“Life doesn’t get any better than this”
…said the sign hanging on the door of the dumpy apartment in the rundown part of town, the kind of place where they used metal pipes instead of railings, and not as a design choice. I saw the sign and it occurred to me that I couldn’t tell if it was meant out of happiness or despair.
September 15th, 2007 - Posted in Pizza | | 0 Comments
Monday night rush
An easy monday night. If you can’t make any money, at least get out quickly.
First up was a small house in the central part of our area. Blue collar, probably developed in the early ’60s. Older guy answered the door and it becomes apparent that he’s probably lived in the house since its construction.
Next was the southeast corner. Nice 15-year-old neighborhood obviously developed all at once, with the same brick and siding on every house. The front door was nearlyl inaccessible, blocked first by a rain spout right across the walk, and then by two gigantic potted shrubs almost completely blocking the front step. The ladies were nice, and wrote a tip into the check, so it’s hard to complain.
After that, it was the dreaded downtime. No calls for almost 45 minutes meant trying to make myself useful in the store. I finally got back on the road, this time to a dump of a house across the street from the Hospital. It looked like the two guys there were rebuilding the house, and good luck to them. Dinky little post-war bungalow, stripped paint, rotted floors, dirty yellow paint. The guy dug into his paint-covered jeans and handed me a ten and a five, soaked with sweat or heaven knows what.
A few more minutes back at the store, and I got to count out and leave. Still had time to catch the last hour of football practice, though I had to bite back criticism about Yakko’s stance. Defensive tackles can’t set themselves with their knees on the ground and expect to do their job. Bite, bite, bite… he’s enjoying himself… bite…
August 14th, 2006 - Posted in Pizza | | 0 Comments
The Night In Pizza
On the whole, I really enjoy delivering pizza. I did it all through college, and went back to it when I was in between tech jobs a few years ago. Nowadays I use it as a great way to provide some extra income at the margin. Each week, I usually work one “rush” (meaning 5:30 til it stops being busy around 9:00) and one “close” (5:30 til we close at 2:00, usually with 45 minutes or so of cleanup afterwards). I get to tool around town, listen to music and audiobooks, see what other people’s lives are like, and generally have a nice little bit of time to myself. Slow nights and bad tip nights aren’t fun, but it all averages out to be pretty good.
I’ll endeavor to keep track of an evening of delivery every now and then. I won’t list anyone’s addresses, and I’m not going to make it a “bastards who don’t tip me Hall of Shame.” For the record, I would like to tell you that I don’t think less of people who don’t tip, but that would be a lie. As I will no doubt outline elsewhere, the tips are the single most important element in making this job pay, and every time go back to my car with a check for the exact amount, there’s just a little twinge of bitterness. So please forgive me if I give offense complaining about it. If you do take offense, though, I would submit that you should probably tip more. You’d feel better about yourself.
August 12th, 2006 - Posted in Pizza | | 0 Comments
