Blizzard

I didn't drive Tuesday night, and I'm glad. The 20 minute drive home from my day job took about an hour. And you can see in the picture how much snow fell overnight.

I started shoveling about 6:30 this morning and it took me until 8 AM to clear out my driveway. Meanwhile our street has not been plowed recently and has about a foot of snow.

There were drifts in the driveway as high as 3 feet tall. And the snow all around the car was almost as high as the tires.

Because of the snow in the road, I won't be going in to my day job unless our street gets plowed soon. We live on a cul-de-sac in a newer development so I expect we are not very high on the city's priority list. I called my boss on his cell phone and he wasn't at work either, he was at home trying to relight his hot water heater.

I am supposed to deliver tonight. I am not looking forward to it, I hope it stops snowing soon so that the streets can be plowed!

Don't Go Into That House!

I worked 5 hours on Monday night, took 9 deliveries and made $22 in tips. I only drove 31 miles, had a couple of very close deliveries and most of my far-out ones were doubles.

When I started delivering pizza about 2 1/2 years ago, I worked with another driver named Rob. Rob was a very smart guy, going to college and also was the lead singer in a band called Mush. Rob had been jumped and he explained to me how it happenned.

He had a delivery to a large, older house that had been turned into multiple apartments. This house had an entryway that led to the doors to some of the apartments. Rob had stepped into the entryway and there was someone hiding behind the door. Now he was cornered and could not get out.

This taught me to always be cautious about entering houses and buildings.

For a while that building was on our blacklist, but as time passed and we got new management, I'm sure I'm the only person that remembers exactly where it happenned. So there's nothing stopping us now from taking a delivery order for that address.

Which is exactly what happenned last night. And as luck would have it, I was up in the rotation when the order was up for delivery.

I drove to the address and walked up onto the porch, realizing that there was no apartment number on the delivery ticket. I called the phone number from my cell phone and a girl answerred, saying that they were #3 upstairs. I said "Well I'm on your porch, come on down."

Now the entryway has 2 sets of doors, an outside door and an inside door, about 6 feet apart. The hallway from the outside door was dark but the hallway inside the inside door was well lit.

Less than a minute later, a male walked down the stairs, stopped at the inside door (in the well lit area) and waved for me to come in.

I shook my head no and waved for him to come out. Which he did without hesitation.

"I'm sorry man, we were robbed on this exact spot a while back. I can't come inside," I explained. The guy apologized, said he didn't know, and remarked that there were some crazy people living there. He paid $30 for his $27.58 order, a decent tip for that neighborhood to be sure.

If I have another delivery to that apartment, now that I've established he's a decent customer, I may actually go inside and take it up to their door. We'll see. I hope I didn't offend them, but in this line of work, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Short Slow Night, Party Tipper

I worked late Friday night. I went in around 10 and worked until close (1 AM). I had to do this so that Mike could switch with me on Sunday (and not go over 40 hours) so that I could go to the Cavs game with my son.

It was a pretty slow night, I only had 3 deliveries. The first one tipped $2, the 2nd one tipped $2.43 on a $27.57 order. The last one was another $27.57 order. I got there and it was a business (Chiropractor) in a big old house that was obviously closed. I could hear loud music coming from upstairs.

I knocked a few times and called the number, no answer. I finally decided to (cautiously) walk around the back of the building to see if there was a 2nd entrance to the upstairs apartment.

I found a doorway in the back that led to a stairwell that led up to the music. Stairwells are notorious places for punks to hid out and try to rob the pizza guy, so I proceeded very cautiously. Got upstairs and knocked on the door for a long time, the party was kind of loud.

Eventually after hearing "hey I think someone's knocking on the door", "don't just puke anywhere", and "I think the cops are trying to shut us down", a girl in her early 20's named Rachel came to the door. She handed me $35 for the food and said to keep the change.

That $7.43 tip gave me almost $12 in tips for my 3 hour shift, which ended up giving me a better than expected night. Thanks Rachel!

Schedule Changes

Our schedule gets posted on Tuesday (usually) and runs from Wednesday to the next Tuesday. Since this is a 2nd job for me, I only have certain days and times that I am available to work. Our GM is very good about meeting my schedule requests, so I pretty much know when I will be working. However, most people either stop in or call in on Tuesday to find out their schedules.

This week I had a dilema. I was scheduled to work on Sunday night 5-close but then on Tuesday (after the schedule was posted) I found out that I won Cleveland Cavaliers tickets to Sunday's 3:30 game against the LA Lakers.

Immediately I called our GM and asked if there was any way I could get that night off or switch with someone. Well we have a driver in Texas, another who already requested off, and 2 others that already had 40 hours scheduled. (We're not supposed to work overtime unless it is approved.)

We discussed it and figured that the only way it would work was:

1) Manager Alison, working as a driver that night from 4-9, would have to be able to stay until close.
2) Driver Mike, off on Sunday, would have to be able to work from 4-7.
3) I would have to pick up at least 3 of Mike's hours as he already had 40 scheduled.

Well I stopped up at the store when Mike and Alison were both working on Wednesday night, after my soccer league meeting, and explained the situation with each of them. Both were happy to help me out.

Thanks guys!

The Journey Of A Quarter

This is actually 2 stories, that both happenned on the same night and both involved the same US Quarter. I'm pretty sure this happenned in the fall of 2005 but I'm not positive. I know it was a chilly and rainy night.

I had a delivery to a public housing facility. I had no expectations of getting a tip. The order was for 2 medium pizzas (with coupon) for $14.98. Add in the $1.25 delivery charge and the total was $16.23.

I arrive at the building, get buzzed in, ride up the slower-than-molasses elevator, and knock on the door with their food. The custmer answers the door with $16. I quote the price and the customer yells back into their apartment, "Hey do you have a quarter?"

What I hear in response makes me cringe. "I think there's one on the bathroom floor."

The customer disappears around the corner, and reappears with a 25-cent piece, saying "Yeah there was." I pocket the money, trying not to touch the coin, give them their food, and proceed with my night.

Sometime around midnight I get a delivery to the far end of our delivery zone. This time the total is something like $20.74. Could have been 2 large pizzas and an extra cup of garlic sauce, I'm not exactly sure.

What I do know is that as I was standing at the door in the cold rain, a man in his early 20's handed me a $20 bill and then, like the customer before, called back into the house, "Mom, do you have a dollar?"

There was no immediate answer, but the guy didn't move to go find his mother, instead he just stood there and yelled out a few more times.

Meanwhile I am getting wetter and wetter. I realize I am not getting a tip from this guy, and I owe him back a quarter. Hmmmm . . . . .

I reach into my pocket and there it is, the quarter from the bathroom floor. I pull it out and get it ready to give this guy. Finally he goes into another room and returns with his dollar. I hand him the food and hold out the quarter.

"Keep it," he says.

"No, I really couldn't," I reply.

He still doesn't hold out his hand, so I flip the coin into the air, like the referee at the start of a football game. It lands with a jingle near his feat as I turn and head for my car.

"Hey you don't have to throw it at me," he calls out after me.

As soon as I got moving I got out my cell phone and call back to the store to warn our manager. "Ward, if a customer calls and says that I threw a quarter at him, here's what really happenned . . ." and I describe the events that just transpired.

Sure enough, before Ward hung up with me, I heard someone in the background say, "Ward, manager call, line 2"

Ward handled it well, and was very supportive. He asked the guy if it was his money, and when the guy said he should come up and beat the driver (me) up, Ward asked if he was making a threat, as Ward would be happy to call the police if he was. That pretty much ended the discussion.

And that ends the story of the journey of the quarter. From bathroom floor, to my pocket, back to non-tipping customer.

Sweet justice.