Finally!

After over a month off due to my broken arm and then my car repairs (clutch), I finally returned to work tonight.

The first thing that happened was that since I was gone so long, the computer made me change my password.

After doing a few loads of dishes, I was on the road with a delivery for $19.99. The cost would have been $18.49 but the customer had added 2 garlic sauces at $0.75 each. I was afraid that this was intended to bring the price right up to $20 even, and indeed, my profit on that run was one Lincoln coin. I drove back feeling slightly depressed.

I shouldn't have, as my night improved tremendously. My next trip, a double, earned me $10.54 in tips, followed by $4.04 from a customer who had remarked on the phone that the price was too high.

Next after that was $2.82 ($2 in cash and $0.82 added on the credit card total). After that came another double, $1.54 and $4.03.

Finally one more double ($2.54 and $5.10) to a historically low-tipping area. In fact, 7 of my 9 runs on the night were to areas where I'd usually feel lucky just to get $2!

I worked 4 hours (4:45 pm - 8:45 pm), drove 42 miles (I think), took 9 deliveries, and made $29 in tips.

My arm felt a twinge of weakness once when I was reaching out to set some clean plates on the drying shelves, but it wasn't because they were heavy. Other than that I felt no effects of my broken arm.

I was scheduled to drive again Friday night but I've got calling hours to attend so I'm gonna miss the best part of the night, and just show up from 10-1, but at least I'm back in the swing. And good timing too, as the worst of the winter weather should be passed.

New Computer Tickets

Tonight's gripe about the new computer system is about how the tickets are printed. The total price on the old tickets used to be printed in a larger font so that it stuck out and was more readable.

The new total price is small and hard to find. The words "Makin' It Great" and "Thank You" are each over twice the size as the price.

I had an order that I had just left for when I got called back as the manager had found another order that went with it as a double. Unfortunately it took 23 minutes from the phone call until I left the 2nd time, as the cook forgot to make the sandwich for the 2nd order.

Anyhow, sitting in the hot bag in my car all that time, the pizza was fine but the ticket became damp (from the steam from the pizza) and somewhat difficult to read. The result was that I asked for $30.26 instead of $36.26. I shorted myself $6.

It ended up ok though, I took 9 runs in 5 hours, drove 40 miles and made $28 in tips.

New Computers, New (And Old) Problems

I've felt like quitting so many times in the past week it isn't funny. I've got a list of problems, many related to the new computers. Basically other employees are screwing up and it's costing me money.

Dispatch
On Wednesday, the manager mistakenly assigned my run to another driver. When he was made aware of his error, he didn't correct it. I'm not sure he knew how to reassign the run to the correct driver.

Bad Street List / Out Of Area Deliveries
The street list on the new computer is not as up-to-date as the list on the previous computer was. Due to this, we are taking many deliveries that the computer doesn't think is in our delivery area.

Incidentally, we're also taking more deliveries that really aren't in our area. I took 2 tonight (out of 13) and both stiffed me.

Some people think giving the driver a little money for this will make up for it, but there are many costs involved here, including the cost of the extra gas to drive farther, the time it takes me to drive farther, the other deliveries I could have taken had I gotten back in a normal time.

Wrong Address
Last night one phone girl got the apartment wrong, typing B14 instead of D14. The original driver couldn't find it (of course) and also couldn't call the customer so the order got brought back until the customer called wondering where their food was. I ended up having to take it and we gave it to them for free. Of course they didn't tip. Get the addresses right!

On a similar note, a different phone girl tonight totally butchered the phone number. 474-032-4739. It probably should have been 440-324-739X. Unfortunately the X is important. We ran out of Pepsi and I couldn't call to see if they wanted a different 2-Liter or a credit. Manager Nick had me take a Cherry Pepsi and a Sierra Mist and let them pick. Of course they didn't tip.

History Deleted
Our old computer system had the order history of all of our customers. Last night the same phone girl who messed up the address, took an order and decided arbitrarily, because the customer was laughing and ordered $45 (3 pizzas) that it might be a prank. She and the manager cancelled the order.

Had they asked me, I could have told them that I've delivered to that house at least 20 times in the past couple years. But no, they were too smart to ask for help. So the customer called back eventually, the pizza was over 2 hours late, and do you think I got a tip?

If you've read this long, you deserve a funny story. On one of my deliveries last night, as I stood by the door, I heard a miniature explosion going off behind the house. The guys at the door in their early 20's started laughing. Their younger brother (preteen) then showed up and the guys accused him of "throwing all the fireworks in the fire" and that's exactly what it sounded like.

Saturday I drove 8 hours, took 18 runs, drove 78 miles, and made $46.

Sunday night I drove 6 hours, took 13 runs, drove 67 miles, and made $25.

Note that the night with the 2 out-of-area runs, I got 5.15 miles per run. The other night was a more normal 4.33 miles per run.

Really Future Orders

As I've said a couple times now, we have a new computer system and not everybody has figured it out yet. I got sent out tonight on an order to St Judes that was supposed to be delivered at 7. Problem number one was that I left with the order about 8:45. The note on the ticket said "Around back in the gym" so I drove around back. The entire building was dark and there was not a car in the parking lot.

It was raining and I didn't get out and knock, I did call the number listed though, and got voicemail. I called back to the store to see if they had called (about the delivery being almost 2 hours late) and they had not, which I thought was strange.

It was then that I looked closer at the order and saw it was to be delivered at 7PM on 10/16. That's tomorrow night. DOH!

Tips were really up tonight, my lowest tip was $2.73 (at a factory) and everything else was $3 or more! I had 4 $4 tips, a $5 and a $6. Total for the night was $42 in 5 hours of driving (plus an hour of washing dishes after we closed). I took 12 runs and drove 45 miles.

Three guys arrived at midnight to start installing the chicken wing friers that are sitting where the old walk-in freezer was.

Slow Sunday Plus Moving

Tonight was pretty slow for a Sunday night. I drove for 5.5 hours and only took 8 deliveries. I drove 34 miles. I had 3 stiffs and 2 $5 tips and got $18 total in tips.

Once again the new computer system caused a few delays, once in particular when I needed to find a manager to reprint a credit-card slip and also to reassign a couple runs, one that was assigned to the wrong driver (out of order) and one that should have been a double in the first place.

Meanwhile, the back of the shop was being prepared to be remodeled. The walk-in freezers will be moved, I'm not sure exactly what the new layout will be. But the freezers were emptied tonight, into a couple of freezer-semis that are parked out back.

Unfortunately, nobody thought to pull the frozen dough for the nightly prep before moving it to the trucks, so a couple of the drivers had to go back out into the semis and bring the frozen dough back in. At least one of the drivers is a truck-driver in his day job, and was able to use the lift on the back of the truck to make the unloading easier.

New Computers

Well tonight was my first night working with the long-awaited "new computers". I'm sure there are some things that work better than the old system but one thing that does not (in my opinion) is having to cash out each and every run as soon as the driver gets back to the store.

This requires a manager to pretty much hang out at the back to manage the till, and it slows things down if they are busy elsewhere.

The other main problem I have encountered thus far is that it's impossible to know from the ticket whether or not the customer is using a coupon.

I drove for about 7 hours tonight and took 14 deliveries. I drove 61 miles and made $35 in tips.

Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday isn't really that busy of a day for us. It's not even as busy as an average Friday night. I drove 6.5 hours, took 13 deliveries, made $32 in tips, and drove ? miles.

Tips were decent, with only 1 stiff, and 2 others of $1 and the change. I did deliver to 2 of my most regular customers, both single old ladies. One lives in a trailer park, loves to talk sports, usually orders a meat lover and a 20 ounce pepsi, pays by credit card, and tips $4 or $5 every time.

The other lives in an apartment, orders pasta, wings, or a personal pizza, prefers Sierra Mist, and pays cash (exact change) and then adds $2 more saying "And here's your tip."

We were so overstaffed that dishes stayed caught up all night long and we did more prep (oiling pans) than necessary. We would have been out about 15 minutes after closing time, but we had some extra pre-made pizzas to toss at the end of the night, and some extra dishes to wash due to this.

I did get into a heated discussion with manager Nick about how he runs the dispatch computer, which (along with not making much money) spoiled my mood for most of the night. Then to top off the night, after we closed, I drove over a curb and blew a tire.

NY Times Article

I found a NY Times article today that expresses pretty well some of the issues that food delivery workers deal with. Check it out if you get a minute.

Also, one thing I meant to post about Wednesday night. I had a delivery and I got to the house, it looked pretty dark and nobody came to the door. Not only that the ticket had an apartment number, and this was clearly a single family home.

I knocked, and nobody answerred. I retreated to my car and called the store, and spoke with Melissa, the order taker. She had some trouble remembering if this was a new address or if it was already in the system. Also, to make matters worse, there was a note on the ticket that said "AREA CODE" but there was no area code. So my fear was that it was not a 440 number.

Melissa was not much help, so I attempted to call the customer. They were indeed a 440 number, and they were nowhere near the street on the ticket. When I finally arrived at their apartment, they mentioned that the previous driver had also gone to the wrong spot and told her that he would fix it in the system.

"Alot of people say that, but I know how to fix it, and I will. It's my gas money I'm wasting going to the wrong spot," I told her, as she handed me a $2 tip.

I actually called in while on the road and had Melissa fix it. And I double-checked the system when I got back to confirm that it was corrected.

I do get paid for an extra run ($1.10 currently) when things like this happen.

Working With The Idiots

I want to preface this by saying I enjoy my job as a pizza driver and there isn't anyone at work that I dislike. Having said that, almost everything that anyone could do tonight to screw me up was done.

I drove for 8 hours, took 16 deliveries, drove 64 miles, and made $30 in tips. I also made a rare $1 tip on a pick-up order.

Now on to what went wrong. Our POS system requires the driver to "dispatch" and "return" each order. This timestamps the order within the system and calculates the oven time and the delivery time. Let's say the order was entered at 6:00 PM. The driver dispatched at 6:15 and returned at 6:35. Travel time of 20 minutes gets cut in half and the order is stamped as delivered at 6:25, or 25 minutes after the order was entered.

Several employees (including managers) don't understand how this works and think that if the driver isn't back 30 minutes from the order entry time, the order is late. Delivery on-time percentages are calculated and compared from store to store. Some managers will "return" a driver when he isn't really back, to make their numbers look better.

This upsets me to no end. First off my on-time numbers are always good to begin with. Second, returning a driver early is a lie. Also, returning a driver early makes it difficult to edit or void the order, if the customer found a coupon or if the order was a fake order. Finally, returning drivers out of order adds confusion, as the computer can't be used to mark which driver returned first (and thus which driver is up next).

Well tonight, somebody was returning drivers and there was mass confusion on who would be up next. At one point driver Chris accidentally took an order ahead of me when it should have been my turn before him.

Later on somebody actually returned me, which at that time was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. It happened to be on an order where I was shorted 5 cents by the customer. Now 5 cents is no big deal but there's no reason I should be expected to cover for the customer. The order should have been discounted by the store but it was too late.

At that point I stopped dispatching myself and returning myself, figuring if somebody else thought they should do it, I would let them try to figure out which deliveries I was taking.

The cooks also got into the act, forgetting cinnamon sticks on one order and making a supreme rather than a super supreme on another. This is bad enough, but both of these times the mess up would have went nicely as a double, saving us drivers both time and gas (money).

The phone people screwed by taking the same bad address twice. First they put the address as "19 STREET", as in house number 19 on STREET. We called back to try to get the address right an no one answered so the order was voided. Later they called back and this time gave a valid street address on Douglas. Except for the fact that their house was about 1 mile past the end of our delivery area. Desiree took the order and they shorted her $1 because they thought that was all they should pay due to the late pizza.

The address was marked and we will NOT be going there again, if I can help it.

Later I arrived at a house and asked for $24.84, the guy said he had paid by credit card online. I called the store and sure enough, we had neglected to transfer that info from our internet computer to our ordering computer. I apologized to the guy and told him I was working with a bunch of idiots tonight.

New manager James even got into the act in a very minor way. He was on cut-and-pack and missed a "well done" note, but I caught it before leaving with the food, so that item was put back in to bake a little longer.

To top it all off, my customers also joined in. Half of them tipped $1 or less. One of them left their sprinkler on (in the dark) for me to walk through.

The worst was the woman who answered the door, telling me her husband was getting the money. I thought she meant upstairs. She meant at the bank. I waited in their driveway for about 10 minutes!

I'm sure I could say more but it's almost 3 AM and I'm bushed. So I'll just note that I was so upset for a while that someone called in manager Nick (on his day off) to try to calm me down. Nick went for a ride and told me about his failed romance, and it actually helped.

Good news of the night ... there was a huge dine-in group of about 20-30 people. Both waitresses, Catherine and Jeanette, served them. The diners then gave each of them a $50 bill as a tip! WOW!

Check Me Out!

I got an email from "Martin" last week, asking for help reconciling his money. First of all, I commend Martin on wanting to understand his cash-out process. Most drivers don't understand it and many are losing money because of it.

Not knowing how every POS (Point Of Sale) system works, I wasn't sure I could answer the question perfectly but I can certainly was willing to help dig into it.

First, it's very helpful for me to log each and every delivery. I have a notepad, each day I write my starting and ending mileage. Also, for every delivery, I write the address and ticket amount as soon as I get in the car to start the delivery. After I make the delivery, I write the tip amount. I also circle the amount if it is a credit card, and I circle credit card tips (but not cash tips on credit card payments).

It may also be helpful to write down the "ticket number", but I don't do this.

Now, our check out sheet has several totals on it.

1) Total amount sold, includes cash AND credit receipts. This is interesting but it is not used to calculate the amount I owe.

2) Total cash sales. This is the starting amount that I owe. This should equal the sum of all of the non-circled ticket amounts from my notepad.

3) Total credit card tips. This is the amount of credit card tips I am due. This is subtracted from the total cash sales in line 2.

4) Total mileage reimbursement. We currently get $1.10 per run. This amount goes up and down by the price of gas. If I take 10 runs the total would be $11.00. This is also subtracted from the total cash sales in line 2.

5) Initial Bank. We are given a starting bank of $15, which of course we have to give back at the end of the night. This is added to the total cash sales in line 2.

The computer does NOT give the manager the final total, he has to do the math himself.

Most drivers will have some line items that are similar if not exactly like this above. If drivers are writing down ticket amounts and tips, they should be able to calculate both the amount they owe and the amount they get to keep!

Some things to look for:

1) Is the total amount pre-coupon? In other words, is it the regular price or is it the amount the driver actually collects? It should be the amount collected.

2) Our system sometimes messes up "free orders" and tries to charge me for them. If our manager does a "customer satisfaction" mark down, these are the line items that often show up as the full amount, not the discounted amount that I actually collected.

3) Previously paid credit card tips. When an order is entered, the computer assigns it to the ID number of the person who took the phone order. When the order is dispatched, it gets assigned to the driver but it does NOT get removed from the phone girl (waitress). If the waitress gets checked out before me, she might have the tip show up on her check-out. The manager should be aware and be able to catch this, and not give her the tips. But when this happens, it shows up as "previously paid" on my ticket.

The store owes you for all credit card tips, whether or not they actually gave them to someone else already. It was THEIR mistake, and if someone is going to be short, or have to track down a waitress and ask for money back, it is going to be THEM, not me. Insist on this.

Hopefully this can help any driver (or manager) to better understand their check-out procedure.

Would You Like Anything To Drink With That?

We have a waitress who no longer works for us, as of last week. I asked one of the shift managers why. Here is what I found out.

We are between GM's and our District Manager Shelly is helping out. Shelly seated a table & got drinks. Waitress then served the table. Shelly cashed them out later and there were no drinks on their check.

Shelly confronted server, who said she was having a bad night and forgot. Same night, Shelly cashes out another customer, same waitress, again no drinks on the ticket. Shelly reviewed this girl's tickets and finds out she has been doing this for about 4 months at least! The waitress was fired the next day.

Now to me, the thing that doesn't make sense is, why? Did the waitress think that by not charging for drinks, she was saving the customer money that they would then give back to her as a tip?

She couldn't have been printing the ticket WITH drinks and then deleting them, because in our POS system, voiding an item requires manager approval and this would have shown up on a report long ago.

I expect more often than not the customer didn't even notice and the tip was actually lower because the bill was lower.

Blacklisting

We have 2 different government-subsidized low-income housing projects in our area and both of them are blacklisted. Meaning we do not deliver there. This is for the safety of our drivers.

Somebody called from one of them tonight and tried to order. He was told no. He called back shortly and I answered. He asked for a delivery to the Marathon station. It was well after 11 and it was closed, but it is in walking distance to the housing project.

Of course I told him no, we don't deliver to street corners.

I was assigned 2 other deliveries tonight that were out of our delivery area. This happens because a manager (or anyone with a manager code) can override an address. The first one tipped $5, so I let it go. The 2nd one let me keep $0.93 so when I got back I put a note on their address in our POS system that said "OUT OF AREA - DO NOT DELIVER"

I drove 8 hours tonight, took 19 runs, drove 95 miles, and made $50 in tips. I took 13 singles and just 3 doubles tonight, which is why my mileage is so much higher. It was very nice to have 2 $50 nights in a row!

Third Biggest Tip Ever

I got lucky tonight and was up for delivery when the order came up for XXX Indiana.

I blogged about this a few months ago, when driver Desiree got an $11 tip there and told how this was the site of my biggest tip ever, $35.

Tonight they had a $71 order and added a tip of $18 on the credit card. That's officially my 2nd largest tip that I have ever collected.

I did have a really good night tonight, I worked 5 hours and took 13 deliveries. I drove just 33 miles and earned a total of $45 in tips. So that's $27 in tips for the other 12 orders, which is a decent night, but the big one really put me over the top!

When I gassed up at the end of the night, I checked the MPG on my Taurus. I got 23.4 miles per gallon. Not too bad for a bigger car.

I had 2 other deliveries worth commenting on, my first delivery of $7.58. First of all we aren't even supposed to accept delivery orders under $8. But it was just a few blocks away so I didn't make a big deal of it.

But when I got to the door, the teenager handed me a handful of dimes, along with 4 quarters. I wasn't sure about the amount so I told him we had to count them, also I asked for a baggie to put them in. There were 73 dimes, so he actually was giving me an extra 72 cents.

I don't consider anything under $1 to be a tip, but I guess on a $7 order it isn't that awful. But if you are paying with change, the best thing to do is roll it so it's clear how much it is!

Then later in the night, I had an order of $35.56. The guy answered the door with 3 preschool kids in tow. It was all he could do to keep the kids in the house and he actually dropped the pizzas! I helped to catch them against the door, but they did flip onto their side.

He paid with 2 $20's and I went to hand him back $4 change but he said "I guess you can keep it since it's not my money."

Mighty generous of him!

Finally, we had a huge storm tonight then a couple hours later our computers went down. Manager Nick was having to do the closing numbers by hand. Luckily I write down all my delivery amounts so I was basically able to calculate my own check-out. And Nick trusts me so he knew it was correct.

Also, thanks to driver Amber who left early tonight as she wasn't feeling well, then came back later when Mike and I were very busy with deliveries, and helped with dishes!

Insider Screw-Ups - They Cost Me $

I had 2 serious screw-ups today. I'm not sure by who, but they both cost me time, gas, and money.

First off was my 8th delivery of the night. I arrived at the house, knocked, and the man who answered the door said "She already paid for it." I double-checked the ticket, and it was indeed a cash transaction (not credit-card).

The woman then came to the door, recognized my uniform, and said "Oh no, I canceled that order 2 seconds after I placed it. She said it was ok 'cause it wasn't even in the oven yet." Apparently she had then ordered from another pizza place and paid by debit card over the phone.

Well the pizza got made, boxed, and sent out for delivery. Whoever took the call for the cancellation (assuming the customer was telling the truth) should have made sure the ticket got voided right away.

Manager Nick did give me a $3 credit, but that's $1.10 for the run and $1.90 to replace the tip. As you'll see later on, my average tip for the night was over $2.

The second screw-up happened about the same time, but I didn't find out until about an hour later. This time an order was packed and placed on top of the oven to be delivered, but there wasn't a matching ticket on the dispatch screen. I checked the system and the order had been changed to a pick-up. So I moved it to the pick-up area.

Then about an hour later, I arrived back from a run and Manager Nick said "This order has to go out right away." It was the order that had been a pick-up, now changed back to delivery. It was already 85 minutes old!

The order was paid by credit card. When I arrived, the customer signed the slip, but, of course, neglected to add a tip. I don't blame them, but it wasn't my fault. I have no idea what happened that it got changed to a pick-up, but it cost me my tip.

On my 16 other orders, I drove 64 miles (18 orders total), and made $41 in tips. My average tip for the 16 non-screw-up orders was $2.56. This was for 6 hours driving.

I did have some positive experiences tonight:

A double to a notoriously bad-tipping neighborhood that earned me $7 in tips. (For the 2nd week in a row! Last week it was a triple for $9.50.)

A guy who added to his tip. He originally handed me $22 for his $19.57 order, then he said "Oh I thought it was $17 something" and added $2 more.

A guy in a trailer park who gave me $20 for a $15.33 order and thanked me for coming out so late (it was around 10 pm). I was glad that I had packed up 5 extra bread-sticks for this order, the guy gave me the $4.67 tip before he even knew I brought him some extra food.

2 other customers (4 in all) that tipped $4 or more.

It was a decent night, moneywise, but the screw-ups that cost me money really frustrate me.

Coupon Scam

This article describes 2 Dominos employees who ran the famous "coupon scam."

Basically the phone person takes the order. The driver delivers the order. The customer pays full price. But the driver discounts the order with a coupon, and the driver pockets the difference. In this case it seems the phone person and the driver were in on the scam together.

Our POS system tracks "surprise coupons", or any discount added to the order after the order is initially entered, so it would be pretty difficult to try this at our store.

Plus, as I always say, the money is too good as is for me to try something like this. Not to mention it's illegal!

"See You Guys Again Yesterday"

We had a computer glitch right at closing time tonight. Our main computer was fine but all of our terminals got their date messed up. Instead of saying it was 4/1, they said it was 3/31.

The first symptom was that I went to log in and it said I was not clocked in. Nobody was! But on the main computer everyone was. The problem is, the main computer can't be used to take orders, print delivery tickets, dispatch drivers, pay checks, or anything like that.

Mike (the other driver) had a delivery he was not dispatched on yet. The order wasn't printed. It's a good thing Nick remembered the phone number or Mike would not have known where to go at all.

I don't know how Ward checked Mike out when he got back. Mike wasn't dispatched on the order and it wasn't paid so the computer in the back would have had no way to know that Mike had the cash for that order!

We're not sure if this is a daylight-savings-time related bug, as this would have taken effect the first Sunday in April (today) before the recent change.

Meanwhile, I had a pretty solid night tip-wise. In 6 hours work, I took 9 deliveries, drove 51 miles, and made $32 in tips. I had several deliveries of note:

• $72 in pizza to a fantasy baseball draft being held at the local catholic high school. They tipped $8 but then seemed a little surprised that I didn't bring napkins. Hey I can bring napkins, Parmesan cheese packets, red pepper packets, maybe even paper plates, but please ask for them when you call.
• A $5 tip on a $15 order on a 12-mile round trip. Good tips on long deliveries are appreciated!
• A $5 tip on a $21 order to a guy putting together a swing set for his kids. As I was walking away I saw a cat and said "Hey kitty kitty" and the guy mumbled "hit it, please."
• A $4 tip on a $11 (discounted) order to a co-worker watching Wrestlemania 23, just out of our delivery area. We took it anyways.
• A $1 tip on a $21 order at easily the most expensive home I delivered to all night.
  

It Pays To Track Your Tips

The other night I had a really slow night. I only had 3 deliveries so it was easy for me to count my tips and to know how much money would take home at the end of the night. But I ended up having an extra $3.95. I will try to explain why.

We have a touch-screen POS (Point Of Sale) / Dispatch system. On our "Dispatch" screen, there are 3 columns. Orders to be dispatched, Drivers In Store, and Drivers Out. When you are ready to leave with an order, you click the order, click your name off the "In Store" list, and click "Dispatch". It moves you (and the order) to the "Out" list.

When you return, you click your name on the "Out" list, click a button that says "Pay Check", and it moves you to the bottom of the "In Store" list. Tough to explain but really pretty simple.

Well one glitch in our system is that if there is a credit card order that has not yet been dispatched, and the manager updates the bank deposit information, the credit card order disappears from the list and cannot be dispatched.

At this point, the manager has to give the driver who takes the order credit for an extra run, plus (if there is a tip on the credit card), the driver must be "tipped out" as a server to get their tip money. Not a big deal. This happenned to me on Friday night. The customer tipped in cash so all I had to do was get the $0.95 per run from the manager. Pretty simple.

Well anyways, at the end of the night while checking out I realized I had about $4 more than I expected to have. I looked closely at my checkout sheet and saw that I was being given credit for the run and also the tip ($3) on a credit card order that I did not remember delivering.

I knew that the only credit card order that I took tipped in cash (as I mentioned above) and it would not show up on my check-out since I was not able to dispatch it to myself.

As I thought about the situation, I remembered that the next run after my credit card delivery was another credit card delivery that the other driver was able to dispatch. However, since I was not dispatched, my name was still at the top of the "In Store" list.

The other driver must have carelessly clicked my name instead of his own when he dispatched himself.

Now most of the time, seeing 2 names on the "In Store" list when he knew I was out on a delivery would make another driver stop to think. But recently, some people have been "cheating" the system by returning drivers while they are still out on delivery, in order to make our on-time % look better. So when he saw 2 drivers on the "In Store" list, he probably didn't give it a second thought.

Since I'm an honest guy, I will be giving Brad the $3.95 next time I see him. But as I told the manager that night, if that was my $3.95 that was missing, we would have been arguing about it. I log all of my deliveries and my tips, so I always know within a dollar how much money I should have at the end of the night.