7/19/09 Wait...What?

I'm not gonna lie today was mostly a blur because of all the medication I was on. I got sick during my Saturday shift and when I got home my temp was 101. I hoped and prayed that i'd be better before my shift but it never happened. Now I could of called off and had somebody else work for me. But because I'm just like my Dad (a man who only takes off work for surgery), I worked anyway.

It started out super slow, which was bad for me cause I was falling asleep in the back room. Luckily it picked up and they had me running my ass off, which was fine until the dayquil wore off and my fever came back. At which point I started taking pretty pictures. But all in all it was a good night for me despite the sickness and I'm glad I worked it.


Totals: 27 delivers 86 bucks

7/18/09 Jeepers Creepers

This is gonna be short and to the point. We have a situation. A customer was looking at my butt. Not just any, a creeper. She has a long history of looking at delivery guy's butts. She lives in the high rise and when you leave if you don't hear her door close immediately it means shes staring at your ass. It never happened to me until today. I feel so dirty...

Totals: 23 deliveries 70 bucks

7/17/09 Stupid People

I started off my shift by busting out my new shirt I ordered, whoo:


Pretty sweet, even though I've never seen a Fox's outside of PA.

So I got started and I was chugging along, other delivery guy came in cause it was Friday and thats the only time we need 2 people delivering. We're doing alright when it came out of nowhere. We got hit with our first Friday rush in a long time. A Friday rush is when we should have more people working but somehow we make it out alive. At this point we're both taking around 5 deliveries per run. So in between one of my runs a lady sticks her head in the door and asks if she can eat her, I say yes and she brings her family in... Boy I was in for trouble.

We are not an eat in restaurant, we are take-out and delivery only. Apparently this girl didn't get that and is about as dense as space. She places her order and then asks me for a straw for her kid who looked about 4, I said we don't have any. So she says, well what about a cup? I say again, we don't have any. At this point she flips out saying things like "how can you not have straws and cups this is a restaurant!". Why in the hell would we have straws and cups if all we have is pop in a bottle? So finally she gives up and goes back to the table. I grab a bunch of deliveries and try to get out but her little hell spawn is running wild out front and I can't get around him.

I'm not a parent but I think at this point you should grab your kid, instead she just keeps asking politely for him to come back to the table, not even yelling! Finally I get pissed and just start walking and he moves out of my way without incident. Which is good cause I had all intentions of plowing over the little fucker. So it finally calmed down a little bit and we got close to my help leaving when we got a call from Wilcox (a town 5 miles away).

PCC is a plant there and they've ordered from time to time, usually it's with a big tip. So I took the delivery and got up there. The total was 18.99 the owner of the plant greeted me, handed me a 20 and said have a good one. I turned left and on my way out said I won't be back. What they fail to realize is them getting food is a privelege and for that tip I actually lost money because of the wasted time and gas. It's not worth it. The night went good after that till 9:10... That was our last phone call. We're open till 10:30, a lot of time was killed.

Totals: $100 on 29 deliveries

7/14/09 Inspection!

Last year I got my Serv-Safe certification. I spent the majority of the class wondering how I was ever going to need the internal cooking temperature of a pot roast. I guess it's nice to know cause it keeps me from killing everyone at home. But at a pizza shop it's pretty useless. Where it is effective is it gives you the knowledge you need to pass a health inspection. Now at the time I thought it was all common sense, but after Tuesday I guess my common sense is a little less common than most.

Our health inspection went fine, after me, my boss, and the other employees tore up the place fixing any violations we had. It's nothing major just nit picky shit the inspector busts us on to keep his job. EDITED CENSORED DELETED Of course all this made us look like champs when he walked in and seen our place. The write up was this: "Thermometer in Pepsi cooler needs replaced. Store was very clean."

Totals: I can't remember! Sorry!

B.T.W.

Oh yea, here's an example of my parking from this weekend:

7/11 - 7/12 Explanation

Nothing exciting during the weekend outside of the festival so it gives me a chance to further explain our old school way of doing things here at Fox's.

We usually only have one delivery person per shift. It sounds crazy but I average about 20 per shift. And I can take a lot in little time since it's a small town. That's why you see me complaining about anything under 20 deliveries... Let's face it, I'm spoiled rotten. Sometimes this can backfire though, I've once taken 13 deliveries in one run.

The key to being a one man pizza army is very simple. Location, location location. Seriously, knowing every address in town is essential to survive. I need to look at my slips and figure out which house is closest and go from there. I think it's why I love to deliver so much. It's an adventure every time I come in. Like I said though we are old school. No managers, no computers, no gps, just a few guys who know there shit and understand what needs to be done and how to do it right.

Going back to mass deliveries, vehicle choice is essential around here. First off it gets snowy as fuck in the winter so 4-wheel drive is essential. And you need something you can fit a lot of stuff in. I've found 3 vehicles that suit that purpose and I call my perfect delivery vehicles:

• Jeep Grand Cherokee: Transmission problems will hurt your wallet but you can't deny it's 4-wheel abilities or it's space. My boss has one.

• Ford Escape: A former co-worker has one, and if it can deliver mail on rural route it can deliver pie.

• Chevy Blazer: Of course I include my ride! It kicks ass! It's nickled and dimed me, but never broke down and I've got 110,000 miles on it.

Thats all I got to rant about for now, maybe i'll think up some more stuff for later.

Totals: Saturday - 0! I was a cook!
Sunday: 31 off 11 deliveries

7/10/09 Festi-Hell

Every year during July the Catholic church has a festival to raise money for the church. Thats great and all, but it gets in my way and causes unnecessary amounts of stress. The problem is the church is on the same street as the shop. It's a different block, but everyone parks on our block so I have no place to park. Every year I get stuck working during the festival, last year I got out of it cause I went to a Pirates game.

Now if we had reserved parking there wouldn't be a problem, but the borough refuses to allow it cause "parking is limited as it is". So I'm stuck. It's become more of a challenge to me, as I basically spend the weekend spitting in the face of traffic laws. Parking everywhere from the corner of the street, to next to other worker's cars in the middle of the road, parking in no parking zones, and the coup de grace, parking on the sidewalk.

Now the other problem during this "hell weekend" as I call it, is people apparently feel extra holy after leaving and walk right out in front of traffic without a second thought. That and children. Kids just love to fuck with me during this weekend. I should keep a blood pressure monitor on during a festival shift to show how angry I get. I seriously wanna kill during this weekend. So after all that mayhem, I still have a job to do! Once I get away from Market St. It's smooth sailing since half of town is standing on the next block.

Totals: 31 deliveries for 97 bucks.

7/7/09 Fast Times At Fox's

The night started with my boss explaining to a co-worker what a mustache ride was, and that was just the beginning!

• An older couple placed an order for 5:00, they called at 4:50 to cancel the order... Of course the pizza was on it's way through the oven, and we're not about to take a loss on a pizza. So they got there pizza but it was a sticky situation trying to explain why they had to pay for it.
• I delivered to a guy who looked, acted, and came out of his house in a cloud of weed just like Jeff Spicoli.
• The high-rise elevator had a "Obama for president" sticker in it... about a year to late for that. But it's nice to see someone around here supporting him. Unlike all those people and their tea parties... *cough* Bush spent more *cough*.
• A cook caught 2 kids stealing pop, they've been doing it for awhile we just haven't had proof. That will change when we get security cameras... I know, your wondering "why are you just NOW getting cameras?" We're a small town and until recently we could trust the populace. Anyway the kids we're busted yelled at and let go, but the boss said to chop their hands off. I'll leave that for him to take care of.
• A couple of workers have been hanging out together lately which is causing a storm of rumors. Everything from dating, to marriage is being thrown around. Happens every time. I remember when I was supposedly leaving my fiancee for a co-worker, of course that stopped when my fiancee got hired here.
  
• I love when people don't realize the money they waste getting a 12" pizza on Tuesdays. Our 14" and 16" pizzas are $8.00 with one topping plus tax on Tuesday ($8.48). A 12" pie is $9.01 with one topping and that's with tax. But people still insist on getting the smaller pizza for more. It's only the most amazing special I've ever seen and people take it for granted.
• Also, if you haven't realized already we don't have a manager, my boss is the owner of this franchise. When he's not around small decisions are made by seniority, anything else we call him to take care of.
• After a short discussion, we decided to move the pop cases to a more visible location. They have to be out front because we have no room in the back. The new location should cut down on the thievery.

Anywho, totals: 25 deliveries for 65 bucks

7/5/09 Pictures

Nothing to report from the delivery front, so I figure i'll share some pics today.



This is our sign, it's old but it gets the job done.



Like I said, I hate trains.



I live in a pretty scuzzy town, but there is some good. It's nice that the borough is finally trying to clean it up.



I ship all my packages on a B.R.E.S.T.



So, we had an employee who had a similar condition as the kid from Superbad... Yeah. Not kidding, she drew penises on everything.

7/3/09 Thanks for all the fish.

Another Friday of delivering fish and another day spent in the rain. I'm getting pretty sick of this, I made a comment to my boss that it's the Pennsylvania monsoon season: it rains till it snows. This is true this year, no droughts over here! We've got rain to spare! Ship some to California, they always got forest fires.

I always feel its necessary to remind people that there is a holiday coming up by wishing them a happy holiday, whatever that holiday may be. It's not required of me but I've been doing it since my first Christmas at Fox's. It just adds more personality to my deliveries and I don't feel like a robot on a script. It didn't work today but sometimes when doing that I can actually get a few more bucks in tips from people who think that was nice of me. It's rare but it has happened.

I have a major problem when I deliver though. It's something that I've been doing since the beginning, by the end of the night my money bag looks like a rats nest. I never stop to organize my money. My boss is constantly telling me that some night I'm gonna get burned cause I'm gonna hand back a $50 instead of a $5 just cause I can't see in my bag. But it hasn't happened. Unfortunately I seem to only learn through failure, so it will be at that point I start to keep my bag organized.

Another problem, not mine, is that on Fridays we have a lot more customers who pick up than usual. So there is usually someone standing out front. The problem is that we have a... Very laid back atmosphere here, and swear words tend to fly quite often, even from the boss. You can see where this is going. It's normally not a problem, but some of the older people tend to get offended. But who can they complain to when the man in charge is the one doing it? Perks of being an independent franchise. It does create a down home environment and we welcome customers to join in to our conversations and a chosen few are even welcomed to the back room to hang out with us. Another reason I love Fridays.

The more I write about the shop I work at the more I realize it's a lot different than the average pizza place. My boss started out as just an employee for a boss who was basically a dick. But he worked his way up and finally bought the place. From day one he decided to have fun and be the good guy boss, and it's amazing how loyal we all are to the shop and to him because of this. It's pretty much why I've been there for over 4 years. He's the only boss I know of that would take you out for your 21st birthday!

Totals: 25 deliveries $64


P.S. I'd like to apologize to anyone who is an English major for the cluster fuck that is my blog. I slept through English class... Sorry.

7/2/09 Construction

I had a very unique delivery today, of course this unique delivery has been going on since they started building that damn bypass. Anyway, it's to construction workers. I've never met a more chaotic, out of order, socially awkward, group like the people building the bypass here.

It never fails I take a delivery to them and I get the same few things:

1. The person who ordered just got sent in a forklift, that tops of at 5mph, to the other side of town.
2. The person who ordered is operating a jack hammer and can't hear me calling.
3. The person who ordered did not give a number and is AWOL.
4. The foreman thinks he knows where random dude is so I go with him in his truck only to find out it was a guy in a forklift on the other side of town.
5. I find the person, say my hellos, and get "mmmmpphhhmppphhhp" (random mumbling).
6. Or I get a dick head who says nothing!
7. I find the person and he talks, and talks, and talks, and talks, and dosen't tip.
8. They pre-pay for their food but want me to deliver it to them, he says "just throw the stuff in the white bucket in the back of my truck" and when I go out there I notice that ten trucks in a row have white buckets in them...
9. While going to the site I run over a screw.
10. I get crazy ass directions involving train tracks and dirt roads.

That about sums it up. Totals 6 deliveries 20 bucks

6/30/09 Free Time

Slow nights kill me, even more so when I need money (stupid car payment, why can't it pay itself?) So I usually have to look busy in some way, cause all of us sitting around doesn't sell pizza. So I filled the pop coolers, made pizza boxes, twiddled my thumbs, updated Twitter....... Tweeted some more, etc.

That all took about two hours out of my six hour night. I needed something to do so I got out the mean green and stainless steel cleaner and went to town cleaning Fox's! I got the front of the fryers shined up and then got all the steel tables cleaned. Then I moved to the prep table, I scrubbed it down and blasted it with cleaner. Finally I got all of the tables, freezers, fryers, sinks, etc cleaned and I had only wasted another two hours.

So on one of my last deliveries I snapped a picture that I thought looked cool, since I had the time:


Totals: 16 deliveries for 43 bucks

6/28/09 Rainy Day Pie Guy # 12 & 35

Gotta love the Dylan reference in that title... Anyway I'm skipping Saturday cause it sucked.

As you can see, Sunday was a rainy day for me. I hate rain and the only reason I deliver in it is because I'm getting paid to be out there. Of course with worse conditions comes some good. People tend to tip more in worse conditions... Well for the most part, I still get stiffed and that makes me hate you twice as much as usual due to my hatred of being moist. And of course being that I live in the boondocks I get to spend some time playing in the mud on off-road deliveries.

Sundays are weird because I usually run my ass off while I watch the cooks sit and do nothing. Because for some odd reason like 93% of our orders that day are deliveries, so I get to run around while they take one or two orders here or there. But that is also why I have a lock down on Sundays and I work all of them.

Gas prices are going up which make me thankful for delivery charges. I've been putting this off but I need to bitch about people who think the delivery charge is my tip... IT'S NOT ASSHOLE! The delivery charge, in theory, should be going straight to my gas tank so I don't have to use my tips to fill up. Of course this gives all the cheap people all the more reason to bitch. I've got it all from customers:

• "Does your boss take this or do you get it" -No my boss just takes from me whatever he wants, how do you think he can afford to go to the casino?
• "I don't have to tip you now right" -Not unless you want me to wish you to death.
• "Gas went down, no more charge?" -Gas went down $.05 and then went up $.20 and then down another $.05, of course were getting rid of it.
• "(random shop) dosen't have a charge" - It's there, it's why a large pie costs $2.00 more than it does here.
• "I was gonna tip you but you already get a dollar" -That was uncalled for, now I will NOT tell you to have a good night.

As you can see I would never do anything to the customers that don't tip, I'd love to, but I won't. I do passive aggressive things like not thank them or I don't tell them to have a good night... I'm a nerd.

Totals: 21 deliveries(although 21 is up in the air due to the slip missing) $65 tips