February Floods?

It rained so much last night, combined with melting snow, that several steets were flooded today.  Luckily for me everything was pretty much back to normal by 6 PM when I went to work.

I worked 4.14 hours, took 13 deliveries, made $30 in tips, and drove 52 miles.

A few deliveries stood out:

• Got tipped $1 by a waitress at a bar.  It is not cool to get stiffed (or low tips) by other tipped employees!
• Had a customer with a $13.99 order that paid with a $20.  He asked for $5 back.  I asked if he wanted a five or 5 ones.  He said, "Just 4 ones."  Asking the question got me an extra buck!
• The very next customer had the exact same situation and asked for $5 back.  I asked the same question and they wanted the five-dollar bill.  I guess it doesn't work every time.
• Final delivery of the night instructed the phone person (Driver Matt) to tell the driver to "Knock Hard."  Then they also taped a note to the outside of their door that said "Knock Hard."  I knocked hard and she came to the door right away.  I guess I did ok!

Bad Night

I got called in to work tonight just before 10 pm.  I knew something strange was up when I got the call.  I was just finishing up some shopping at Toys 'R' Us.

I arrived to find out one of our veteran drivers got robbed, at gunpoint.  It seems random. The delivery was legitimate, paid (tipped even), then confronted by 2 youths on his way back to his car. This was a veteran driver, neither young nor small.

So I worked 1.79 hours, took 4 deliveries, made $7, and drove 10 miles.  I delivered to 2 houses and made $7.  I delivered to 2 businesses and made $0.

That's right, a nurse on the 10th floor chose not to tip on a $30 order, even though I brought the pizza all the way into the hospital and up to their floor.

Then a girl working at a bar, that's right, a girl that works for tips, paid $13 for a $12.99 order.  I wished I had a penny to give back to her.  I was totally dumbstruck and unprepared, I don't think I've ever been stiffed at a bar before!

Snow Day

Most of the area schools were off today.  It was bitter cold (wind chill below zero) and I expected we would be busy, but we weren't too busy at all.  In fact I got sent home early!

I had 5 deliveries, 2 were interesting.  One was 2 pizzas, wings, and a 2-liter to a low-rent "weekly" style motel, the Journey Inn.  I had to chuckle when the guy said, "Thanks, now my lunch is taken care of for the week."  He did tip almost $3.

Other one was to the "Fraternal Order of Orioles", a private bar I had never even seen!  Bartender tipped me $5 on a $9.99 order.

Total 2 hours, 5 deliveries, 14 miles, $11 in tips.

Pizza For Your Valentine

Well tonight was Valentine's Day and as expected we were busy. I worked 6 hours, drove 61 miles, and took 21 deliveries, 6 more than Super Bowl Sunday when I worked the same shift!

Although my night started great with a $7 tip on a $43 order to the staff at a retirement home, it was only a so-so night. I had another $7 tip (on a $14 order) and a $5 tip on a $12 order to a bar, but I also had 6 stiffs and 4 $1 "tips". All in all I ended up with $43 in tips.

Definitely worth going to work for, but definitely not what I would expect for 21 deliveries.

Special thanks to co-workers Tyler (a girl!) and Alison for passing out some valentine candy!

Bad news of the night is that there is a "mandatory" meeting next Sunday morning at 9 AM. I plan to be in church. We'll see how "mandatory" it really is.

New Hotbags!

We got new Hotbags in the store. They don't even have our name on them, just the "Red Roof" logo. I realize that's not really interesting enough to blog about, but neither was anything else tonight.

I worked 4 hours and took 6 deliveries. I drove 13 miles and made $15. My first 4 deliveries were to South Logan, Purdue, and a double to Warren & Clark so those 4 deliveries only took 4 miles driving to accomplish!

The delivery on Clark was to an older couple celebrating the man's birthday in a small bar. They were the only people in the bar!

Slow Monday

I worked tonight from 6-11:30 (including 1/2 hour of cleaning after we closed. In 5 hours on the road I took just 7 deliveries. This is a very low number.

Luckily I got $5 and $3.75 on my first 2 tips and ended up with $18. I drove 33 miles.

I got stiffed by a little kid for the 2nd night in a row. It's a shame that people send their kids to do what they are ashamed to do themselves.

I had a delivery to a bar. While I was inside, a guy came in from outside and said "Hey my friends just stole your car." Was that supposed to be funny or what?

There's a new Little Ceasars about to open a few blocks from our shop. I wonder if it will affect business.

Late Night (Drunk?) Horse Vandalism In Saratoga Springs, New York

This really has nothing at all to do with pizza delivery, except that our shop is open until 1AM on Friday and Saturday nights. The video shows this happening at about 12:30 AM on November 2nd.

Apparently there are these fiberglass horse statues scattered around the city of Saratoga Springs. This is because of the famous Saratoga Racetrack, one of the oldest thoroughbred horse tracks in the US.

Well, after a night of drinking (who else is up at that time of night) 3 people decide to try to mount one of the horses. The guys take a running jump but can't get onto the horse. Eventually one of them ends up breaking the horse and knocking it over.

I found a story on Capital News 9 TV. Interestingly, Saratoga.com also reports a different horse being vandalized in August.

Anyways, I'm including the video to show the state of some of the customers we deliver to late at night.

Dish-Pan Hands? Not Tonight!

I started my night with my first 2 deliveries, both to decent areas pretty close to the shop. The first paid exact change and the 2nd tipped $1 and the coins. After that, I had a GREAT night!

I got 2 $5 tips, one to my favorite customer, and sports-fan widow in the local trailer park. She orders often on the weekend, always pays by credit, always orders a 20-ounce pop, and always tips $4 or $5.

The 2nd was to a bar. Bartenders usually tip pretty decent, so I'm always happy to deliver to them.

I also had 9 tips of $2.93 - $3.70 tonight. Only 4 under that (including my first 2) and the 2 over. I had a hospital delivery, and a delivery to ex-driver and current IHOP waitress Chelsea.

Our chain is marketing a new family-size pasta. We were told tonight we had to suggest this when we answered the phone. Our GM Ady phoned at least 5 times to make sure we were doing it right. I answered her call once and she was happy with the way I did it. Better yet, one customer even bought one after I suggested it. And I delivered another pasta so we sold at least 2 tonight.

We really weren't that busy tonight but we were perfectly staffed. Manager Mike, waitress Catherine, and especially cook Mona all 3 did a great job inside. For the first time in my almost 4-year career, I didn't wash a single load of dishes!!!

In 5 1/2 hours driving, I took 15 deliveries, drove 62 miles, and made $43 in tips.

Who Pays For My Phone?

I made a ridiculous amount of delivery-related calls tonight.

• Three different times I was sent out on a credit card delivery without being aware of it and had to phone back to the store to verify that it was a credit card payment.
• Once I was sent to the wrong street and had to call the customer to get the correct address.
• Twice I was dispatched to a duplex with A and B or Up and Down apartments. I had to phone the customer (I think it's rude to knock the wrong door, especially after 9 PM.

I had some other interesting events as I made my deliveries.

• One customer signed the credit card without writing the tip or total. I handed it back with my usual remark. "You have to fill out the total even if you don't tip. If you leave it blank, you never know what someone might write in there." The woman then added a $3 tip!
• Once another man walked up behind me as I was waiting for the customer to gather the money and bring it to the door. I asked if I was in his way and he said no he had to wait, he was delivering chinese food. I got a 3 cent tip. I told him I hoped he did better but I doubt it.
• Once I took a 4-bagger (we were a driver short tonight) where 1 of the 4 deliveries had pre-submitted a $5 credit card tip. My total tips for those 4 runs were $5.44.
• I had a delivery to a bar and was offered a shot by the bartender. Of course I'm not allowed to accept alcohol while I'm driving!

It was one of those nights where I made money by perserverance. My first 5 deliveries yielded just $6 in tips, while the next 5 brought in just another $9. But I drove for 6 hours, took 21 runs, drove 77 miles, and made $37 in tips.

I worked with Kristi as closing manager. I like working with her as she keeps people busy, making sure the prep and the dishes get done in a timely manner!

Freezing Cold

The temperature tonight was down into the single digits. It was very cold outside! Standing on someone's porch waiting for them to answer the door can be brutally cold to the pizza driver, but luckily most of my time is spent in a warm car or in the warm store.

We were pretty slow early on tonight, and we had 5 drivers working. Prep was done and dishes were caught up so Steve, our other veteran driver, got the other 3 guys sent home before 7 PM. Then we got a little busy and stayed busy until after 9 PM. I took 20 deliveries in 6 1/2 hours! I drove 70 miles and made $44 in tips. The 20 deliveries includes 2 no-shows ... one where I was sent to a bad address and one where the customer changed their mind and came in to pick up the food.

Add in 4 stiffs and I actually got $44 in tips from just 14 deliveries. I had 11 tips between $2 and $3.83. It was a very profitable night!

An interesting event that repeated itself tonight was customers adding to their tip.

My 3rd delivery was impressed with how fast I brought her the food. She had $1 tip ready but said something to her husband and he came back with $2.

My 6th delivery brought $15 to the door for his $14.57 order, then had me wait while he went back in for a tip. He brought me another $3.40.

Finally, my 16th delivery apologized for how long they made me wait at the door to their apartment building (only a couple minutes really), saying "my bad" and gave me an extra $1 in quarters, a $2.84 tip on a $23.16 order.

My biggest tip of the night was to co-worker Hoover, a tip of almost $7 for a $31 order. It was appreciated, especially since it was about a 12 mile round trip. Luckily for me there was another delivery at the same time to the same neighborhood and I made another $4 there, giving me a total of $11 on that one run.

I got back to the store a little after 11 from what I thought was my final delivery, but it turned out it was not. Steve was up and there was 1 more delivery, but he did not want to take it. It was to Bugsy's, a local strip-club. Steve's other job is at Rent-A-Center and he rents to several of the dancers, and I guess he didn't want to take a chance on seeing them in a compromising position. The ticket said the delivery was for "Butterfly" but a guy came to the door and paid for the pizza.

Date Night

This post really has nothing to do with pizza delivery but I think it's an interesting story so I'm posting it here anyways.

My wife Victoria and I went out to dinner tonight and then afterwards went to a local bar to shoot pool for about an hour. We drank Smirnoff Ice, Victoria had the Green Apple while I tried Triple Black and also Watermelon.

Anyways, as we were shooting pool, the place was mostly empty. It was only 9 PM. A guy wandered past our table a couple times and then approached us asking to use a phone to call for a ride home. He had been drinking and didn't want to stumble out on his own. I let him make a call and he called his mom to come get him.

I thought he looked familiar and I asked if his name was Mark. It was. I recognized him from a couple years ago when Nick, Josue, and I went out on Wardo's birthday. We went a few different places before we found someplace that would let Nick in. Along the way somehow this drunk guy started tagging along with us.

It was the same guy!

When I reminded him, he remembered me. He even introduced me to his mom who came to pick him up! (Mark is 33).

Late Start

I was held up at my day job for about an hour today, trying to get a database view working properly, so I didn't start driving until around 7 PM. Still, the cold snowy weather and a new tv promotion we are running kept us pretty busy. And we were 2 drivers short, as Desiree was having car trouble and Todd was a no-show.

So it was Ted, daytime driver Mark (staying late), and manager Nick until I got there.

I drove 4 hours, took 10 deliveries, made $24, and drove 35 miles. Pretty decent 4 hours. Of course our volume of business and shortage of drivers (on buffet night) meant there were another 1 1/2 hours of dishes to do, plus most of the frozen dough prep for Thursday night. I didn't get out of there until after 12:30 AM.

Then I was frustrated getting gas. I always get whatever gas-card deal is the best at Speedway. For the past month the deal has been "Save $1 on a $25 Gas Card." In other words I get a $25 gas card for $24. Tonight I asked for my $25 gas card recharge and it cost the full $25. But the sign was still up and nobody knew when it ended or what the new deal was.

I didn't have any interesting deliveries tonight except for 2 personal pizzas to Pudge's Place, a downtown bar. They were for a patron and (apparently) the barmaid, as I had to later take a rerun as we messed up the toppings. The patron was nice enough to give me $1 for my 2nd trip, even after giving me only $1.18 the first time.

Vices And Pizza Delivery

After 3 nights in a row, I didn't deliver to 316 S.M. tonight. Ted did.

I thought I had a delivery that would prolong my life today. A few weeks ago I came across this article that staring at women's breasts can prolong a man's life. Well tonight I had a delivery to the Brass Pole, a "Gentlemen's Club."

But alas, I was greeted at the entrance and told to wait there until someone brought me the money. The stage was probable 40-50 feet away so any staring was actually more like squinting. It was a large order (6 pizzas) and I did get a tip of almost $5!

The $5 tip was the name of the game tonight, as I got that on 3 of my first 6 deliveries, and again on my last 2. On those 5 deliveries I made $26! On my other 10 deliveries I made $15.

Other interesting things tonight were the guy who asked me to pick him up a pack of Newport Kings on my way. This happens every once in a while and we're really not allowed.

Then my final delivery was to a party where the alcohol appeared to be flowing freely. It was a credit card and there was already a $2 tip on the card, but the guy met me at the door with another $3 in singles! I asked if the 2 pizzas were going to be enough for all the people there (probably close to a dozen) and he said it didn't really matter as long as there was enough for him!

Also worthy of mention was the customer who answered the door wearing a t-shirt from "Don's Pizza in LaGrange", which I had never heard of. I asked him about it and he said that they closed a few years ago when they quit paying their bills.

Bad news of the night was one of our girl drivers had a really rough night. First she got the runaround, being sent to a very hard-to-find address in a trailer park that's not even in our delivery area. Then not much later, she stopped at a convenience store to ask for directions and ended up being harassed and even followed by some jerks that were hanging around there! She was pretty shook up!

Special thanks to GM Ady who made up a small box of fudge and candy for each of her employees as a Christmas gift! This was very thoughtful and the first Christmas gift or bonus I've gotten in 4 years of working here!

Totals for the night were 7 hours driving, 15 deliveries, $41 in tips, and 63 miles.