Half an Hour or it's free. The semi-coherant ramblings of a PizzaBoy.

[bailey]

Half an Hour or it's free. The semi-coherant rantings of a PizzaBoy.

Where to start? Well to start off I suppose I should make a confession...I lied. Up there, in the title to this new blog, diary thingy of mine my first words were a blatant sham. A con. A hoodwinkle.

You see, at the pizza shop where I work, it's not half an hour or it's free. Hell, you'd be lucky to get it free if the damn thing takes half the night to get there. Not that people don't try, it's not uncommon to rock upto a house and have the customer say "HEY! This has been over thirty minutes! Aren't I meant to get it free or something?"

Well, no, the fact that on the phone you get quoted forty-five minutes for delivery obviously means it's probably gonna be longer than half an hour, you stupid git. Of course I don't actually say that...I like having money far too much to risk getting fired over something silly like that. So instead you just smile, and say something along the lines of "Nah, sorry mate, it's fourteen ninety five", hand over the pizzas, garlic breads and coke, take the money then get into the car and drive away.

Most of the customers are okay with this, although there is the occasional customer who seems to get pleasure, if only subconciously, from making me suffer. Take last night as an example. I rock up to a house with a couple of free pizza's they had owed because we stuffed up their order on another night. Walk up to the door, lightly knock on the security screen.

No answer.

Knock harder on the door.

No answer.

Grab the bad firmly under my left arm and using my right arm knock very loudly on the door for a good twenty seconds or so.

This went on for a couple of minutes until I decided it was a useless cause and left. I drove around looking for a payphone, eventually finding one a few minutes drive away.

Put money into the phone, ring the number and after and a couple of short ring the customer picks up.

"Hi, this is [my name] from [The shop where I work]. Did you order a couple of pizza's to be delivered to [customers address]"

Customer (suspiciously): Yes?

"Oh I just wanted to check because I was there a few minutes ago and there was no answer."

Customer: Yeah sorry, I must have been out the back so couldn't hear the door.



"Oh, that's fine, I mean I earn a pittance as it is, and after all the time and money I've wasted having to drive back to your place twice, driving around looking for a payphone and wasting time so that I miss out on any other deliveries that might come into the shop this delivery has ended up costing my money instead of actually making any...I mean how goddamn hard is it to listen for a door huh? I took your order on the phone, you were quoted from thirty to forty-five minutes and it was there in thirty-five, it's not like you can say that you weren't expecting me, that it was a complete surprise to learn that you were going to have a pizza delivered. *insert incoherant swearing*"

Of course once again I didn't say any of that, it would be completely unprofessional. No, instead I just respond happily, "That's okay, your pizza will be there in five or so minutes"

Now some of you out there who occasionally partake in home delivered pizza goodness may be feeling slightly worried at the moment, so I think I'll just take a moment to reassure you that despite whatever horror stories you may have heard regarding the treatment of annoying customers pizza's (spitting on them etc), I've never once in the year and a half I've been working here done it myself, or heard of any other driver doing it (and they would of boasted about it to me if they had, believe me). We may get annoyed as all hell sometimes, but any normal delivery guy would never seriously dream about doing anything like that.

Alright, that last sentence was another lie. Occasionally at night when I'm lying asleep in bed I may dream about getting revenge on one of the terrible regulars, but it's just that, a dream.

Seriously.

Stop looking at me like that.

 

[bailey]

I hate surprises, coincidences, and any other word sending in "es"

Oddly enough , despite this journals title, my entry tonight is actually going to have very little to do with Pizza delivery, partly because work tonight was dull as hell interesting phrase that actually, you'd think that hell would be exciting, what with all the fire and short red guys with pointy tails, anyway, I digress, and partly because I've got something else I want to write about.

I don't believe in God, but if I did I'm sure I'd be finding some way to ecstatically praise him on high right now since, I'm reasonably sure, I have developed a wonderful and astounding gift.

No, nothing as mundane as being able to play the Piano like a a modern day Mozart, or being able to ride a unicycle while burping the Australian national anthem, no, this gift is far more interesti....well to be honest the word I would use in annoying. Bloody annoying.

You see I seem to have this amazing knack for completely unintentionally and accidentally doing stuff that either hurts someone else, or makes them think I'm trying to hurt them. The latest victim of my blundering is the diarist Gypsy, who you might have read in her journal Ramblings of a single Mom

What's that you say? That journal title seems oddly familiar? Well to find out why just look up to the top of this page. Yep, I have a similar phrase as part of my title. Where this gets even worse is that she works as, yep, you guessed it, as a pizza delivery driver.

Repeatedly knocks head hard against the wall

While the coincidence was just that, a complete coincidence (I made this journal before I had read Gypsy's journal) I can see how it could look suspicious, and I have already written back to Gypsy to reassure her that I didn't mean to seem in any way like I was trying to copy or make fun of her.

I hate it when stuff like this happens, what are the odd's huh?

I of couse tried to alter my journal title, but it doesn't seem to be possible, all that I was able to change was the title of my first entry, which isn't really that useful. If anyone knows whether or not it is possible to change a journal title drop me a line please?

 

[bailey]

Everything is good.

Things are cleared up now, turned out to not be a big deal.

Hmmm, it's 2:06am, time for sleep methinks.

 

[bailey]

Procrastination. Is that how you spell that?

Apart from a few notable exceptions, the majority of people who work doing Pizza delivery seem to be guys. Not entirely sure why, but it doesn't seem to make much sense since this isn't a line of work us males are especially suited to.

Sure, statistically we're meant to have a slightly better sense of direction than women, and be a bit better at reading maps (a fantastic situation where I had to point out to my mum she was holding a map upside down springs to mind), but those slight advantages are wasted due to stubborn mindedness and whatever gene it is that stops us from wanting to read the damn things.

I've lost count of the number of new guys we'll get who don't know the area and never really learn it because they go out of their way to not look at the map on the wall.

Stereoptypical New Driver: "Wheres [insert big obvious road here]?"

Me: "It's just across from the shop, turn right out of the park, follow the road along for a couple of hundred metres and there it is."

Stereotypical New Driver: "Uh-huh...and wheres this road?"

Me: "It branches off the other road you're going to, look, here it is on the map."

Stereotypical New Driver: "How do I get to the first road again?"

:exp:

It's at this point that I will normally take a deep breath and count to ten while watching the new driver struggle to find his own car, which he parked in the small car park. Eventually relax as the driver finds his car and drives off with a confused look on his face.

Sweet merciful buddha on a pogo stick, why can't the majority of us guys just read the damn map? Our computer has a system where it even prints the map co-ordinates for the address you're going to on the docket, and we have a big map taped on the wall.

I will admit though that despite my rantings here, I'm being quite a bit hypocritical since it is months since I last looked at a map while on a delivery. As a compromise to my instincts I always check the map before every delivery so I know exactly where I'm going. That way I don't get lost, but still get them warm primal glow of "Me big tracker and hunter! Find house now without stopping to ask for directions or reading map!"

Oddly enough at those times I also feel a bizarre need to go and kill a Sabre Toothed Tiger with a club before dragging a scantily fur clad woman back to my cave.

To be serious for a moment, I can't explain why looking at a map seems to be taboo. When I'm not at work, driving somewhere by myself the mapbook hardly ever gets looked at. The other afternoon I was driving up into the hills to goto a certain store. I took a wrong turn on my way up there and realised that I'd forgotten how to get there. I drove around randomly for about 15 minutes hoping to find it, before starting to seriously consider driving down to Port Adelaide (a good half hours drive) where I knew there was another branch of the same store. In all that time the mapbook sat unused on the passengers side floor, taunting and mocking me with its promises of directions and grid referenced street locations.

This is really getting to me in case you hadn't noticed. the simple solution would of course be to just read the map but I can't help get the feeling that whenever I look down into those pages the world is watching and laughing at me. Just like wearing bright floral shorts or greeting people with "hello darling", map reading is something which isn't a good sign of machoness.

Suppose I shouldn't be complaining too much however, it's always good to work ona night when some witless drivers are working, when they're taking an hour just to do two deliveries I get to do a lot.

 

[bailey]

Six Extra Supremes...
...all with triple prawns
...and two lasagnes
...and a pack of chicken nuggets
...all part of one big hoax.

Grr. It's annoying when people place hoaxes with us. Despicable. Atrocious behaviour.

Okay, I admit it, I normally like it when we have hoaxes placed, it gives us a delivery to take them out, and we can normally get a feed from the order once it's confirmed that the order is never going to be paid for.

I knew it was a hoax as soon as I saw the docket, no-one orders six pizza's all with extra prawns, for a party at 11pm on a Monday night. Nobody. G still hasn't got the hang of being in charge though and put the oder through.

It was quite funny, at least they gave us their real phone number this time. Normally whenever anyone places a hoax they give someone elses number, these people were daft enough to give us their real number.

First call (from them): I'll be there in ten minutes.

Second call (from us after twenty minutes, after we have technically closed): He's already left, should be there any minute.

Third call (I made it ten minutes after the last one): Some woman saying she didn't know where the guy was and didn't know that he'd ordered pizza.

Fourth call (after another ten minutes): A kid answered saying that I had a wrong number.

Fifth call (redialling the last number straight away): No answer.

Sixth call (redialling the last number straight away): Some guy answers and tells me that the guy who was supposedly on his way to pick up the pizzas, is actually in the hospital after burning himself on their BBQ. I said fine, and told him that we'd be giving their number to the cops.

After all this running around it was now half an hour after we were meant to be finished, and G still had to spend time counting the till, closing down the computers, and voiding the hoax, none of which could be done until we were sure they weren't coming to pick it up.

Just to make a note, we don't actually give the numbers of hoaxers to the cops since normally they're not right anyway. The only time we have contacted the cops was when I made a delivery to a house where they grabbed the pizza's, slammed the door and refused to answer it, leaving me without payment. I digress.

The end result of all this is that I decided to send out a call to all the hoaxers out there on how to make the most of your crafty little lecherous passtime.

1) If you're going to place a hoax, at least make it a delivery, then the driver will be happy.

2) Be realistic with your order, it's normally easy to catch out extreme orders and know they are hoaxes before they are made, the only reason tonights got through is because G is inexperienced.

3) If you're going to be dumb enough to place a hoax from your own phone, at least be smart enough to give someone elses number (we and most shops have caller id on each phone, but normally no-one looks at that). Giving us your own phone number is just begging for trouble if we ever get too pissed and decided that we SHOULD call the cops.

4) Lastly, and most importantly, embrace the cultural diversity of the world, provide in your hoax a little for everyone, there is nothing more annoying for a worker than a fresh large hoax that contains nothing they like.

That actually brings me into why I ended up truly annoyed at these people. Not because they wasted our time, the shops resources, or were assholes, no, simply because I couldn't benefit from it. (I'm Vegetarian, which can be strange sometimes working in a pizza shop but that's a story for another time).

They could have at least ordered Garlic Bread.

 

[bailey]

Last night was interesting.

Highly illegal, but interesting nontheless.

Most of the night was pretty much the normal fare, we were busy, but within ability to cope.

Early on in the night was fairly depressing. T (one of the managers) told me that her two boys weren't going to be in the store tonight because they were at her ex's. Apparently he's been working on them for ages and they've decided that they want to live with him all the time because he can do things like buy them lots of toys (of course he nevers uses any of that money to pay her maintainance). When she told em I didn't know what to say really. What can you say? I like her kids, they're really friendly and help out a lot when they're in, doing things like folding boxes.

I hope she can get things sorted out with them...I feel really bad for her.

Don't want to dwell on that though, because I don't have much time to write this entry and I actually started up to write about what happened at the end of the night.

Tanya wanted to go home a bit early so she called in G to come in for the last hour and close up the shop. I know she was upset last night so I don't blame her for wanting to go, but her choice of person to cover was a bad idea.

A BAD BAD idea.

G arrived at around midnight, completely trashed. Way gone, he said that he'd had about fifteen drinks if I remember right.

He doesn't have a driving license.

His car isn't registered.

He was way over the limit.

He had a girl with him from out of the kitchen who is about thirteen/fourteen (G is seventeen)

He drove to work.

To say I was pissed off at him would be an understatement. Since technically he's one of my bosses I can't get too harsh but I couldn't beleive he would be that stupid.

Risking your own life on the road is one thing.

Risking the lives of other people on the road is despicable.

But then also having a young girl in the car with you? I was a hairs breadth away from calling the cops...and in some ways I wish I had.

I kept on telling him all night that we was not driving home, and that we weren't gonna let him. No-one else seemed to care. He didn't even seem to bothered by the fact that, despite being fatally dangerous, he also risked some serious jail time if he was pulled up by the cops.

No-one else seemed too concerned.

T went home, even knowing the situation.

That's not the worse of it though, at the end of the night, when he was going home there was no way that I could get his keys, he had some of his friends with him, who, while harmless enough normally, are not the kind of guys I would like to meet in a dark alleyway. Or a light alleyway for that matter.

I'm going to cut a long story short here, because all I'm doing by keeping on typing is trying to make excuses which can't be made.

I let him drive home.

When everything came push to shove it boiled down that I basically had a choice between calling the cops to report him before he could leave, or letting him go.

I couldn't ring them, so, at about twenty to two this morning I knowingly let an extremely drunk guy, drive home. I followed him in my car, and forced him to stay below the limit and everything else, but that doesn't make it better.

I feel terrible, and I don't know what to do. I know in my mind that I should report him to the owner and let her sort it out, but even if I do that I'll feel wrong for not doing something earlier last night. What if something had happened on the way home with him behind the wheel of his car? I would have been partially responsible.

I really don't know what to do. Help.