Free Pizza!

That is what everyone wants when they see me driving down their street.

But in this case, it was Little Caesars giving out free food to low income families, in my hometown.

Big Tip on Small Order

One thing I don't like about the new town I am delivering in is that almost no one has a light shining on their house numbers.  It is so difficult to read house numbers in the dark.  If you order food after dark, put your porch light on please!

My most surprising tip tonight was $8.50 on a $12.58 order (cheese sticks & a big cookie).

Tonight's shift was short due to my busy schedule this weekend and the upcoming rib festival.  Totals for the night are 5.5 hours, 8 runs, $24 in tips, and 37 miles.

"No Food In The House"

The highlight of tonight's work was not a delivery but a phone order.

I answered the phone and a man asked if he could order food for someone else.  I asked if he was going to pay by credit card and he said yes.  Apparently his daughter lives in our delivery area (and he does not) and called him to let him know they were hungry but had no food in the house.  He ordered 2 dinner boxes (pizza, breadsticks, cinnamon sticks) and a 2-liter.  It made me feel sorry for the daughter but nice that she reached out to her dad and he was taking care of her.

I didn't get to post on Friday but the totals for Friday were 9.36 hours, 19 runs, 84 miles, and $47 in tips.

Tonight's totals were 8.59 hours, 18 runs, 83 miles, and $66 in tips.  Tonight was a very good night!  Low tip was $2 and high was $6.44, with 6 tips of $5 or more.

Good Questions and a Bag of Coins

I had 2 interesting questions tonight.  One customer remarked on the $2.59 delivery charge and asked if I got that.  I do get about a buck (currently $1.25, depends on the price of gas) per delivery for mileage but pizza drivers did get mileage reimbursement before delivery charges, so the true answer is NO.  Customers still need to tip.

The other question, on the phone, was, would they get their order just as fast if they order online versus on the phone.  At our store the answer is yes.  In the early days of online, it wasn't seamless and it was faster to order over the phone.

I had a decent night tonight for my first 7 deliveries, then things went to crap.

1)  Customer (kid) hands me a wad of cash, says it was $18, the bill was $16.79.  I got back to the car and counted, it was only $16.  I decided since I had walked away, it probably wasn't worth my time to go back and argue for the extra buck.

2)  Next customer (2 kids) hands me a plastic box of $2 and a bunch of coins.  Mostly dimes, nickels, and pennies.  I sat on their porch and counted.  It was $12.59 (barely).  They blamed it on their parents not giving them any money.

3)  Customer #1 above had called back and got the wrong pizza.  I got to do a re-run for free.  At least I got a chance to ask for (and get) my $1 that he shorted me previously.

4)  Customer wasn't home.  Person who was home had no $.  Person gets on phone and calls customer, customer is walking down the block.  Customer pays $18.75 on a $18.59 order.

Total 4 deliveries, $0.37 in spare change.  Not even worthy to be called a tip.

Totals for the night:  6.25 hours, 11 runs, 61 miles, $20 in tips.

Double-Tipping

I had an interesting phenomena happen twice in my first 4 deliveries tonight.  The customer pays by credit card, pays a cash tip, and then writes the tip amount on the line and adds the new total.  Newsflash, the tip line on the credit card slip is for credit card tips.  If you write an amount there (and you should) it will be added to your total.

Other interesting things ... one lady cancelled her order because she thought the price should have been lower.  We did just raise our prices, but she ordered online so she should have known her total before placing the order.

Finally (or almost finally), there are 2 motels in our delivery area.  BOTH front desks placed orders tonight within 5 minutes of each other.  Motel 6 ($2.91) tips better than Days Inn ($1.16).

Totals for me were 10.05 hours, 19 deliveries, $54 in tips, and 82 miles driven.

Coin Change

Pizza drivers typically do not carry (or concern themselves with) coin change.  If someone actually wants their coin change back it is simpler to just give them $1 and take the loss, than to spend the time digging in your pockets for the exact change (which has probably fallen into the seat of your car several times by now).

I bring this up tonight because I had 3 customers give me the exact (or within a penny) coin change tonight so that my tip was an even dollar amount.  For example, my first customer owed $31.09.  They paid $31.10 and another $4, so that my tip was $4 (and a penny).  I appreciate it but really $3.91 is really just as good.

When this is NOT appreciated is when the customer pays the exact change without a tip.  Our delivery charge is $2.59 and most of our menu items are priced in even dollar amounts, so I do collect an extra $0.41 on most cash deliveries (by not carrying coin change).  But I had a customer pay $15.60 for their $15.59 order tonight.  Really crummy.

The laugh of the night came from a female customer placing an order over the phone.  She was paying by credit card and started reading me the card numbers over the phone.  She started with 4 numbers, then proceeded on to start giving me letters!  I stopped her, saying that credit cards don't have letters.  She assured me that this one did, before stating "Oh wait I am holding it upside down!"

Totals for the night were 10.22 hours worked, 20 deliveries taken, $65 in tips, and 79 miles.  Definitely my best cash night at the new location and also my biggest # of deliveries!

What Do Blake Shelton, Independence Day, and Pizza Hut Have In Common?

... find out below.

I worked 4-1 tonight but the first 6 hours were pretty much a waste.  The store was dead, as in, everybody was cooking out and no one was ordering pizzas.  I took 3 deliveries during those 6 hours and did allot of cleaning.

Who orders pizza on July 4th?  People who live in apartments, apparently, and don't have a place to cook out.  My first 3 deliveries were to apartments.

Now there was a flier on the wall proclaiming that this would be one of the busiest days of the year and very few request-offs would be honored.  I took the flier down and showed Manager Meredith and she snatched it out of my hands before I could show anyone else!

Once tonight when surprisingly the phone rang, the customer asked, "Do you have the deal Blake Shelton talks about on TV?"  Now I almost never watch TV so of course I had no idea.  I mentioned our Big Meal Deal and the customer seemed to think maybe that was it.  I searched when I got home and all I found was a Blake Shelton commercial for new Barbecue pizzas.

One more amusing thing, I had a delivery to the Motel 6 and a drunk guy in the parking lot asked where they should go to find a dance club.  I had to tell him I had no idea (which is the truth).

Totals for the night were 8.96 hours, 9 deliveries, 45 miles (keeping that 5 mile per delivery average), and $27 in tips.