manager). Eyebrows is slow as shit at the best of times, stress him out a little and he's likely to stand around for an hour talking to himself (or his bluetooth, we don't know yet if there's anyone on the other end).

Tips were pretty good all day. I took a catnap under the driver's station between the football/lunch rush and the early dinner rush. Saw a couple wearing those umbrella hats on the side of the road. Is there a universal consensus that those hats are lame?

I made $88 off of 21 deliveries.

9/12 Hot Towel Fantasy

Oh, where to start...

Ok, close your eyes. Well, imagine you're closing your eyes and opening your imagination.

It's raining. You're a pizza delivery girl that's been delivering pizza in the drizzly rain all day; your clothes are wet; your shoes are wet and threatening to soak through to get your socks soggy (a fate worse than swine flu); your car is also slightly soggy from having to open the door and maneuver the pizzas in and out. You get to the door and there is a fetching gentleman there (picture what you will here, I'm picturing cute-grocery-store-checkout boy), you can hear music coming from inside the house that is similar but cooler than what you usually listen to (I'm imagining that he's somehow gotten ahold of the new Muse album). He pays for the pizza and tips you $5 and just as you're about to leave he asks if you want to take a minute and have a slice. You accept and go inside (because somehow he's managed to convince me with just his demeanor that he's not going to try to murder me the second I step inside). He pulls a towel straight out of the dryer and hands it to you, it's hot and smells like fabric softener. (Because it's my fantasy and I can) You strip down (to your underwear if you're more modest than I am) and wrap the towel around you. He throws your wet clothes in the dryer and you proceed to the couch, the music starts to build. [imagine here what you will, but you know where I'm going with this]

Anyways...
It was drizzly. I delivered for 11 hours and was constantly damp. It was steadily busy.

Amusing:
  • Getting double tipped when the wife ordered online and pre-tipped and the hubby didn't understand the receipt and tipped me again. They both tipped an unacceptable $2 but karma caught up with them and it turned out ok.
  • A five dollar tip even though the customer didn't really get my joke that he should train the sparrows to eat the daddy long-legs (both of which had a nest up in his porch).
  • Taking one last triple at the end of the night and getting two five dollar tips out of it.

Not amusing:
  • I delivered to a county sheriff who pulled a dollar out of the waistband of his shorts (eww!). I believe it's a crime to steal my time like that.
  • Another dollar tip, this time from a very pretty, buff gentleman who seemed to think that gracing me with his dazzling smile and sparkly eyes while offering sincere appreciation made up for lack of monetary gratuity. 1) Not my style, sorry and 2)No!
I made $89 off 21 deliveries.

Tuesday, September 8

9/6 Open With Monkeywrench

I have found that I actually like opening with Monkeywrench. She helps with prep. Not only that, she has no problem doing more than just the easy stuff. She prepped onions and tomatoes, two of the messiest, most labor-intensive bits of prep. She griped with me about the shitty job that ArmyCook did on closing (DayDriver was closer Saturday, was high as a kite, left mopwater in the bucket, didn't take out the trash, dishes were so disgusting that almost half of them had to be rewashed). I am amused (and appalled) that she only knows of Muse from Guitar Hero and took it upon myself to educate her. I made $36 off 11 deliveries.

There is a serious downside to opening with Monkeywrench, which is hearing about her on-the-job drug/alcohol use. I really don't have a problem with people getting high. I don't have a problem with in-store people being high on the job as long as they can do their job. I have a serious problem with people getting behind the wheel high or drunk. DayDriver was driving high Sunday (and Saturday and Friday). Monkeywrench admits to being high/drunk/on seriously potent pain meds which driving (she even keeps a bottle of booze in the car with her). I feel like I should talk to El Jefe about this and hope that he'll keep me out of it when he brings it up with them. They put a lot of people's lives at risk when they drive like that. They put my life and my children's lives at risk. I would never drive while impaired (I once called in because I was loopy off Excedrin). Am I being unreasonable to expect our delivery drivers to be sober?

9/5 In Which a Used Car Salesman Earns His Reputation

Saturday was a busy day. I started it by running to our sister store to borrow cinnamon glop for our desert item that's currently on special. I locked myself out of my car later in the day but was fortuitously near the person who has the spare key so he only had to drive a few streets over to let me back in. I probably wouldn't have felt so bad had the delivery I was on tipped better, but they only tipped me a dollar. Some other interesting happenings:

  • Took a 12 pizza order. Carried it all to the door at once because I'm talented like that. They tipped $14 which is a little less than 13%, which is at least acceptable.
  • It rained for exactly five minutes. The rain started just before I got to the customer's house, poured down from the time I exited the car to the time I got back in, and promptly ceased the second I got back to the store.
  • Delivered to a house that smelled exactly like Ramen noodle seasoning. I kept wondering why they were cooking Ramen when they had pizza on the way.
  • I dropped my phone three times. It then proceeded to tweak even worse than it had been doing previously. (I have since procured a warranty replacement by omitting the stories about dropping it)

Which brings us to Saturday's shittiest tipper...

I had a delivery out to one of the little independent used-car lots. I got there, went inside the office, no one was there, so I went out on the porch and noticed that the salesperson was helping some customers with a car. I stood there for a while. I tried to wave him down. I didn't want to be rude and go interrupt him because I've been in sales and assumed he would excuse himself as soon as he possibly could. He didn't. I finally got a little more insistent (I still had another delivery to make after his) and he came to pay me for the pizza. He had nothing but $50 bills. I, luckily, hadn't dropped one of my previous cash orders, so I had enough change, but he only tipped me a dollar. I was flabbergasted. Not only did I patiently wait for him but he also had nothing but $50 bills! I hardly even get to touch $50 bills let alone have a wallet full of them. And yet somehow he can only pay me $1 for bringing him food at work. Cheap ass slimeball mother fucker. I will never ever buy a car there. I made sure that everyone at the store knew not to buy a car there. And if I ever get the opportunity to tell anyone else not to shop there I will. Because if he's willing to rip off the pizza delivery girl, imagine what he's willing to do to a customer.

I ended up with $104 off 23 deliveries.

Saturday, September 5

9/4 escape artist

Most of the time I find ways to stay longer and take more deliveries. Last night I was itching to get out of the house and see a movie (saw Gamer which was none of the good fun that the trailer implied). After waiting to clock in or a while I took six deliveries and was ready to go. I knew that once the Cowboys game picked up that we'd get busy, so I made sure to find a lull, get my end-of-night job done and ask to leave. I got out of there at around 7:30.

Amusing things:
Malibu Ken and hanging out with him prior to my shift. We played a game of "who's had sex in the smallest car.". I won.
A kid who yelled back at his mom to ask permission to sign the credit card receipt an then gave me a five dollar tip.
Day Driver was baked. It was a little funny because I was trying to sweep and he was trying as hard as his stoned brain could to stay out of my way, but he always ended up inadvertently standing in one of my piles.

Ended with $23 off 6.


Damn straight this came from my iPhone