opening night jitters

my first night working at hell's pizza almost ended in disaster. i was on my second or third delivery and i couldn't find the address. i was getting pissed because i kept turning around, and the address was nowhere in sight. finally, i remembered that there were two sections of the street and i was in the wrong section.

i turned left off the side street and i didn't stop because there was no stop sign, even though it's impossible for that street to have right-of-way. just as i turned, i saw a red sporty two-door car coming at me on the driver side. i gave my car more gas and heard him lock up the brakes. i looked in my rear-view mirror and saw the car had spun perpendicular to the road. luckily, it was a backstreet and not a main road.

amazingly, the driver never called to complain. in my 2 years of working at hell's pizza, i've had many close calls. this is the one that could have changed everything, and it's like it never happened.

follow-up: john hancock would be ashamed

on july 24^th, i posted that amazing story about the goobers who couldn't get their check signed.

at work today, i noticed a sign on the bulletin board that said: "what is wrong with this check? hint: it's more than one thing." then there was a check underneath it. immediately, i recognized that it was a check from those people i dealt with last saturday. this check also had no signature, but the driver who took it got the license number!! how do you spend a minute writing down a license number without noticing the empty signature line?

i folded the check over to see if it was signed on the back instead. it wasn't. at least i got them to sign it on the back before i told them i couldn't accept it.

best of all, the driver's initials on the check were from our very own red smurf. for those of you who don't know who red smurf is, i can't blame you. he's a contributing team member for this blog, yet he has never once contributed anything.

While You Were Driving

Heres a few things that people said to me last night that struck me as odd.

• Do you work at Hells Pizza?
• ...but if I give you exact change, I dont know how much of a tip that gives you.
• Its the neighbors dog.

signature goes on the front

i took a delivery to an apartment complex in the pouring rain last night.

i roll up, and i see two dudes sitting on the stairs of the building where i'm headed. they look like they might be brothers; one is around 17, the other is about 15.

i run to get out of the rain and when i get near them, they stand up and the older one looks like he's holding a piece of paper in his hand.

"is this for you guys? apartment ##?" i ask.

"yeah," the older one says.

i hand him the 2 liter of pop and he gives it to the younger one. i get the food out of the bag and tell him the total. he hands me a check and i ask to see his license. he tells the younger kid to go get the license. the kid puts the 2 liter down on the stairs and runs up the stairs.

by this time, i have had a chance to look at the check and i notice a few problems with it. it's not signed, the check number is in the low hundreds, and the address does not match where i'm delivering the pizza.

"this needs a signature." i say as i'm showing the older one the empty line. the younger kid didn't seem to know what he was doing, so he came back down the stairs to where we were standing. the older one tells him to get the check signed.

the kid runs up the first flight of stairs, walks to the end of the hallway, then turns around and comes back. i was thoroughly confused at this point. why, if this was the apartment building they lived in, was the younger kid running back and forth, instead of going to get the license?

the younger kid takes the check from me and then says something about how he doesn't want to get wet. then he runs out into the rain and around the left side of the building.

this was the point when i decided to put the food back into the bag to "keep it warm." the older kid explains to me that they don't have a phone at their apartment, so they ordered from this apartment where they are watching some kids or something. it sounded like bullshit, but i just said, "yeah, that's understandable." while he's telling me this, i notice a cell phone in his hand and start thinking about how this situation is going from bad to worser.

after nearly 5 minutes, the younger kid comes back. he approaches from behind us, not in front of us like the way he had left. it made me feel like i was being given the ol' runaround.

he seems a bit flustered and hands me the check. i look at it, and it's still not signed.

"this is still not signed. i can't accept this until it is signed." i tell him.

the older one says something like, "why didn't you get him to sign it?"

"i did!" the younger kid yells. "i did! uncle was cussin' at me and..."

he takes the check from me and flips it over to show that it is signed on the backside... on the 'endorse here' line!

"i can't accept this," i tell them. "it must be signed on the front side, and i have to see a driver's license."

the younger one mutters something about being wet, and runs back the way he left the first time. he comes back within 2 minutes, from behind us again, and says that his uncle doesn't trust him to take his license.

the older one looks pissed and grabs the check. "i'll go," he says, and takes off into the rain.

i turn to the younger kid and say, "i got other deliveries i have to make. i can't keep waiting here forever. i'm sorry, but i have to go now."

i grab the 2 liter from the stairs and bolt to my car.

i'm still not entirely sure what happened. maybe they were two stupid kids trying to scam for pizza. maybe they were two stupid kids with a really stupid uncle and their stupidity cost them their dinner. all i know is that they never called to complain or ask for more food. so they must not have been very hungry, which is strange since they ordered three pizzas, wings, breadsticks, and a 2 liter.

Faster Food

celebrity faking

monday night we got a call. not an ordinary call. it was arnold freakin' schwarzenegger! he wanted to know who my daddy was and what he did. he kept asking over and over. then he told me i was being ridiculous. then i wanted to share some of my favorite quotes of his. i told him, "if it bleeds, we can kill it." in my best ah-nuld voice. he wasn't interested in ordering any pizza. i finished it by saying: "get your ass to mars!"

that arnold is so funny.

my wife needs pizza

7 minutes before we close, the phone rings. g-dogg answers it and tells the guy three times that we are not open for carryout any more, we're only doing delivers. he gets the guys address and i tell g-dogg that it's out of our delivery area. g-dogg tells the guy to call the store that delivers to him. hang up.

5 minutes to close, we can feel the anticipation growing. we want out of there. i answer the call and it's the same guy from before. he says that the other store he called is not answering (not surprising since they are closed), and that he just wants to pick up the pizza. i tell him we can't do pick ups, but we can deliver if the address is in our area. he says that his wife really needs a pizza bad. he tells me the name of an apartment complex and i ask him for the address. he tells me to hold on. i can hear him asking some other dude what his address is and explaining the whole situation to him. he gets back on the phone, tells me the address, and this one is also out of our area. i explain it to him and he really doesn't want to give up.

i tell him i'm sorry, but there is nothing i can do for him. then he asks me if there are any other places open. i tell him i don't work at any other pizza places, so i wouldn't know what their hours are. he clarifies by asking if there are any other hell's pizzas open. i tell him there is one location that stays open later than ours, but i tell him they aren't going to be able to deliver to him. he says that's ok, because he'll just go pick it up.

yeah, you do that, buddy.