Well if said women would quite ordering said pizzas as frequently it would solve both their problems and the OPs. And as far as “ghetto trash”…well if those non-white people would quit immitating poor white trailer trash they might be better off as well.
Jesus, nice pitting. It’s so rare to read a good one these days.
It’s been a few years since I’ve worked retail - thanks for reminding me why I will never return.
When I came to a customer that couldn’t pay the full price, I usually gave it to them for what they had, put them on the “will not deliver to” list and moved on. My boss took the loss, but I told her if she wouldn’t, I would. I just can’t stand to see food go to waste.
:applauds:
I’ve worked retail and I totally endorse this pitting.
Well pitted. Strong paragraphing.
You politely say, “sir, you will either give me back the pizza, pay me for it, or have the police called where I will press charges for theft. Store policy.”
I too fully endorse this pitting. I drove for a pizza place decades ago and it wasn’t much different. People can be shit.
Hope things improve for you and the other drivers soon.
Bravo, sir. I’m not sure whether to thank you for the laughs, or hate you for the flashbacks.
When I first saw the generally poor health of the people I delivered pizza to, I felt terrible. I was a willing cog in their slow motion Suicide By Large Meat Lovers Pan Pizza With Double Meat Extra Cheese No Sauce Machine. I was helping to kill them in exchange filthy money.
After a week of exposure to the people the OP has described so well, I just wanted them to hurry up and die already. Maybe the next occupant will tip better.
As it turns out, Sturgeon’s Law applies to people as well.
Askthepizzaguy, what percentage of your customers does your OP describe?
Oh, I thought he was describing one evening of deliveries.
I readily admit I work in a particularly bad area.
I have been at two other stores in the chain I work at, neither one of them was this bad.
The solution isn’t always to change jobs. I got promoted because this job is hard, and I like the prospects of future promotion, because most folks wash out in the first couple weeks at my store. If life is in any way like a video game (rarely is, but in this case) I work at a store that is perpetually on Very Hard mode. We’re always understaffed, our customers are a real treat, and it’s a poor area. Big tips are rare, and just due to the general bad layout of the area, we require more people to achieve the same level of service as other stores. I can think of a few areas of the map too far away to be serviced properly and should really be given to another store, for the customers’ sake and ours.
I went to college, was earning a near-perfect GPA. Dropped out because of a lack of employment during the recession and the fact that I had bills to pay, and unless a full scholarship also came with rent money and gas money and food and car insurance, there was no way for me to sustain going to school. This job is my ticket to a full salaried position, with benefits, and that’s why I put up with it. After you’ve been promoted twice and been a manager of a million-dollar a year business, you have a resume that will land you an actual career. That is my plan, and why I tolerate punks like these.
But not everyone can be the manager. I can’t keep drivers because they put up with this crap every day. Not everyone can be promoted out of the position. I remember all too well how shitty it was, and treat all my drivers like gold, whether they’re my best kickass driver or just the fresh meat trying to find their way around town and it takes them twice as long. And I make sure they get a fair shot at any leftover pizzas at the end of the night, too. I’m afraid our particular company offers a pretty pathetic employee discount. You’ll pay upwards of 8.50 for a large pizza even with the discount. My drivers cannot afford to eat at the place that employs them, because 8.50 might be half or a third of what they made in tips that whole night. That’s completely unacceptable.
To answer your question, I’m afraid the percentages break down in the following ways:
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Customers who tip less than a dollar (12 cents, for example) or nothing at all: Unfortunately over 50% in my area, without exaggeration. Some places, it’s more like 20%. Completely outrageous considering what they spend on pizza. I am not kidding, people order 50 bucks worth of pizza for a meal and then look me dead in the eye and go “I’m sorry, this is all I got”. I know why they have no money, they spend the very last of it every other day on pizza. Or gee, maybe they’re lying about being fresh out of cash.
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Customers who come to the door in various stages of undress and personal smelliness- I’d say 10 percent, which is a whole hell of a lot. I’m sorry, but I almost never encountered people like that at the two other stores I worked at. This is why my area is particularly shitty. No shame or self-consciousness whatsoever.
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“Catch you next time”- roughly a third of the non-tippers.
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No thanks whatsoever- about half of the non-tippers.
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No functioning verbal ability whatsoever- the remainder.
FYI- We lose at least one driver per year due to armed robbery and assault. They don’t want to work for us anymore after that, and I wonder why that is.
The rate of shorting the driver, counterfeit bills, and false complaints about late pizza or hair being in the food (pretty neat trick when the only person touching your food is BALD) is rather high in our area.
On average, someone attempts to pay less than the full amount (usually by handing the driver a big wad of change- classic sign of trying to sneak one past the goalie) at least once per day per driver. Counterfeit bills happen once per month that we don’t catch (usually 10s, because who checks a freaking 10 dollar bill, when it’s pitch black outside?) and we catch several actual counterfeit bills before it costs us anything every month. We don’t take hundreds at all, ever, not even in the store.
Had a guy call up the other day saying the food made him sick. Keep in mind symptoms of food poisoning take 24 hours after eating. Guy says he was sick 30 minutes later. I ask him the standard questions, and inform him I’ll have our insurance company contact him after I’m done, and he goes woah, woah, woah… I don’t mean sick like in the hospital. I mean I had to go to the bathroom. You mean like diarrhea? No, like I had to take a shit. I inform him that eating food sometimes causes bowel movements. Was there anything actually wrong with the pizza, and did anyone actually get sick or have to go to the hospital? No, but the pizza was “lukewarm” and that’s “probably” why he “got sick”. I inform him that if he claims he got sick I have to take his claim seriously and report it for insurance reasons. Then he says all he wants is free pizza.
No shit, Sherlock. Well, almost no shit.
Yes, what I described in the OP was one evening of deliveries. A very standard day, mind you. No less infuriating, but absolutely standard.
This pizza’s cold! :mad:
What do y’all charge for a delivery fee and how much of that goes to the actual delivery person? is there an industry standard? If low, I assume that’s because of price competition?
Sir, you ordered a large hand-tossed Revenge Lover’s and that’s what you got.
I too endorse this pitting.
:::: holds up two signs “9” and “.8” crowd goes wild:::
I don’t think any of it goes to the delivery person. I’ve begun reading the fine print on commercials (well, trying to before it vanishes) and there’s a disclaimer that says the delivery fee is NOT the tip on the Dominoes commercial.
When I worked at a pizza place years ago (20 thereabouts), there was no delivery fee. But the pizzas cost $8.99 for small, $10.49 for medium, $12.99 for large (all one-topping. specialties were extra). They’re cheaper now than they were then.
Very strict policy at our store- you don’t get the food until payment has been made in form of cash or credit card with the credit card present and it’s been run and approved. You may see the food to see if it is okay, but it doesn’t leave my hands.
This policy is drilled into our drivers because the scam is to have 12 people at your house, and order a bunch of pizzas, sodas, and wings, have the driver hand it to you and then say “Be right back, gotta go get the money”. Then, five minutes later, come back with 20 dollars and say “sorry, this is all I have”, shorting the driver and the store by about 20 or 30 dollars. The driver then declines and requests the food back, but the soda has already been poured and drank, the pizza has been distributed onto plates and either bitten into or slices eaten all the way to the crust, and half the wings are eaten as well. You can’t get it back once it is in the deadbeat’s stomach. And since they tried to pay and offered to “return” what’s left of the food, it’s something that’s not worth calling the police over.
What a sickening thing for a group of people to do. It’s not worth the effort. Complain that the food was cold like everyone else, we’ll make you a whole new frigging pizza for free. You don’t have to rob us to get free shit. This is the part I don’t understand. We go above and beyond to provide a quality product, fast, delivered to your door so you don’t have to change out of your robe and bunny slippers to get a hot and tasty meal, and we provide credits or remakes if you’re not completely satisfied or your food is significantly late. When people go out of their way to cook up schemes like the one I just listed, which requires the consent and planning of a dozen people who don’t want to pay full price and are willing to stand in the hallway and scarf the pizza as fast as humanly possible for the chance to rip someone off, I mean… you can’t even really enjoy the meal you just stole. You’re crooked and retarded all at the same time.
And it’s always a female who answers the door for that scam, because if it looks like it could be somebody’s mother, you trust her to pay you, right? Wrong. Never trust anyone. That includes elderly people! I’m sorry, but granny is infamous for not knowing how much money she has in her purse, usually all in pennies, and her grandchildren immediately gobble up the food whether it’s paid for or not. So sometimes this scam happens unintentionally.
I don’t care if you’re the freaking pope, waving a wad of bills at my face. You don’t get the pizza until I get the money. I’ve been burned too many times by people who “look” like they’re decent people and will pay you. They get away with it because they look decent and look like they’re not going to rob you. That’s how scammers work. If they’re waving a big sign that says I’m a deadbeat, then yeah, it would be my mistake for letting them dupe me. But the folks who try to rip you off in the largest dollar amounts are single family homes with women and children answering the door.
Oh, the delivery fee. An endless source of frustration. People think it’s the tip, which means that it actually costs me money, and I can’t correct them unless they specifically ask me.
Depends on the chain and the exact area. Average around here is 2.75 to 3.00 dollars.
The driver gets $1.25 of that. That’s the numbers on the top line.
The bottom line is that a tank full of gasoline is right around empty at the 16 hour mark, which is two work shifts. That tank of gasoline costs about 45-50 dollars depending on the area.
If you deliver 16 runs per shift (the average) you earn precisely 20 dollars. That’s 40 dollars in two shifts. That’s less than the money you spent in gas.
Therefore, ignore the delivery fee. The driver does not see a dime of that going towards his actual personal expenses. Just his job-related gasoline, with nothing left over for the utterly ridiculous roughly 200 dollars per month in car insurance.
There’s no price competition when it comes to the delivery fee. A rival chain just increased their fee to 50 cents more than ours. If competition was driving the price down, that wouldn’t happen. Our business is roughly the same as before they increased their price. Nobody cares about the extra 50 cents. Oh, they’ll complain about it to you on the phone until they’re blue in the face, just before they tell you to send the order anyway.
I realize they needed those two quarters to buy some gumballs, but if they’re looking to save money on the delivery fee and tip, we offer carry out, and carry out specials specifically designed for them. You can get a large pizza 2 toppings for 2 bucks off the regular price, plus no tip, plus no delivery fee. You’re going to end up saving five dollars, just by getting up off the couch and going to get it yourself. We designed this business just for lazy bones like that. And it’s way, way better pizza than Little Caesar’s.
But the delivery fee is “outrageous” and such a rip-off.
Why not call a cab? How expensive is that? Isn’t that way, way more expensive, for exactly the same service, which is a driver and a vehicle going to your house and back? EXACTLY THE SAME service for FIVE TIMES the price? Wow. Guess it’s actually bargain-basement cheap. And you get a hot and tasty meal at the end of it, plus refunds when you’re not happy. It’s actually the greatest miracle that free society has to offer, and it costs you less than what you spent on the milk for your Rice Krispies every morning.
Remember, your driver is a taxi driver and a waiter, providing you both services for less than one tenth of the price those guys would both charge you, with more risk and personal expenditure. Example, the cabbie usually gets a company vehicle which they maintain, I drive my own car, which I maintain, which the delivery fee doesn’t cover, so tipping is not optional in my world. The waiter carries your food to your table inside a climate controlled restaurant with no risk of armed robbery, a whole 40 feet worth of walking distance. I do both jobs in the rain and carry your food up three floors of stairs in your ghetto-ass neighborhood at great risk to myself for much less than they charge you. And I do not earn 15 or 20 percent. I am lucky to get 2 percent.
They say that it is not the tip, to distinguish it from the portion of the fee that goes to gasoline. As mentioned, if 100% of what I get from the delivery fee (which is not the entire delivery fee) goes to the gasoline I used to bring you the food, and then some more out of my own pocket, then yes, it’s not actually being paid to me. It’s actually being paid to Exxon Mobil. I still go home with the 4 bucks per hour and whatever tips I earned.
This is true of every major chain, Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Papa John’s. The driver does not receive the entire delivery fee, and what they pay the driver amounts to the gas the driver spent. They use the rest to cover the additional expense (the 4 dollar wage) that exists over what they would have for a carry-out order. Carry-out orders mean no delivery driver is necessary, therefore it’s cheaper. Delivery means you have to hire an additional person. So, half gas, half for the half-minimum wage they pay.