Friday, June 4

6/3 The Logic Behind Routing Runs

I was hoping that last night would be one of those spectacular shining nights where I average $4 tips and I have to sweep (or less) and everyone works hard and pizzas get out the door. It wasn't. But it wasn't so terrible either especially given my recent perspective on terrible nights. I got there and it was fairly slow even though it looked rainy out. I forgot to wash my uniform.

My first triple was pretty shitty but illustrates a good point, that, while sometimes I don't have a choice about what order in which I take deliveries because the routing only makes sense one way or because order times are striated and I am obligated to take them in a particular order so that the actual delivery times are relatively stable, sometimes I do have a choice. All three deliveries were at a time of between 17 and 20 minutes (the amount of time elapsed from their order to when I checked it out for delivery). My slip had a $2 pretip (of the variety that is almost justifiable because it was only a $13 bill) that was just north of the store on the northbound side of the street, a $1.19 pretip (on a $40 order) that is a little farther north than the first one but on the southbound side of the street, and an unknown credit card order (turned out to be $2) that was much farther north than the other two but still close enough to the main road to be a pretty straight shot. Obviously I wasn't thrilled about my two pretips so right off I wanted to figure out how to get that unknown there faster just in case it is an order that tips higher for faster delivery (I'm working on a statistical project with Jared Lander to disprove that delivery time is correlated to tips in cases where there is no pre-tip). I decided to take the $2 pretip first because it was conveniently on the way to the unknown. I thought about it; I could have easily changed my route. That's the difference that a couple of dollars would have made. Had the middle order pretipped $4 (still barely over 10% of their order) I probably would have taken them second (the $2 pretip still being too conveniently on the way to move in order) and the unknown third. For a dollar more than that they would definitely have been second, I wouldn't have even debated it. For another dollar above that (a $6 tip that is exactly 15% of their bill) I would have taken the minor inconvenience of delivering them first and the $2 pretip second. It makes no sense to me that they can afford $40 in pizza but not another $4 for a tip (I realize that it probably wasn't a money issue, it's probably them either being ignorant of how tipping works or just being jackasses). And why would they show their hand? Why let me know you're only going to tip a dollar? That doesn't make sense either. I would think that a smart asshole would not pretip so that I provide better service and still only make a dollar (had they not pretipped they probably would have gone second because of their higher order amount I would be hoping for a bigger tip). The only thing I can think about is that they enjoy the thought that I was disappointed right from the start and that I had to be disappointed and still deliver them pizza, that I couldn't decline it. They must enjoy making me powerless. The sadism of making me unhappy must overrule the joy of hot pizza (because did they honestly expect me to bust my ass getting their pizza to them hot for a freakin dollar?!). I like to be able to get big orders to people fast. I would have felt a sense of satisfaction at sitting with a $5 pre-tip in my pocket planning to get it to them as fast as I could.

Other than that, I had dishes (and was able to get everything rinsed before people decided to be "helpful" and start doing dishes for me), took 8 deliveries (but didn't get completely stiffed for any of them), and got sent home at a reasonable time.

I made $32 off of 8 deliveries.

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