Friday, April 30

Raw Data

The raw data for my latest Slice column (just to be in a more stable place than where I put it last time).

522 arriv
530 clock i
Boxes
538 routed
542 car
555 600 call in check 2.00
607 609 4.00
618 in
Boxes
630 standing
638 out
641 643 6.00
652 653 2.00
702 in
706 cash out.

5:28 arrive
5:31 clock in
5:33 boxes
5:38 wander to front to check on routing
5:45 ovens
5:48 routed
5:50 out
601 601 3.00
612 in
Oven
615 route
618 out
633 635 3.00
638 638 2
652 in
Oven
702 route
707 out
724 shorted 9 cents
735 736 5.00
7:51 in
Boxes, attempt to send me home
757 route
802 out
808 809 3
819 812 3
829 in
838 843 route out
852 853 4.50
905 2.50
924 cashing out
927 out

5:28 clocked in
6:30 boxes
5:59 routed
6:03 out
608 611 $8
6:18 in
6:20 routed
6:23 out
631 633 $2
643 644 $2
653 in
Boxes
703 routed
705 out
710 711 $2
721 723 $3
734 in
Cleainin
741 routed
744 in
7:58 $3
812 813 $3
816 817 $3
832 in
Mop
837 route
839 out
845 847 $5
853 in
Phone
Makeline
903 route
905 out
912 915 $2
920 in
922 925 out
932 933 stiffed
942 zero
950 in 953 cash out

Wednesday, April 28

4/27 60,000 mile mark

My car hit the 60,000 mile mark last night sometime during my shift. I don't know quite what that means other than I'm supposed to have a bunch of maintenance that I can't afford done.

My deliveries:

A lady with two big dogs that really really wanted to play. I kinda wanted to play too. I like when dogs come to the door and I get to pet them. She was waiting for me on the porch though and the dogs were behind the glass door.

A bunch of bland deliveries with two dollar (and one zero dollar) tips. Have I mentioned how much I hate our current promotion? It encourages low-bill deliveries. Now that I think about it, only one of my six deliveries yesterday had a total over $16 and that was the lady who tipped $5. When the total is only 13.00, most people only tip $2, which is disheartening when it happens over and over again.

I made $22 off of 6 deliveries, a tip average of $2.38.

Monday, April 26

4/24 Thugs gotta thug

Saturday night was busy, not busy all at once, just busy for a lot longer. I ended up taking deliveries till close to 10. Luckily they had written up our end-of-night task list before I got there so I was able to do mine (sweeping and mopping the back) between deliveries instead of getting stuck in the store cleaning for 20 minutes.

The night started off great. I was assigned a single (which I grumbled about on the inside), but once I got there I wasn't mad anymore. It was to the local firestation and not only were the firefighters foxy (yay alliteration!) but they also tipped me $8. I thought about bringing them an extra soda but decided, based on my experiences delivering to the firestation in Podunk, that it wouldn't be worth it. Next time, these guys are getting extra sodas.

The night ended badly. I was assigned a double and one of them was a free order. Free orders rarely tip. I guess I see the rationale from the customer side, they probably already tipped one delivery driver. However, I feel like the store should compensate me more than my gas reimbursement when I have to correct someone else's screw-up. Maybe give me the $2 that was charged on the delivery the first time. So I took that delivery second because I was expecting to get stiffed. When I got to my first delivery in a well-off suburb and a guy came to the door wearing a do-rag, my heart sank. Here's the thing, guys who think they're thugs feel more thuggish when they don't tip. They get some sort of amusement out of pointing out and exploiting other people's vulnerabilities.

I made $48 off of 12 deliveries, a tip average of $2.71 (would have been an average of $3.50 without those last two jerks).

Wednesday, April 21

4/20 National Ranch Dressing Day

Yesterday was 420, the national holiday of stoners. I delivered at least two orders that had in excess of 4 ranch cups ordered. You may not know this, but stoners love ranch dressing; If more than two are ordered per pizza, you can be sure they are smoking up.

Other than that, it was a pretty boring night. Little Yellow was freaking out a bit because some corporate inspector is in town. It's a dumb system. First, we've had corporate/higher-ups in the store no less than three times in the last month, so the store has gotten clean and stayed pretty clean. Second, everyone knows when the dude's in town and calls around to see which stores he's already hit and as soon as he leaves one store the general manager grapevine gets activated so that all of the remaining stores know that he's on his way to one of them.

Part of the effects of the inspector's arrival being imminent (which, by the way, he didn't make it to our store last night, pretty much guaranteeing a visit today) was that Little Yellow made dishwater. I was assigned to dishes. If you know me, you probably already know where this is going: I couldn't rinse all of my dishes out! It didn't turn out too bad, I ended up rinsing dishes in the mop sink/trough, but it still tested my sanity a bit. He was very lucky that he just ran the dishwater and didn't stick any of the nasty dishes in it and that I'd already rinsed most of the dishes sitting next to it that House Elf driver ended up washing.

I took three deliveries to third floor apartments and one deliver that was nothing but cheesesticks (they pretipped $1 and, since I was hungry and had just found out I would be staying late, I made sure Taco Bell was on my way).

I made $36 off of 9 deliveries, $2.71 average tip.

Tuesday, April 20

4/19 Monday Night Mellow

There really wasn't much going on last night. Corporate was in town and making the rounds, so everything stayed pretty clean and I tucked my shirt in. Boombox driver came out with it and asked which team I play for. Still amused by this whole thing. I had a couple of great pre-tips (a $4 and a $5) and I convinced MamaBear to let me cash out before I took my last delivery, so I could go straight home after dropping it off. I climbed lots of stairs (4 out of 6 deliveries were to apartments and not on the first floor).

Came out with $26 off of 6 deliveries, a tip average of $3.04.

Sunday, April 18

4/16 17 Rain, rain

One of the first good thunderstorms of the year came through last night. We were very busy and the opposing forces of the lightning and thunder trying to lift my mood and customers fighting to bring it down again meant I was pretty melancholy.

At one point, when it was coming down the hardest, two customers in a row told me to "Stay dry." I suppose I get the impulse to try to make themselves feel better about me getting all wet. I don't mind delivering in the rain, it's what I do, but I do mind people not compensating me for it (they were both $2 tippers). There comes a point where I just want to throw their pizza at them and yell, "Do you see an umbrella?" but I don't, that's just a revenge fantasy.

One more thing that annoys me (that happened last night), people who yell, "Who is it?" at the door. First, they ordered pizza, I don't know who else they were expecting, maybe the cops to bust them for their prescription bottle full of pot or a psycho ex, but there's at least a 90% chance that if you order pizza that the next person at your door will be the pizza delivery person. If there's a chance that the answer to the question will be unsatisfactory and they wouldn't answer the door, wouldn't it be less hassle to not give away that they're home by yelling? Second, they already did the lazy thing and had pizza delivered, they're going to have to answer the door anyway, why not just get up and look through the peephole?

Friday night I got my first ever short-change. The bill was 17.09, they gave 20. I asked if they wanted change, they said yes. I gave them $3, they gave me none of it back. Hate teenage girls. I'm glad I never was one.

I know I'm just complaining at this point. I swear I had good deliveries. Had an Indian dude ask if I accepted tips and then tip me when I answered in the affirmative. It wasn't weird at all and I highly recommend it for anyone who isn't sure whether or not to tip in any situation. I had a $6 tip and a $5 off a check.

Boombox Driver seems to be either acting weird or initiating some sort of 4th grade flirting. He tugged on my ponytail one night and then aimed his car at me in the parking lot last night. Also asked me if I knew where to get drugs (I don't) and offered to hang out (and share his with me?) when he finds some.

Friday: $36 off 9
Saturday: $60 off 15

Wednesday, April 7

4/6 Trapped!

Last night was slow and I was feeling complainy. We had ten drivers and few orders and Little Yellow wasn't sending anyone home. I suppose I understand why he did it, but it doesn't mean I like it. We have an inspection today, I believe his first one as GM, so he was freaking out about having everything clean. I cleaned the running boards, I cleaned the grates on the front of the soda coolers, we topped every box in the store (glued the coupons on) (which in retrospect is still easier than topping all of them before we fold them).

I only took 6 deliveries in the three hours I was there. That's two deliveries per hour. One delivery every thirty minutes. That sucks. I should be able to take at least twice that. Of those six, only one tipped well and one tipped acceptably (actually, the acceptable one was to the apartment complex literally right next door to the store and in the building right next to the gate, someone talented could probably piss off the roof of their building and hit our store if the wind was right). My worst was when a dude folded up a single and handed it to me really smooth, like he was somehow buying my favor discreetly.

I made $22 off of 6 (incorrectly reported on Twitter because I forgot about the quarters). A meager $2.38 per delivery.

Tuesday, April 6

4/5 In which Yelling Manager yells

I think I've said this before, but Yelling Manager yells a lot. He gets defensive and easily frustrated. He cusses. He blusters. And last night he got in shouting matches with several drivers. The largest involved Ponytail driver, the closing driver for the evening, who was criticizing Yelling Manager for keeping rush drivers longer than absolutely necessary, and therefore reducing the size and frequency of his runs. The closing shift isn't really worth it unless all the rush drivers are gone by seven thirty or eight. They got into shouting, Yelling Manager countered that he was told by Little Yellow to keep drivers until after the game started to make sure we didn't get a big rush; Ponytail driver didn't like the way Yelling Manager was talking to him; another driver chimed in that Yelling Manager didn't need to yell or cuss to get his point across and in fact it was counterproductive (which it is). All the while, I'm trying to go home and Yelling Manager gets pissed off and decides to go have a cigarette. Word on the street is he might not be around much longer, apparently he got into it with a customer and the district manager got called.

Regarding my deliveries, I had a pleasant evening. The first two deliveries on my triple just happened to be right at the entrance to their streets, so it took me a lot less time to find their houses and allowed me to make it to my third delivery rather quickly. The third delivery was to an elementary school. The lady wasn't answering her cellphone and there was both indoor and outdoor activities going on. I started by asking all the baseball moms if they knew Molly, they didn't, then I headed inside where there was some sort of seminar going on in the library. I've missed elementary school libraries, the short shelves, the beanbag chairs. If I wasn't pretty sure I'd never be able to hack it with the jammy hands and such, I'd consider a career change to elementary school librarian.

I made $22 off of 5 deliveries, a nice tip average of $3.11.

Sunday, April 4

4/3 Easter Eve

I only took four deliveries last night. Little Yellow is freaking out because of some inspector coming next Thursday. He's making us clean out our cars so that the inspector dude can do ride-alongs. I have a feeling he'll be making us memorize the delivery script that we're supposed to be using. I hate that stupid script. Increases my time at the door, doesn't increase my tips. Besides, as a customer, do you really think that I really care that you ordered online. I dunno, the whole thing just seems, insincere. I know from my years at the call center that I can make it sound sincere, but I quite that job for a reason, so I don't have to use scripts.

$18 off of 4 deliveries.