12/13 Seizing Santa

Another lesson in christmas decorating. This is unacceptable in so many ways, but particularly dangerous for a pizza delivery person. First, there were a lot of power-cords running across walkways. These are a tripping hazard. Next, the red and blue lights "bathing the house" in jolly mood lighting are actually blinding when I'm walking between them and the house. And finally, strobe lights are never ever a good idea. I'm not strobe sensitive, but I know people who get migraines or have seizures when exposed to strobes. These are sneaky strobes, the rest of the lights cycle from blue to green to red to white and then all of the sudden go into strobe mode. It's disconcerting; all on top of it being horrendously gaudy.

To contrast, I offer you the best Christmas lights I've seen all year. Seriously. They're colorful and whimsical; neither spare nor overdone. This house is jolly.

Some amusing things from my shift Sunday:

• A guy with lots of "tribal" tattoos and one Hello Kitty tattoo
• A little friendly neighbor competitions. Neighbor 1 has the following christmas decorations: Santa reading to the kids, ornaments in the trees, simple house outline lights. They tipped $5. Neighbor 2 has: Santa snowboarding, Santa's train, lollipops lining the driveway, lights everywhere. They tipped $7. Way to one up your neighbor.

I got $47 off of 11 deliveries, an average tip of $3.18.

12/12 The Boss-elf is a shitty tipper

Hangovers + work = me being very thankful for bell peppers. I know you know from my previous experiences that processed meats are absolutely nauseating while hungover/sick. What you don't know is that bell peppers are awesome. They're awesome because they have very little smell and are mostly water. I took my time prepping the peppers hoping El Jefe would have time to do everything else while I drug my feet.


El Jefe donated free pizza to a local toy-drive so that they could feed the volunteers. They chose to use them on wrapping day. They gathered at city-hall, took a mountain of toys, organized and wrapped them, and ordered pizza. I got there with my three hot pizzas and the organizer didn't realize that they had to pay for delivery. I guess they also didn't realize that I wasn't donating my time because they paid their $2.17 delivery (+tax) and sent me on my merry way. I hope they got paper-cuts from the wrapping paper but more importantly I hope they put more love into those presents than they showed to me.

On the plus side:

• I got a $7 tip.
• Pet the cutest, softest Cocker Spaniel puppy EVER
• Took a Damn-The-Man rich-neighborhood Christmas lights tour (yes, that is a christmas lights longhorn):

• and I made $86 off of 20 deliveries, an average tip of $3.20.
  

12/6 Green and Purple Sparklies

J/K was high as a kite. The orange puffy vest should have tipped me off. His giggle reaction to being asked to shave his chinstrap (a ruling I oppose as the chinstrap is a perfectly valid beard configuration and was providing a lot of entertainment for me) could have been another clue. But it didn't really hit home until I was getting ready to leave and I asked him to double-check his run-sheet to make sure nothing was mixed up and he had a hard time remembering if he'd been to the streets listed (there were only five listed). So I looked at him and said, "Really?! You can't remember five deliveries? Are you high?!" to which he responded, "Yeah... it was the good stuff... all green and purple and sparklies."

Other than that I
...discovered a street that switches which side of the road odds and evens are halfway down. This is in the same neighborhood that will randomly switch block numbers.
...delivered to my verbal tipper again. I swear I'm going to kidnap their obese dog and get it on a diet so that when it wants to jump up on the pizza guy it can.
...forgot a soda but then remembered a two litre of soda that I found yesterday while cleaning out my car, so I gave them that since it happened to be the same kind I needed.

Made $48 off of 11 runs. A tip of $3.27 a delivery.

12/5 Memo to self: STFU!

This morning didn't start out very awesome. I got bitched at by El Jefe because I said that I take the pretip* into account when I arrange the order of my deliveries and that it was me that tracked the mud into the store last week. So in other words, I got bitched at twice because I couldn't keep my big freakin mouth shut. Then, he got in my way again while I was prepping onions. I know I'm slow at it. It's never been a problem. There was nothing else to do, no orders, no other prep, dishwater was already made. There was absolutely no need to be in a hurry. And yet, he felt the need to come over while I was getting the onions ready to go in the slicer, take my knife, and start slicing. I tried to wave him off with an "I've got this." but he didn't go away, so I went and prepped tomatoes. If he feels the need to take-over, I'm going to remove myself from the situation before I open my big mouth one time too many.

Lil Nicky came in and then went home sick, so I was the only driver all day. Not that we were busy enough to need two drivers. No complaints on being the only one though. That just means I got all the money.

J/K came in still sporting his chinstrap, visor, and shades. This time bathed in cologne. I told him he looked like a Backstreet Boy. He took offense.

Big Black is acting a bit amorous around me. I say amorous, I don't mean like he has a crush on me, I mean like he's singled me out as a potential booty-call. I'm a bit confused by this. It's not that I haven't flirted (I do the same thing with Malibu Ken), it's more that due to Stoner Manager living with him, I know that he knows some history and might have expectations and/or impressions of me that are not reliable indicators of how I'm likely to behave. It's too complicated and I'm possibly (probably) making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I'm trying to keep the past in the past and my worst-case scenarios that I'm running in my head drag up demons that I've at least chained in the basement if not defeated.

Ahhhh, yes...customers. I had 19 of them, only two of them stiffed me. I made $76, an average tip of exactly $3.

*customers who order online can tip ahead of time. I can see how much they tip before I leave the store. My argument is that, all else being relatively equal (distance, etc) I will take the order with a higher tip first because that customer is paying me more. If someone told you they'd pay you $2 to bring the pizza to their house and right after that another customer said they'd pay you $5, whose would you take first? If a customer told you they'd pay you $0.76 to take the pizza to their house and 15 minutes later another customer told you they'd pay you $5, whose would you take first?

12/4 Homeslice and kittens

Thursday night I had dinner with Seth from Year of the Pizza. He gets free pizza from Homeslice for winning the Hands on an Eggplant Sub competition (a title he is defending as I type this, good luck!) and has eaten a ton (possibly literally) of pizza and shared that pizza with every manner of person that Austin has to offer. I really wanted to break away from the toppings I can get at work, so we went with fresh basil, onions, green olives, bell peppers, and mushrooms. Half had anchovies, which I'd never tried before. Apparently they have little bones that I could neither see nor taste but still freak me out a bit thinking about. The crust at Homeslice was amazing; The outside had just enough crunch and the inside had just enough chewy. There was plenty of good chatting about pizza and blogging and life in general (somehow between my nervous rambling and his people skills conversation kept going). He did a great blog on the whole thing and I encourage all of you to go read it.

Friday night was our first cold snap of the winter and nothing (not even football) makes people more inclined to order pizza than freezing their (and consequently my) butts off. Other than me being worried all night about the kittens that have been living in the storm drain outside of my ex's house*, not much happened.

I made $59 off of 15 deliveries, an average tip of $2.93.

*Yes, I pestered him about whether or not he'd called animal control to have them come rescue the kittens (and their mother). He says he called and they said that they are aware of them and are attempting to catch them. I have not seen evidence of this. And no, he says that he didn't offer to adopt one and no he will not call back and offer to adopt one no matter now cute they are (they're black and white) because Don Juan is a very happy kitty as an only-cat and he's sure they won't get euthanized because they're so adorable and surely someone out there will adopt them. I'm not sure I believe any of them and therefore will continue to worry about them.