7/11 UFC 100

In case you didn't know, Saturday night was UFC 100. This is apparently a big deal in suburban Texas. I know that it's a big deal because we were ridiculously insanely busy from about 4:30 on. You would think that part of the job of a general manager is to be aware of events such as this that might cause a pronounced spike in delivery orders and that they would schedule more delivery drivers during the peak. Not El Jefe, he's a special kind of general manager. Saturday he was a special general manager/delivery boy because we were so short-handed and behind that he had to make deliveries.

Being short-handed and extremely busy also brings another special type of hell. In this hell, management tries to circumvent the dispatch system, a process that involves psychically predicting which driver will walk in the door next, checking them in from their currently deliveries, and checking the next batch of deliveries out to them. There are a few huge problems with this:

1. Most of the time the manager has predicted incorrectly, so the next driver in is forced to take deliveries that are checked out to someone else.
2. Managers are also fairly bad at picking which deliveries go together. They rely on our handy grid which is not at all helpful in a semi-rural area as adjacent sectors on the grid are often not connected by roads.
   
3. Management is lazy (sometimes busy) bastards and instead of reassigning the deliveries to the correct driver (sometimes impossible if they've already "cash-dropped" the order) they rely on the drivers to sort out paying each other for incorrectly matched deliveries.

At the end of the night we all stood around with printout lists of our deliveries with pens and highlighters figuring out who took what, whether it's cash or credit, where the receipts are, who owes who what, and crossing our fingers that it all gets sorted correctly.

Easy solution: Stop trying to trick the system! Yes the pizzas are "late" (our dispatch system calls a delivery late if it's checked out after 21 minutes regardless of any other factors such as advertised delivery time, sales volume, etc.). Get over it and let us do our job.

Other non-amusing things:

• The guy with the shrubbery arch again. He only tipped a dollar, so I'm assuming he's saving enough money by not tipping me to hire a fucking gardener.
• People who still write checks. I can't think of a single bank that doesn't offer a free Visa or Mastercard check card with the account. Checks are annoying and archaic.
• People who purposefully drive slow when in front of me. I know you're thinking that these people would probably drive just as slowly if I wasn't behind them or didn't have my topper on. You are wrong. There are on occasion people who are driving at a normal speed until they check their rear-view and see me behind them then slow down. I don't know if they have the common misconception that pizza delivery people speed too much or are just being assholes. I don't care, it's mean.
• Marmaduke. Especially when he's not on a leash and comes barrelling out from behind the house I'm delivering to. Especially when I'm already half-way down a very long driveway and therefore have no option to hop back in my car and make the owners get their dog before I deliver, forcing me to hope Marmaduke isn't going to maul me for my pizza.

Amusing bright spots in my long, long day:

• Upper thigh tattoos. They're the new tramp stamp.
• Crew-pie. Mmmmm, I'm hungry just thinking about it. Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, six-cheese blend.
• A custom car called an Escahoe. While your first thought might be Escahoe = Escalade + Tahoe, my first thought was Escahoe= Eskamo + hoe

Saturday's Damn The Man: While trying to get the pizzas for a large quad to my car I dropped on of the orders and it landed upside down. The customer only tipped me $2 (online order) so instead of calling for a remake I just reboxed it and moved the cheese back onto the pizza as best I could.

In the end I broke two of my records. I made $115 off 29 deliveries in a 12 hour shift.