Carnival News, Book Review Coming

First I want to thank Gary at The Garage for including me in this months Carnival of Wheels. He made some funny (but true) remarks about my pizza wagon!

Second, I just picked up the book, How to Open a Financially Successful Pizza & Sub Restaurant by Shri L. Henkel & Douglas R. Brown from my local library. I will be reading it and posting a review in the next few weeks.

"Never Mind"

First off, a quick story from Sunday night that I forgot to include. I was making a delivery and as I stepped up onto the porch I noticed a big appliance box on it's side with a guy's legs sticking out. Had I walked up to the door without noticing, this box would have been behind me.

But I stopped in my tracks and said loudly, "What's up guy?" A high school aged kid and his dog crawled out and the kid sheepishly said "Never mind."

I'm sure he was hoping to scare me from behind. Kind of funny now but definitely not cool. Pizza delivery can be a pretty dangerous job and some drivers will react quickly to a threat and may even carry a weapon. (I have a stun gun but I rarely take it out from under the seat of my car.)

Back to tonight, I worked 5 hours, took 9 deliveries, drove 42 miles, and made $22 in tips.

Coolest delivery tonight was to a couple of twenty-something girls at the Journey Inn, a low-rent hotel that rents by the day, week, or month. It was a credit card delivery and the first girl signed it and handed it back to me.

"You have to fill out the total even if you don't add on a tip," I said. "It's for your own protection, you know, so nobody adds it in later." The girl then copied the total ($11.83) straight down to the total line, then turned back to her friend and said "Do you want to give a tip?" The friend said "Sure" and the first girl then added $2 to the tip line.

It's always a positive feeling when you get a tip from someone who originally was not going to tip you. Not quite as cool as what happened to driver Desiree tonight. She was serving a pick-up customer at the front counter and got a $1 tip. Those are very rare indeed!

Want To Drive 12 Miles For 4 Cents?

Neither do I. But I did tonight.

As usual, I delivered pizza on Sunday from 5-close. In my 6 hour shift, I took 18 deliveries, drove 69 miles, and earned $37 in tips. All in all a pretty good night, mostly because Tyler called off (car trouble) and we were short a driver.

The most frustrating by far was 2 orders to the same house (different people were paying) at the far end of our delivery area, over 6 miles away (each way). A guy paid by credit card and a girl wanted to pay by check but we don't accept checks.

The guy left the tip and total blank and signed the slip. I told him he had to fill in the total, and he did, $23.56 (still with no tip). The girl rounded up some change and ended up giving me $18.61 for her $18.57 order. So I drove 12 miles and delivered over $40 worth of pizza for 4 cents, plus $2 for gas (since there were 2 orders).

The very next order I delivered was less than a block away and gave me $17 for their $14.68 order.

At one house, a pre-school girl told her mom that she saw me on tv. That was kind of neat, obviously she saw a pizza commercial but it sure wasn't me. At another house, a raspy-voiced woman told me I must be new as she hadn't seen me before. Strange, I have more seniority by far than any of our other drivers except Mark (who works days).

Carnival Of Pizza - Coming Soon

We are excited to host the inaugural Blog Carnival of Pizza.

The Carnival of Pizza will be hosted on the first Friday of every month. Submission deadline is the Wednesday before. Since we only have 1 week, the first Carnival will be delayed until April 6th.

Check back soon for more information!

Pizza Delivery As A Second Job . . .

. . . or "why is a 39-year old with an engineering degree delivering pizza?"

I was a divorced dad with a mountain of debt. Then I remarried and we bacame a blended family with 6 kids. Victoria worked 1 day / week as a school librarian but for the most part she was a stay at home mom. Our home needs it and she is good at it!

But the bills were piling up and we realized we needed some extra income. So after talking it over, I went out one day and got a 2nd job delivering pizza. At first I was only working weekend nights (Friday - Saturday - Sunday) because I thought that would be when the pizza shop was busy and needed extra help.

I soon realized that I enjoyed the work and, although the money was good, we could use still more. So I started asking to work a few weeknights when my kids were with their mother. I worked hard when I was there and did a good job so eventually Bill (the manager) began scheduling me whenever I would work.

I was working 5 nights / week for a while, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday-Sunday. When I was still paying alimony, my pizza delivery income of over $350 / week was actually more than the take-home portion of my regular job in the IT department for a large company.

When the alimony ended I was able to start taking more nights off. Now I pretty much work 3 nights per week.

Delivering pizza is a great second income. It's totally different from what I do during the day, sitting at my computer and solving IT problems. I get to drive around, listen to the radio, and interact with people.

Delivering pizza is very stress-free, every night when I leave my work is totally done. Contrast this with my other job where some projects last for weeks and are always in the back of my mind, even when I am at home.

I get cash every night, so I almost never have to take money out of the ATM anymore. This cash is good for gas money, lunch money for the kids, allowances, and other incidentals.

Once I established myself as a good employee, I was able to pretty much set my own schedule. Of course at first I had to work when I was needed the most, but since I have a family and most of my co-workers do not, I can usually find someone to cover for me if an important family situation arises.

And let's not forget the food. I love pizza so I am happy to feast on the mistakes, buffet leftovers, and crew pizzas pretty much every night that I work.

Of course the main reason I drive is for the money. And when a few more bills are paid off, the need will be less. But I will probably try to work 1-2 nights each week even then. The money is almost too easy to give up!