Diary of a Pizza Girl

Dear congregation,

Yesterday when you had bible study you enjoyed 19 delicious pizzas, and I hope you enjoyed them. I made those pizzas; my manager and I prepared them, put them in the oven, cut them, counted them, stacked them, bagged them; we made sure that they arrived precisely at 5 as requested (a task that requires careful timing and coordination); I put Parmesan cheese and red pepper packets in a bag to bring with me without being asked because I am thoughtful; I loaded five hotbags full of pizza into my car; I drove them to your location, unloaded them, carried them to your meeting room, allowed you to borrow our hotbags as your coordinator ordered the pizza half an hour earlier than you needed it; and when it came time to pay for the pizza, $140 worth, no doubt out of a church fund, your coordinator gave me zero gratuity.

As you are probably aware, from receiving pizza deliveries in your own home it is customary to tip the pizza driver. It is normal to tip $3 for a standard pizza delivery, one where I drive one or two pizzas to your home and drop them off at the door. I will refer you to Tip the Pizza Guy for more information on tipping in regular situations. Instead, I'd like to give some reasons why as a church I should expect more from you.

My employer, a secular corporation, assumes that I will be reimbursed for my efforts through tips. They pay me less than minimum wage. Really, they don't pay me at all for delivering to you, they pay me for the portion of the job which I perform in-store (which is significant) and expect that my customers will pay me for delivering to them. So when I receive a zero tip, you have stolen my time and efforts. "Thou shalt not steal" (Exodus 20:15). I had already prepared myself to be under-paid for my work (whether you like to admit it or not, I have found that delivering to churches often yields low tips), I was preparing myself for a $10 tip (7%). If I was delivering this many pizzas to a private home I would expect $20-$25 especially considering that I didn't just leave them in the lobby (as is my right to do) and made you carry them back and set them up.

The only conclusions that I can draw are as follows:

• You are not grateful for my service. I know this not to be true because you thanked me.
• You do not know that you are supposed to tip. I know this not to be true because last time I delivered here you tipped me.
• You feel that you do not need to tip because you are a church. For that I offer several Bible verses (because even if you don't recognize the authority of social norms, surely you recognize the authority of your own god):

1 Cor 10:24
Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. (KJV)

Rom 15:1-2
We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.

1 Cor 16:14
Let all your things be done with charity. (KJV)

Luke 6:36-38
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

So yes, I ask for your charity. I am at your mercy to tip me. I can't demand it that you pay me for my services. I can't beg or even remind you that you should tip. I can't tell you that without being paid for my work I have a hard time paying my bills. I can't even make sure that this gets to you specifically, so instead I will put this out there for others to read and hopefully take to heart.

Sincerely,
Pizza Girl

P.S. I spent my childhood (and much of my youth) as a Christian though I was never comfortable with proselytizing. I once asked my pastor how I could get my friends to accept Jesus without being heavy-handed. He told me that I should let them see the light of Christ within me in my every action. He told me that that when they saw the joy and love within me that by being near me and feeling that warmth they would be feeling the warmth of Jesus and it would start to seep into them and before I knew it they would ask me to come to church activities. It worked. What started with just me spread to my group of friends and we soon all went to church together. I'm not saying we were perfect, but I'm sure some of them are Christians to this day. I am not a Christian now, perhaps because I have seen too many instances where instead of warmth I felt cold and as small a thing as not tipping the pizza driver is, it felt cold. It is too late to save me, but maybe you should take a look at the small things in your life and ask yourself if you're giving off the warmth of your faith.