5/22 Walk the Plank

There is some great satisfaction in a perfect run. Taking four deliveries at once, seeing that one of them was at 21 minutes and the other three were at 13/14 minutes, prioritizing and choosing the most efficient path, getting all four there before 45 minutes had passed, no wrong turns, smiles all around, it's a wonderful feeling. I had a few great runs Saturday night.

I'll admit that one of them wasn't mine. I accidentally took Russian Driver's slip and his deliveries which I know threw a wrench in things back at the store. What happened was Little Yellow yelled out that I was routed but then yelled that he re-routed me. The way that slips print out, when I was routed the first time it printed out the receipts and then when I was re-routed it printed them all again. So I took the second set of receipts on the printer without realizing that someone had already taken the first set of my receipts off the printer. I didn't figure it out until I was on my way to the third of three deliveries and Little Yellow calls to sort things out. I felt terrible, especially for Russian Driver. Little Yellow and Trainee Manager kept teasing me all night about how everything that went wrong was due to "some delivery driver who messed everything up by grabbing the wrong deliveries."

Other things:

• I got shorted change twice. The first time where I had to give change and the change was $4.86 and I gave him $5 back expecting to get some of that back and he just looked at me and asked if he should go get the 14 cents. I politely declined and went on my way. The second was to a hotel and while the mother wrestled one of the kids into pajamas another kid went and dug in her purse for money, I got shorted 36 cents. I know it's within my right to demand the full amount but that brings up two problems: I don't have coins on me, so if they bring me another dollar because I demand 36 cents, they will expect me to give them change; it's not even worth my time to wait for them, I could be on my way back to the store gaining several minutes of working or taking another delivery.
• For some reason when delivering to people with my same first name I expect them to be cooler than they are.
• I delivered to two princess/fairy parties one of which had a blue blanket spread in front of the door with a 2x4 across it. I was told by the child to walk the plank.
• I've been using a red pen to have customer's sign receipts. Because the ink starts off bright red and darkens as it sits, I like to pretend that it's magically drawing from the blood of people who conveniently forget the tip and total lines.
• A guy asked to see his pizza before paying me to make sure it was fresh. He said as he opened the box "I told them I'm not buying it if it isn't fresh". He was third of three on my route (the one I took from Russian driver accidentally). Good thing I was having a great run and got there in short time. By the way, he tipped $6 once he'd determined the pizza passed his test.
  

I worked over 8 hours (came in early for one of the day drivers and stayed late because Little Yellow asked me to pretty early in the evening) and made $82.