pizza ruined my life

opening night jitters

2005-08-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

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

2005-08-03T01:51:00.000-04:00

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

2005-07-26T12:21:00.000-04:00

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

2005-07-24T03:40:00.000-04:00

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

2005-07-14T18:10:00.000-04:00

celebrity faking

2005-07-13T14:29:00.000-04:00

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

2005-07-10T03:50:00.000-04:00

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.

do you know mr. visualbasic?

2005-07-08T23:35:00.000-04:00

we have this regular customer at the hell's pizza. he's so regular, you could call him "bran muffin." but i won't. i'll call him mr. visualbasic. and, for the record, he's handicapped or brain-damaged or mentally divergent. possibly an amalgamation of the three.

i delivered to him last week and he said he was giving me the exact amount. when i counted it in my car it was 25 cents short. i counted twice to be sure. also, take note, he never tips. we (the drivers) have come to accept this fact. he's probably on a fixed income or something. no big deal. but it's one thing not to tip, and an entirely different thing to short the driver. that means the driver has to pay for whatever wasn't collected for the food.

i knew it wasn't something mr. visualbasic would do on purpose. most likely a quarter got dropped or whatever. so, i decide to let him know what happened.

his order came in at 5:50 pm on the dot, and i was up next to take the order. on the way to the delivery location, i formulated a complete speech to tell him that he shorted me money, without being a jerk about it.

i get there and ring the doorbell. he opens the door and i tell him his total. he gives me a 10-spot and asks if i have change. as i'm reaching into my pocket, i say, "i just wanted to let you know that last time i came here, you shorted me—" and before i could finish, he says, "25 cents?" i was caught off guard, but i managed to say, "yeah, 25 cents." and he said something like he found a quarter on the ground or whatever. i wasn't listening, because i was trying to figure out what to do with the long speech i spent so much time on, which had just been rendered useless.

i'm counting out his change and he asks, "do you want to keep 25 cents?" and i was like, "yeah, that would be great." i gave him his change minus the 25 cents and he smiled and closed the door.

victory.

God bless the strippers

2005-07-06T01:00:00.000-04:00

	Male	Female	Total
White	$1.80	$3.37	$2.52
Black	$2.76	$1.26	$2.01
Total	$2.04	$2.77	$2.38

The only thing you have to fear is The Fear itself

2005-07-01T00:59:00.000-04:00

Earlier tonight I was waiting at an intersection on the main street in our delivery area, about 1 mile West of the store, coming back from a delivery and a cop went whizzing by. Kinda interesting, but nothing all thats too out of the ordinary.

My next delivery took me to 1 of our nicer hotels, about 2.5 miles East of the store, down the same street. As Im driving along, I notice about 4 cop cars and a fire truck, all with their lights on, crowded around something like they always do. I couldnt see any cars so I was a little confused. 1 of the cop cars was likely the 1 from my last delivery but the light has turned green now and I must press on.

On the drive back from the hotel (only about 8 minutes later), the emergency response team was no longer there. There werent any signs of a car accident either. The only thing that was abnormal about the situation is that everything was normal. It appeared that nothing had happened there at all.

I got back to the store 5 min before we close. Damn it, 1 more run. Shit, its to the shitty hotel a mile East of the store, right near where the cops were. 12 midnight and I get back into the Green Fever for 1 last run.

I pull up to the hotel and there are 2 cop cars in the parking lot. Interesting. Perhaps they just stopped here to fill out their paperwork. I go through the lobby and as I approach the door to the stairs a woman tells me that I cant go up this staircase because theres broken glass at the top of it. In this hotel, as you exit the lobby you come to a hallway that goes to the right. There is also a door leading to stairs straight ahead and a large window to the left looking out at the outdoor pool. Slightly interested in the situation I thought about pressing her further but being more interested in going home I delivered my pizza.

After an unpleasant experience with a 40 year old biker chick who should not have pulled her money out of her bra and who definitely should not have been wearing a leather vest or belly revealing tank top, I had a decision to make. Do I go down the stairs I came up and go out into the parking lot straight to my car? Or do I walk down the hall upstairs here and see whats around the corner? (Which is at the top of the stairs where theres broken glass.) Naturally I looked around the corner. What I see is 2 police officers looking down out of the window. Im at least 20 hotel rooms from the boys in blue so I have no idea what their looking at.

Slightly disappointed I go down stairs. As Im walking down the hall I notice the woman who told me I couldnt go up the stairs is still there looking out the window. It should be noted that this is the window thats directly below the window that the cops were looking out of. As I get closer she turns and looks at me and I ask her what all the commotion is about. Apparently, one of the hotels boarders decided that it would be fun to jump through the second story window, get up and then run down the street… NAKED. To top it off when the police arrested him he was confused as to what he had done wrong. The real kicker is that after she told me this, she turned around, looked out the window and said, “I just hope they hurry up so I can clean up that glass.”

A Cows Round

2005-06-30T03:14:00.000-04:00

I have a house. I have a lawn. I like my lawn to be green. So I didn't mind so much when I pulled into a customer's driveway that was being hit by his sprinkler. A little wetness didn't bother me, especially with today's heat. I didn't realize until I was ringing the doorbell that the porch was well within the sprinkler's path. Despite my forgiving and understanding disposition towards the wet driveway, I had no sympathy for getting drenched standing still.

After a few swipes of the sprinkler, the man realized my predicament and said, "Looks like you're gettin' kindda wet there, huh!" My lack of sympathy quickly turned to rage as I whipped the pizza out of the carry bag, swung it under the thickest stream of water and said, "yeah, so is your pizza!"... wait; no. I only said the 1^st word; and I said "thank you" when he gave me the lone check for the exact amount due.

2005-06-27T14:34:00.000-04:00

jerry was a race car driver

2005-06-26T04:31:00.000-04:00

sometimes i get really pissed. like, when i'm getting a bunch of lousy tips in a row. or when i go on a delivery and the person is not there. and i have to return to the store, only to find out that upon my return, they are now there and ready for their pizzas. but it's ok, because they were looking for me. (shit for brains)

all these things happened last night, and i was fuming. the rage was taking over and i was about to go from bill bixby to lou ferrigno.

on my way back to these college students for the second time, i decided to take my frustration out on my car. i pushed the accelerator pedal down until it could go no further. i wanted to be done with the neverending delivery as quickly as possible.

i was going pretty fast, and starting to go faster as i passed a whitish ford... it looked like a ford. out of my open driver-side window, i heard him gun his engine like he's going to try to race me. yeah, right, punk. on any other night, i wouldn't even acknowledge your existence, but tonight is not any other night.

he gave it his best shot, and even went around another car that was going the speed limit in the other lane. but there was no way he was beating me, because i had anger on my side. it gave me the necessary detachment to be able to do 70 in a 35 zone.

and then on my way back from this two part, hell ride of a delivery, i see another ford... resembled a ford, coming up on my left side. i thought how weird it would be if he/she/it tried to race me. then i thought, no way, i'm only going 20 over the limit, which never invokes a race.

unless, of course, it's saturday night and there's a lot of humidity in the air. i got barely alongside this fordlike car and bam! he/she/it gunned the engine and took off into the night. i didn't have the anger anymore, so i just let that car be stupid by itself. also, there were two intersections coming up, and i don't race near intersections. that's dangerous, man.

second star to the right...

2005-06-26T03:29:00.000-04:00

i knock on the door. i hear someone yell something inside. i wait.

a little girl, about 7 years old, opens the door and says, "hello."

i say, "hello" and wait for a moment, thinking someone else is probably coming with the money.

silence.

then the girl reaches into her pocket and pulls out a $20 and a quarter and hands them to me.

i say, "oh, your total is $13.24. ok, out of $20.25."

at this point, i'm pretty confused, because she really doesn't seem old enough to be dealing with money this way.

i start getting $7 for her and she says, "i just need $5 back."

i give her a fiver and tell her, "thank you and have a good night."

i guess it was so weird because it went down exactly like any normal transaction with an adult, yet it was just a little girl.

transactions with children are never this easy, or rewarding.

You cheap bitch are you for real

2005-06-25T02:53:00.000-04:00

I work in a small township. I should point out that it is a township because the citizens are too cheap to become anything else because they would need there own police force and so on. So that being said there very cheap I cant even describe to you how cheap they are. I will give an example we now have a 4.99 carryout special just to compete with local pizza places and to get the people to buy at least something. Anyway that being a lady walks in the store about 35 to 40 years of age and ask to purchase 2 4.99 carryout specials. Upon getting her pizzas she is told she owes us 10.58 not a bad price for 2 pizzas. But she isn't happy with the price its too high no she decides she is going to use her keycard (a card that states "Buy one pizza at REGULAR MENU PRICE get one of equal or lesser value free") now I don't think I have too tell you that 4.99 isn't regular menu price. Anyways she was told she couldn't use the keycard on this special deal which took her about 5 minutes or so of talking with her to understand. Anyways I don't want to talk about this anymore because I hate this town and this lady.

i can't keep my damn mouth shut

2005-06-25T02:45:00.000-04:00

i went to a motel that generally doesn't yield great tips. the guy was pretty average, and the room looked like it had been lived in for more than a couple days. i told him the price (about $25), and he gives me a wad of money, which he claims is $28. i say thanks and leave.

as i'm walking down the corridor, i count the cash. there were two $5's and six $10's. i go back to the room and bang on the door.

"who is it?" he says.

"i think you gave me too much money," i yell back.

he opens the door and explains how he had two piles of cash. he exchanges the $70 for $28 and i count it to be sure. he thanked me and closed the door.

now, don't you think nobility is worth more than just a thank you? i mean, i don't know very many people who would willingly trade a $45 tip for a $3 tip. all i had to do was keep walking and never look back.