5/7 Crookshanks and a thinning of the ranks

Friday night was pretty nice. On my first delivery I met a very nice cat who was very orange and purred and meowed and rubbed up against my legs. Sometimes a great first delivery can set the tone for the entire night and even though the tip wasn't good, the cat made up for it.

My second delivery was to someone who wasn't home which very rarely happens. I can only think of a few times in the entire time I've been delivering that the person genuinely hasn't been home. Usually I just have a wrong address and a phone call fixes the problem. I don't know what else I could have done to try to deliver the pizza. Here's the procedure:

• Ring doorbell (I can hear it actually ring, so this isn't a guessing game of whether or not the doorbell is in working order)
• Wait
• Knock on door, loudly
• Wait - listen for signs of life inside
• Walk out to the front of the house and double check that I'm at the right house number
• Ring the doorbell
• See if I can see a street sign to make sure I'm on the right street
• Get out cellphone and call them to confirm address - leave message giving my name and instructing them to call the store if they get the message in the next few minutes
• Knock extra loudly on the door
• Call the store and make them call the customer from another line
• Advise manager that all reasonable attempts to deliver the pizza have been made and I'm returning to the store

In store news: people who did not show up to the store meeting seem to be missing from the schedule. Prime examples are Sunglasses and Boombox Driver. They were the most slacker drivers anyway, so it's not like they'll be missed around the store. In fact, since Little Yellow's pep-talk about everyone getting on the ball and answering phones and not folding boxes constantly, things have been getting done. Ponytail Driver was in some sort of car accident that totaled his car, so he's working in-store which means were down a total of three drivers in less than a week.

After my shift I spent a while sitting around outside with Name Bopper, Doggy Bopper, PokePedometer Driver, and Ponytail Driver. It was pretty cool. I feel like I'm getting to know people a little more.

I took 11 deliveries and made $45, an average tip of $2.80.

5/3 Damn The Man with Cinnamon Pie

In case you didn't already know, food that you had to sneak under the bosses noses tastes so much better than it does normally.

Some more higher-up corporate middle management was in the store last night. I've noticed something about these people; they look like they've eaten a lot of cheap pizza in their lifetime. Something about them (besides their waistlines) seems like the pepperoni grease has started to pickle their skin. Maybe it's the way they scowl and get in the way and seem nice enough when they're chatting with Little Yellow but only talk to me when they need to "correct" something I'm doing.

I hate when they're in the store. Little Yellow throws out perfectly good pizza. Last night he threw out a perfectly good pepperoni pizza because it had a bubble in the center. Bubbles are not the end of the world! That pizza was otherwise perfect (or as perfect as a mass produced pepperoni pizza can be), but district managers don't like when bubbles go out to customers. I wept a little pizza tear as it went into the trash can.

On the same note, there was a carryout order that was sitting there for over an hour. Apparently they had ordered on the web and chosen carryout and then called to change it to delivery. The bopper made a new order in the system for delivery, leaving two pizzas and a cinnamon pie to go to waste. Another big boss rule: no eating in the store and no eating on duty. Calico and I decided to damn The Man and sneak the pizza out into the parking lot to eat. We had Crazy-Church Driver sneak them out in his delivery bag and we sat in the parking lot, shielded by her car as we chowed down on a pizza and cinnamon pie. It was the most delicious cinnamon pie that store has ever churned out.

As far as deliveries, I took 5 and made $24 (an average tip of $3.51).

4/30 5/1"Your Epidermis Is Showing"

There is a hole in my work pants which I discovered Friday night. I suppose I was expecting this to happen sometime soon. I bought them for $10 at Walmart a year and a half ago and have been wearing them four times a week since. It's not like they were particularly awesome pants... they were too big, the left pocket was frayed from my constantly taking my phone and keys in and out of it, there was a giant ink-blotch right at the the front of the crotch from accidentally washing it with a pen... but they'll be missed anyway, mostly because I do not look forward to shopping for their replacement; I hate shopping. By the way, the hole is right on the ass, so there's no way I could get away with just wearing them anyway and the cloth is too frayed around the hole to even think about patching it. It was fortunate that I was wearing full-coverage underwear that night.

Saturday I was 45 minutes late to work. I've been moving and somehow managed to pack every single pair of sneakers instead of leaving one out to take to work. I felt terrible about it because just that morning we had our first store meeting and Little Yellow went on and on about being on-time and being in uniform otherwise he'd start cutting hours. So now I not only am down significant parts of my uniform, but I was late. Luckily Russian driver was even later than I was. He showed up at 8:30 about the time I was cashing out and didn't understand why Yelling Manager wouldn't let him clock in. Apparently he had told them he'd be an hour to an hour and a half late. Three hours late is more than double his outside estimate and at that point we needed fewer drivers, not more.

Oh yeah, I took some deliveries...

Friday night I took 7 deliveries and made $24. That's a tip average of $2.14 per delivery.

Saturday night i took 5 deliveries and made $21, a tip average of $2.91.

Saturday night also broke my streak of shifts where I had at least one stiff. I hate stiffs, they make me very sad.

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

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.