My Gosh LaTosh!

Warning: semi-explicit situations described in this post. I don't go into detail. But the situations are uncomfortable.

The other day, Cosmo told me this story from his drugs, sex (and cheating on his wives), and music days. You may remember that he played in a band in the 60s that went around and played in a lot of clubs, and he told me that at one point he was hired into a band that just played at the same club every night. So this club (it was in Little Rock, Arkansas, I think) usually had topless dancers on a stage catty corner to the band's stage. And there were all these tables in the middle and a little dance floor on the side. So the club owner decided one night to get a stripper to come to the club with the dancers. The woman they hired was named LaTosha something; she was from the Phillipines. And she had a boa constrictor that was part of her show. 

The night LaTosha was performing was in the middle of winter, and they had the snake backstage before she went on to perform, and they didn't have heat backstage or anything, so the snake was cold. And as Cosmo describes it, snakes are cold-blooded and get vicious in the cold weather. I don't know if this is true or not. So anyway, it was time for LaTosha to come on stage and she walked out and started doing her thing and the snake was wrapped around her and extended out in front of her facing her. That might not make sense...basically, the snake was looking straight at her. Cosmo said he imagined the snake just didn't want to perform, because all of a sudden it struck at her and bit her bottom lip and just hung on, and blood started gushing everywhere. Of course it caused a sort of panic through the crowd and the whole place was in hysterics. Cosmo said their band just had to keep playing.

He said from that point on, they always called LaTosha 'My gosh LaTosh!!'

Worst Mistakes

I sincerely apologize for my long absence. I just haven't wanted to think about pizza biz outside of actual pizza biz at all for the past week. You will soon understand why. The length of this post will most likely make up for the lack of them for the past week. I apologize about that too. If you don't make it through the end of this post, I totally understand. My advice: if you're busy or get bored with long stories, break it in half. Read the first half one day, and come back to read the second half later. No one will be angry or judge you. And my feelings will not be hurt. I triple dog promise.

I worked the 4th of July...my shift was from 10am-3pm. Not too bad...the real parties on the 4th don't happen until grilling out at dinner anyway. Which is naturally what I had planned. An evening with my family and some family friends and Grace Hooper. (Grace Hooper bailed...someone please give her a hard time about it.)

So let me just ask you...would you think people would order a lot of pizza on the 4th? I sure wouldn't. (I personally didn't even eat lunch that day to leave lots of room in my stomach for Chad Powers' famous smoked Boston butt and perfectly grilled lamb chops. Looking back, it was a both brilliant and disastrous idea. I was incredibly hungry and grumpy come late afternoon. But oh my goodness when I finally tasted that meal, all my troubles were quickly forgotten.) 

Anyway, if you answered no, like me, to my question, you were wrong.

Upon further reflection, this kind of makes sense...we were slammed at lunch time. But apparently we were really slow that night. Which obviously, people want to grill out. But no one wants to cook twice on the fourth of July, and if you have company over all day, you need to have a lot of food on hand. Pizza would be a good middle of the day kind of thing on the 4th.

In the food industry, there are two kinds of busy: steady and slammed. Steady is really great. You get a lot of business and make a good amount of money without too much sweat or stress. You just keep moving.

Slammed SUCKS. We didn't have a single call all morning, and then all of a sudden, one of our drivers was out for some reason, so it was just me and the boss. We got an internet order, so she was making pizza. The phone rang. I answered it. She started making that order. The phone rang again...I answered it again. By this time, the pizzas were coming out of the oven, and it's a conveyor belt oven so if you don't 'catch' the pizzas as they come out, they will eventually fall on the ground. Not the best thing to have happen. So my boss is now occupied with a job that you can't just walk away from. As I'm talking on the phone, another call comes in. And then another. I finally finish with one customer and pick up the next call, and at this point there are 2 lines to choose from on the computer. When you pick up the phone, one line will show the number calling with the word 'existing' under it, and the other line says 'new' under the phone number. So I'm thinking existing means that's the line you've just picked up, so I click on that one to start the order. 

Of course, I was wrong. You're supposed to double check the number on the phone's caller ID with the computer's caller ID. Because the words existing and new apparently are totally irrelevant to the line you've picked up. 

Essentially, I took a 4 orders in a row and mixed up the phone numbers, so that the orders were right but they were all going to go to the wrong people. We realized this as all about 6 orders were coming out of the oven, and at this point, we were slammed. Cosmo and I both ended up taking multiple doubles and triples that day, because we never slowed down for the rest of the time I was there. Which was until 5pm. (If you remember what my shift was actually supposed to be, you will understand that I was there for 2 hours extra. This obviously was a set back to my dinner plans.) I was on the road from about 1pm until 5pm, and my order mix up created quite the stressful scene. That was the biggest mistake I have made so far. It set us back so bad...all of those orders were considered late by the time we got them delivered...that means it took us more than 30 minutes from the time the call was placed to get the pizza to the customer. I had a couple of orders that took over an hour. Most people were really nice about this. Everyone at the store was super stressed because we had to call of these people back and figure out which order was supposed to go where. Mixing up about 4 or 5 calls like that was the biggest mess in the middle of getting slammed just out of the blue.

So everyone had to work super hard and try to cover my mistake for the next hour or two. It was miserable.

So then I worked Thursday and Friday, and then on Saturday I worked again, and within the first 15 minutes I was at work, I screwed up in a way that caused a major backlash again. This time was worse (is that even possible?). 

This lady came in the store for a carry-out...little did I know what we were about to get ourselves into. My boss had taken her order before I had even arrived, so I didn't really know the situation...the order was originally made for delivery, and paid for with a credit card over the phone. But then at the end of the phone call, this lady changed her order to a carry out. My boss told her the she was going to void her payment at that she had a new total (which was cheaper because there was now no delivery fee. Which is why there was a price change in the first place.) My boss told this lady that we would just take care of the payment in the store when she got there. 

So this lady comes in the store, tells me her name, and I get her pizza for her. I asked her, "Is this already paid for?" She said yeah, she paid over the phone because it was originally going to be a delivery and then she changed it at the last minute to a carry-out. So I'm like ok, awesome, have a great day! She walks out of the store with the pizza, and my boss comes over and is like "Did she pay for that pizza?" I said yeah, she told me she took care of it over the phone. Then my boss immediately was annoyed and was like no, you should have check on the computer first...we voided the payment and told her she would now have to take care of the payment in the store!

So she ran after her outside, and the lady had already gotten in her car. My boss tries to get her attention but the lady is backing out of her parking spot already and isn't looking at my boss. So my boss starts waving her arms, and other people in the parking lot realize what's going on, and start trying to help get her attention. Someone else was waving their arms, and another person was honking their horn. Then one of our other drivers pulls in and the lady has to wait for her in order to get out of the parking lot. She finally realized that everyone in the parking lot was trying to get her attention. Even now we are not sure if she saw any of this before that point. It was really weird.

So then she gets out of her car and is like "What's the matter?" And my boss told her that she still hadn't taken care of the payment because she had voided the payment over the phone because the price changed. So the lady came back inside with my boss, and started screaming at my boss about how she couldn't believe that my boss was accusing her of trying to steal a pizza. My boss was like no ma'am, I wasn't accusing you of anything. We just have to have you pay again because we don't keep credit card information in our system. But the lady just kept screaming about how she didn't like my boss's attitude about the situation and how she was basically accusing her of stealing and all of this stuff. Then she starts yelling about did you ever stop to think I was having a bad day already and you just made it worse? At this point I was like shaking...I was standing pretty close to right behind my boss because this lady wasn't actually physically threatening anyone, but she was way taller than any of us, and was leaning forward and pointing her finger, and never talked quieter than shouting. Screaming mostly.

Oh my goodness she yelled for like 5 minutes at least before she then asked to talk to my boss's supervisor on the phone, and then immediately changed her tone with him and was wanting the pizza free at that point. Basically it was this huge fiasco. Luckily I got to leave to take a delivery in the middle of the whole thing. I felt really bad for my boss though, because if I would have just double checked in the computer system in the first place, none of that would have happened, and she was getting screamed at basically because of my lack of attention to that detail.

When I came back, the other daytime driver was gone and my boss had been crying. (Confession: I kind of broke down in my car a little bit. It's hard to see a verbal explosion/attack like that knowing it's partly your fault. Plus it really just scared the ____ out of us all because it just came out of nowhere.) My boss said that customers like that didn't usually get under her skin, especially on the phone. She said a lot of times on the phone they're meaner, but you don't see them face to face, and it's just not the same at all.

Then my boss and I talked and sort of laughed a little about how I don't usually screw up, but when I do, it comes at just the right/wrong time and has huge negative impacts. She said other people have all made those same mistakes a million times, but the backlash of them was nowhere near the ones that happened when I made those mistakes. When I do something wrong, I do it right, that's for sure.

Here is a list of good things that did not balance out the bad, but were still good:

Cosmo's thoughts on his wife's and mother in law's cooking:

"I remember one time Kay's (wife) mother made meatloaf and you had to mas it up and pour ketchup all over it because it was like the Sahara!"

A girl who works as an insider talking about her grandma who lives in Kentucky:

My granny makes moonshine and buries it in the backyard [to hide it because that's illegal] and always makes her grandkids go hunt for it because she can't remember where she buried it. [Note: these grandkids are not old enough to know what moonshine is. She totally takes advantage of them to continue her illegal activities without their knowledge/understanding. Hilarious.]

I will leave you with a cliffhanger...Cosmo's craziest stripper story...you'll have to come back to read it...it will be my next post.

Events

Y'all. A lot has happened since I last wrote.

I will begin with a small anecdote. It was the start of my Friday night...I showed up to this apartment complex in Belle Meade and knocked on the door. I had a pen in my right hand so the guy could sign his receipt right away when he came to the door. You should first know that I usually tuck the receipt into the fold of the heat bag to keep it from flying away in case of a breeze or gust of wind, but where it is still easily accessible. It's a handy little trick that a co-worker taught me one time when she saw me chasing a receipt around in the parking lot. We don't have to talk about that though...
But this time I didn't have the receipt really tucked in there well, so as I was knocking on the door, a light gust of wind blew one of the receipts away and in an effort to catch it I threw out my right hand, and in order to have the hand free to actually catch the receipt I had unknowingly thrown my pen straight up in the air, and I realized this as I was reaching for the receipt, so then I forgot about the receipt and was looking around in the air for my pen. All of this was happening as the man was opening the door, and just as I realized my pen was flipping through the air straight above me, it landed on the hot bag right next to the receipt. I'm sure I looked a little confused and astonished at the same time as I looked up at the guy, and he looked a little impressed and calmly said, "That was a mighty trick." I made a joke about having practiced it a lot, and he gave me a $6 tip! Which isn't too shabby for an average Friday night.

But you before you go thinking this Friday night was average, I want to stop you. It wasn't average. I'll summarize parts of it for you:

Best tip: $20 (on an $80 order to Laurelbrooke. Also, the tip was brought out to me by a 10 year old girl on rollerblades. It was delightful.)
Worst decision of the night: to stay and close for one of my coworkers. Didn't get to leave until 2 am. I also was scheduled to open the next morning and work an 8 1/2 hour shift.
Best line of the night: "Don't expect a tip from them...they are kind of white trash. Also, they have this illegal daycare thing going on..."

Best line of the night led into worst experience of the summer...
It was my last run of the night, to the white trash/illegal daycare duplex, at around 11:30 pm. Obviously, it was dark, and you know how when you're making a sharp turn, like turning around in a parking lot for example, your lights don't shine on the area you're planning on actually driving on, because you're not facing that way yet. That might sound confusing. Don't worry about it. Just bear with me.
White trash duplex was at the end of a street in this duplex neighborhood, so I just parked all the way on the side facing their house, and was turning in what looked like a sort of circular end of the road turn around type of deal to leave, and well it was not a circular turn around. Just a plain old dead end. I found this out because all of a sudden I was up on a curb that my lights didn't shine on because lights point straight ahead of your car. Again, this might not make sense. Whatever. Then all of a sudden my car slammed down and back up again and it sounded like something smacked the bottom of my car really hard. I let a few profanities slip, then just kept driving on, and soon realized that my front left tire was flat. I said a lot more profanities as I put my car in park, still on this dang dead end street, and realized as I got out that I had completely blown out my tire. There was a huge gash in the side of it. So I called my boss, he sent this guy out to supply me with a car jack and a lug wrench because my car jack is broken and my lug wrench is too big for my lug nuts. Go figure.
By the time I got back to headquarters, it's after midnight and I was driving on a spare that was pretty low on air itself. And I still had closing duties to perform. As I already mentioned, it took until 2 am from that point to finish everything (like cleaning off every surface, mopping, etc). I stopped by the gas station to put air in my spare, took the long/slow way home, arriving at 2:30 am. I then wrote my dad this long note explaining everything and asking him to get a new tire on my car in the morning before I had to be at work. Then I went to bed, miserably tired, dreading the next day.

I forgot to add that I had just been diagnosed with bronchitis that morning...I'd been sick for a good week and a half leading up to this. So that added exhaustion and a lot of coughing to the mix.

But my dad got the issue figured out, and bought me 2 brand new front tires...they found multiple holes in the side of my right tire as well, and said it was a miracle that one hadn't already blown on me. (I house-sat out in Franklin a couple weeks ago and may have grazed the curb that I parked my car beside a few times...)

The next day, Saturday, I somehow made it through my 8 1/2 hour shift without too much coughing, and managed to get a lot of deliveries with also lots of down time. My boss had this fold up lawn chair in her office that we set up for me to chill in in the back, and I fell asleep more than once in that thing. It was the only good part of that day. I almost fell asleep a few times while driving in my office, and I just felt awful and so tired. Also it was 100+ degrees and we all know that my uniform includes pants and 2 shirts.

Basically, I decided that closing is not worth the extra hours.

I went to bed at 9:00 pm last night, and slept for 11 1/2 hours. I also took an hour long nap this afternoon. I guess a blown out tire and bronchitis followed by an all day shift can really take it out of you.

Joy Cain Dunlap

Text from Joy: 'Working tonight?'
Me: Yeah :(
Joy: Don't worry I didn't want to hang out! I just think of you sometimes and wonder if I should picture you in uniform or not.

Evaluation

The other day we had our first staff meeting of the summer. We talked about random things like don't leave personal items laying around the store when you're not there and don't keep food in the walk-in freezer unless you're going to eat it that day, and other things like watching delivery times. My boss challenged drivers to just take one night and run to and from your car everywhere you go and see if that helps you fit in time for more runs. In my head I promised myself that I would never do that.

At this meeting we also had 1 on 1 evaluations from my boss. Mine was very encouraging. I got perfect scores on everything attitude-wise, like being on time (she said I was always early...I know how to make a good impression), having a good work ethic, etc. But then we got to the actual business evaluations...things that I didn't know existed. For example, my average phone time (time spent taking orders) is around 4 minutes. They want it to be around 2. Oops! And my average ticket price was around $14 I think...they want that to be a minimum of $17. I don't like that because I hate trying to convince people to buy things, because I know I don't like to spend money. I know that's stupid, but I didn't sign up to be a pizza sales lady...I just deliver!
When I told Grace Hooper about these things, she said "It's not like I didn't take your job seriously before, but hearing these things makes me take your job a little bit more seriously." I was like yeah, it's hard.
(It's not actually hard.)
But anyway, the way the eval works is you get a score for each different thing, and then you add up the score at the end to see if you get a raise. I GOT A RAISE!! Don't worry about the fact that it's only 35 cents and only while I'm on the road. So now my pay on the road = $3.85/hr. I couldn't be happier.

I took History of Economic Thought last semester and we spent some time reading Karl Marx. I can't tell you how often I think about what he says about man's estrangement; man are estranged in 4 different ways, one of which is from the product of their labor. Every time I'm hungry at headquarters I just get so frustrated that I have to pay for everything I that I can make myself there. And I get it...someone else is investing in and buying these materials in order to get a return for themselves. They're not interested in feeding their employees for free. I signed up to sell my labor, and that's all. But still, seeing all that food is just hard sometimes.

Quotable

There were a few fabulous things that Cosmo said today that deserve to be recorded.

[Cosmo helped me save time somehow...]
Me to Cosmo: I like the way you think!

Cosmo: (tapping his head) Well, it's all in my butt.

[Cosmo found a stray piece of bacon and turned to hide the fact that he was eating it because according to headquarters that's 'stealing'...]

Cosmo: It's like working for the gestapo here with all these cameras watching us all the time.

(True story: one time this guy Michael was wearing khaki pants instead of black pants - khaki pants used to be the uniform instead of black, and he's worked for a long time and just forgot - and someone from the main office called our store and said that Michael had to leave and change his pants. Because they saw from the camera!! Those cameras are apparently used used more often for our surveillance than our safety.)

This is a joke that Cosmo said he heard one time that was really stupid: There was this man that had a screw stuck in his bellybutton and went to seek help from this wise Indian doctor/healer, and the doctor/healer told him to face the East and say, "screw in, screw out, help me get my screw out" and then face north, west, and south and do the same thing each time and then unscrew the screw. So he did all that and unscrewed the screw in his bellybutton and his butt fell off.
After I heard it I thought you're right, that was stupid. I can't believe you told me that joke. That's not even a joke. It's just a weird story that's not even true or possible.

Also, today I was supposed to work from 10-6:30, but by 12:45 we had only had 2 deliveries, so my boss told me I could take a lunch break until we got busy again. So...shout out to Erica and Doug Oliver who graciously let me crash their Saturday family time and chill with her and her girls by the pool! I thought it would be like an hour, maybe 2 tops, but by 4:30 I still hadn't heard from my boss! So I called and she was like yeah, we've only had 2 more deliveries since you left. You don't have to come back in.
Obviously, today was fantastic. Except for I hope that Erica didn't get bored of me today and still wants to talk to me ever again in the future.

Panic Buttons and Door Openers

I can't tell you how many times being robbed/stuck up (like a stick up in some other tense) has come up at headquarters since I began working. People always talk about how when someone comes in stores with a gun, they always try to get everybody to the back (if they don't just get the money right away from the front, because we keep not much cash in our till). My coworkers have all decided that they would never let a robber with a gun take them to the back of the store, because then they would just die where no one could see them. Cosmo is especially indignant about this idea...he always says "if someone pulled a gun on me and told me to go to the back I'd say 'uh, no, i'm not gonna do that.'" He always says it in this really soft voice that's hilarious because you would never imagine anyone talking to a robber that way.
The reason this topic came up yesterday was because Cosmo told my boss and me this story about a restaurant owner in Nashville that got locked in his freezer and died. The electricity went out in his store, so he went and got some dry ice to put in the walk-in freezer to keep all his food from going bad. Somehow while he was in the walk-in, the door locked behind him (which is really weird because I don't even know if our walk-in locks period). So...if you know anything about dry ice, you know that it is the solid form of carbon dioxide, and as it changes states (like ice would melt into water) it just becomes the gas form. So this guy probably realized he was in trouble since he was locked in a basically airtight room with a bunch of carbon dioxide. Their walk-in had a panic button in it in case of an emergency, like a robbery or something. Maybe also for a situation like the one he found himself in. So he pushed the panic button, and the police came and searched the store and didn't find anything so they left, and he eventually died of asphyxiation.
My boss and I thought it was weird that they had a panic button in their freezer. Because we surely do not. There are buttons in the back of the store in my boss's office that look like panic buttons, but I found out yesterday that all they do is open the front door. Cosmo and I had both thought at least one of them was a panic button, and my boss was like how much would that suck if we were being robbed and one of us was in the back of the store pushing that button thinking that help was on the way. Because nothing would happen. And then it came back around to 'I would never let a robber take me to the back of the store because then they would just shoot me in private.'
Does anyone else that works at a restaurant like headquarters ever have these discussions with their coworkers? And the thing is, it wasn't just yesterday, or one other time before that...it has come up multiple times. Maybe we're just really morbid, or like to talk about how brave and how much smarter than robbers we are.
Let's just say that I hope no one tries to rob the store because one of my coworkers will think they are being smart to defy a robber and stand their ground by the cash register.

On Call?

I worked the morning shift today (morning shift = 10am - 1pm; I know that's more like early afternoon shift, but don't judge me. I work at a pizza place.). Our boss always does our schedule two weeks in advance so I went in the office to check out what my next week was going to look like.
Again, I work at a pizza place.
So you can imagine my confusion when I saw that I was scheduled as 'on call' for two days.
Really? On call?
First of all, we have never had a scheduling like that before.
Second of all, what am I? A doctor? No! I am a pizza delivery lady!
So Will Ferrell look alike and I decided that we would buy some scrubs and a face mask and if we get called to come in, we'll rush in in that uniform instead of our pizza delivery uniforms. (He came up with that idea...I laughed because I did think it was funny, but I don't think I would actually ever do that because it doesn't really make sense and it would mostly be awkward. But I humored him.)


Also, I was so hungry today that I temporarily forgot that I really am lactose intolerant, and scarfed down half of a medium veggie pizza (before you go thinking that I am a pig, it was only 4 small pieces of pizza). Now my stomach is pissed at me. And I remember why when I'm hungry at work I usually just get bread sticks. I just get so bored of bread sticks, and miss the days when I could eat all the cheese I wanted. Even if that was 7-8 years ago. I'm still not used to it.

Drunkard

Last night, this man came into the store that was stumbling drunk. We kind of laughed about him while we were making his pizza...he waited in the car. When he came in to pick it up when it was ready, I gave it to him, and smiled and was like have a great night! He just stood there looking at me, swaying on his feet to keep his balance, and turned to walk to the door after a few seconds, and then turned back around and stared at me again, and eventually said "Do I know you?" I said no right away, because even if he did know me somehow, I did not want to get into that with him in that state. It would have gotten too complicated and it was late. I was tired. But he still stood there and just kept looking at me; it got kind of weird, and then he turned and stumbled out the door mumbling "I must know who you're related to..."
He was driving himself. One of the guys I work with who's also a part-time cop had just left like a few minutes before, otherwise we could have done something about it. I guess maybe we could have called the cops or something, to let them know someone was leaving the store drunk or something, but I didn't think about it until it was too late.
I have thought about it a lot, and hope that he didn't cause anything awful. That everyone around him was safe. And I guess that he was safe, too.
It was weird though. And sort of funny because it was so ridiculous. I've never seen anyone that drunk in public. But to me it was mostly sad.

Lurking in the Shadows

So what I said about Cosmo last time, trying to say he was more normal than I had thought, I take it back. Not that he did anything totally crazy, but I just can't take him seriously! Last night we were standing around desperately waiting for someone to call in and order something, and my boss was like hey Cosmo have you ever showed Rachel your moonwalk? I looked over at her and we both tried to not laugh as Cosmo was like "Oh no, I haven't showed her!! Watch this..."
He just shuffled backwards. Even I could moonwalk better than that! (And if you're Aften Whitmore or Rachael Aucker, you can understand just how awful that is.) He said "I know, I look just like Michael Jackson. People tell me that all the time." Of course he was kidding, but that didn't make it any less ridiculous or funy to me.
THEN he started talking about how he used to be able to put both of his feet around the back of his head. Like from the front. He said when he was playing music, he got a date with a girl one time because of it. And then the next night his band made him do it on stage for $20. He was like 'I'd do anything for $20 and a date!' I was like that's crazy that you could do that! He looked at me and in all seriousness he said 'Well I'm a limber man!'
At that point I couldn't hold it together. I started laughing in his face (I felt kind of bad) and he was like 'No, really, I used to be able to put my palms flat on the ground!' (He's shorter than me I'm pretty sure, so that might explain part of it) He told me he didn't think he could do it anymore, but said he was going to try. So he bent right over in front of me and was trying so hard to put his palms on the ground. I was frantically looking around for one of my co-workers to notice what was happening, but no one was paying attention! So it was just me watching watching Cosmo trying to stretch his way to the ground. Eventually he stood back up and was like 'Well I can't do it anymore.' I never would have guessed.

On a completely different note, some apartments have a level lower than the ground floor you walk into from the parking lot, like you have to walk past the first few doors to a staircase taking you back under the building, and there are usually one or two apartments down there that are really private and covered. I always get a little nervous when I go to these apartments, just because literally no one can see the door and I feel like if something weird ever was to happen, no one would be around to help me. I had to go to one of these apartments last night after it was already dark. I had had to call the guy I was delivering to to let me in the gate to his apartment complex, so he was expecting me. When I realized it was a downstairs apartment I started praying as I walked down the stairs for God to keep me safe, and I turned the corner and the guy had his door open and was standing there waiting for me, with almost all the lights off in his apartment so that I didn't see him at first. When I did see him my heart stopped dead and I jumped so high I almost dropped the pizza. He kind of laughed and was like 'sorry.' When I gave him the receipt to sign, he walked in his apartment a little ways, turned on a light, signed it, and then turned it back off and came back outside. It was weird. Maybe he was trying to save electricity? I don't know. But I didn't appreciate it.

Also, it poured last night while I was delivering for a while. We're not technically supposed to wear any jackets or anything that we didn't get from headquarters, but I didn't care, I wore my rain jacket. There's also a puddle that resembles a river that forms right in front of our door every time in rains, and there's no way around it, so my shoes were like squishy wet. It was so miserable. But we got more business because of it. Because people didn't want to leave they're houses for food.
It's another rule in the pizza business that I'm learning: the inverse relationship between weather and business. Also, business is better when it's cold. Which makes sense because who craves a hot pizza in the dead heat of summertime?
Although there actually is one reliable summer crowd: people having pool parties. But I can't tell you how much of a love/hate relationship I have with these deliveries. The tips are usually better, but I have to walk further to find them around the pool, and by that time I'm dripping sweat in my pants and two shirts, and watching people splashing around in the pool is just miserable. The other day a mom invited me to jump in with them! It was nice of her but also really cruel. Because obviously I couldn't actually join them.

Anyway, I guess that's all.

Boring Thoughts and Stories

I'm not really sure if I should publicly address this issue or not, but I guess since I'm writing about it right now, I have obviously decided (against my better judgement) to share. If my better judgement had had much of a say, I would keep my mouth shut. But my worse judgement has taken charge and plus, this is pizza biz, and pizza biz goes on the blog.
They only gave me one shirt for my uniform. And I only have 1 pair of black pants. I work lots of days a week, and don't do laundry lot of days a week. You know what that means? Yeah, I think you know.

But, upon further consideration, I have decided that this is yet another perk of my job. I don't have to own a lot of clothes to carry out my duties. I never have to debate which shirt I should wear. Or which pants. It's no questions asked when I start getting into my work uniform. The only decision: which socks to wear.
This sounds trivial, but it's not! It's actually a sort of moral dilemma everyday. (You can call me melodramatic. It's ok. It fits.)  There are specific specifications (redundant) for the socks I am allowed to wear: they have to be white, and they must cover the ankle. Really? I mean obviously socks that completely cover the ankle are pretty hot. Like temperature hot. So if I had my choice, I would wear shorter socks, the kind that are 'invisible' when you're wearing tennis shoes, in 90 degree summer weather. So sometimes I wear those instead.  Am I technically breaking the rules? Yes. Has anyone ever noticed? No. And then I have these socks that are mostly white with a colored ring around the top. So obviously these are even worse because they don't cover the ankle AND they're not all white. Have I worn them? Yes. Then there are those socks that I'm sure everyone has that are just a little big, and if I pull them up as far as they go, they cover some ankle, but not really.
Here's the deal: all bets are off when the only part of my work wardrobe that I have to choose are a. as trivial as socks and b. items of clothing that I go through so quickly. Because I wear them so often, I always run out of work approved socks first because those are the ones I wear first. And that's one thing I won't wear dirty: socks. (Before you judge me, they're not the only items of clothing that I won't wear dirty.) So, as you can see, I regularly have to choose just how strictly to follow dress-code. Should I really do laundry that much more often to have clean work socks when I can just wear any other socks? Case and point: moral dilemma. (Because following rules I have already agreed to follow involves morality, blah blah blah.) Who ever thought just getting ready for work could prove to be so character revealing?

So the other day Cosmo and I were working the morning shift together, and I started feeling awful and like I was going to be sick. He was about to go on a delivery that went right by his house, and offered to stop by and bring back some Pepto Bismol for me, and I was like 'Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks!' I was texting my mom and filling her in on the situation, and she said 'Make sure he hasn't drank the pepto straight from the bottle! Some people do that if they live alone. Especially men. Just sayin.' I laughed and informed her that he has a wife, so he does not live alone, but thanked her for the advice all the same.
The point of that anecdote is this: I was maybe a little creeped out by Cosmo at first, but the more I get to know him, the more I like him. He just has a lot of weird life experiences that make him seem really out there. Well, he really is a little out there. But he is a very nice man, and way more normal than I first believed. He tells funny (if a little inappropriate) jokes and stories all the time, and has told me more than once that I am very pretty and have a great personality. That was sweet of him. I just want to be fair in the way I portray him. And also I wanted my mom's anal-retentive tendencies to be made known. Publicly.

In other news, beautiful Australian man isn't Australian...he's English. I asked him the other day. When I told him I had thought he was Australian he said 'no I've still got all my own teeth!!' and smiled. I was a little confused because I thought that the English were the ones with bad teeth. But I just told him 'way to go!!' and gave him a thumbs up.
He still called me love. I still loved it.

Also, here's a thought: someone should start a blog about community college. There are just hilarious things there. But this blog is already committed to a very specific topic. Maybe I should just make a blog about interesting people. That would be fun.
But seriously...I want to encourage/challenge someone to blog about community college.

Most Awkward Things

There are some situations that I have repeatedly found myself in that I just don't really know what to do with. So I've decided to make a list of them. They aren't in order of awkwardness, like 1=most awkward or anything like that, just in the order that I think of them.

1. When people's dogs slip out of their house and are barking at me the whole time we're doing the pizza/money exchange, and then their owner keeps trying to call them back after I've already said something like have a nice day, or you know just however we ended things. And then the dog will inevitably follow me to my car while the owner is trying to call them back to the house. It's especially little dogs. So after the owner realizes that the dog isn't going to listen/obey, they come walking or maybe even jogging after the dog to try to physically carry it back to their house. And I never know if I'm supposed to like stop walking to my car and just stand there so the owner can catch up to the dog, because obviously the dog is just following me, or whether to just keep walking and let the owner figure it out once I'm in my car. The most awkward part is the whole you've already said goodbye and then you're walking together still/they're following me. And also it'd be weird to address the situation directly by asking 'do you want me to stop walking so you can get your dog?' So I just never know how to act in that particular circumstance.
2. When I can't get the pizza/breadstick/sandwich boxes out of the hot bag at the door, and the customer tries to help me, and I just feel embarrassed that this is literally the main part of my job, to give them their pizza, and I am physically failing at it. It's the worst.
3. One time, I was handing over the receipt for this guy to sign, and literally at the moment the receipt was changing hands, a huge gust of wind blew the receipts away into the bushes in front of his house! And he ran after them and had to get down on his hands and knees and crawl around to get the stupid receipt, and I was just standing there at the door waiting for him to get them. Because it was kind of a one man job, and I didn't have anywhere to put the pizzas anyway to go help him except just hold them. We sort of laughed about it, but it was just also a little awkward.
4. This has happened a lot: I knock on the door or ring the doorbell or whatever, and I'm standing there waiting for the customer to open their door, and it gets to the point where I don't think they heard me. So I knock louder or ring again, and at that moment they open the door. And I just feel like I was too impatient.
5. This has happened less than the previous one, but still, it's happened more than once: I knock/ring and no one comes to the door, and I bang on the door as hard as I can, and still no one answers. So I look at the phone number on the receipt, call them, and they don't answer. I call headquarters and tell them while I'm walking around the house to look in they're backyard to see if they're there, and then headquarters calls them, and they answer then, and headquarters is like our delivery lady has been at your door for like 5 minutes trying to get your attention. Then the exchange is always weird after that. One time it was because a dad was giving his kids a bath. He came to the door and was like 'did the doorbell not work?' And I was like 'yeah, I'm positive I heard it ring, and I rang it like 5 different times, so I'm positive it's working.' I was thinking in my head, I called you multiple times, as well, and you didn't answer your phone. Do you think you're phone's not working? You'd think if someone ordered pizza, they would be ready for me to actually arrive at their house with the pizza. I wouldn't think that someone should be totally surprised when I show up.
I guess #5 isn't as much awkward as it is annoying.
6. When someone invites me inside to sign the receipt in the entryway to their house and I have to say 'no thanks, I'll just stay outside' or 'I'm not allowed to go in peoples' houses', or something along those lines. They are always like oh, ok. And I always feel a little rude.
7. When someone takes the receipt and goes far away inside their house and sometimes even shuts the door while they sign the receipt, leaving me standing on the porch. Why don't they just sign it in front of me? Are they embarrassed for me to see the tip (or lack thereof) that they're giving me? Because I'm going to see it anyway. Or do they really feel the need to sign it on the table? Because I'm pretty sure I've seen using the wall, the door, or the top of the pizza boxes I'm holding work just as well.
8. When I drink too much water throughout the night and get to the point where I'm desperate for a bathroom and can't stand/talk long without being kind of antsy, but I still have to take care of my delivery business like it's normal. It's painful, and I've noticed before that people kind of notice I'm in a weird rush and don't know why.
9. One time I rang the doorbell and the adult of the house was opening the door with a younger kid beside her and as they were opening the door, before he saw me, he excitedly yelled 'pizza man!!' And then he saw me, not a man, standing there and we all kind of paused for a minute, and then in the same voice as he had said I exclaimed, 'pizza lady!!' It was a weird moment for all of us.
10. When people are by their door, or even standing outside, and see me miss their house and have to a. make a U-turn in the middle of the road; b. turn around on another street; or c. pull into and then back out of another driveway very near them to get back to their house while they just are standing there waiting for me. I always feel like they get impatient with me or just think I'm an idiot. Which I guess are both very valid feelings in such a situation. But that doesn't make them any less uncomfortable for me.

You might be thinking this is kind of a lame list. But whatever. I just feel like there are mundane oddities to my job that happen regularly that don't make for exciting stories, and knocking them out in one post might be a little more entertaining. Because you get to imagine me going through these things and just being unsure/insecure in my ability to carry out my job, which I feel should be just extremely simple. But sometimes simple things quickly become complicated. (If anyone thought that pizza delivery would teach me nothing about life, this proves you were wrong.)

Scandal!!!

Will Ferrell look alike also works at Jet's Pizza!!! He confided in me the other day when he almost answered the phone by saying thanks for calling Jet's Pizza. Because I looked at him funny when he just stopped talking in the middle of his sentence on the phone.

Also, today I hit the mark over over 400 page views on this thing! (That's total, like since I started the blog. Not in one day. Haha...in my dreams!) Yay! Thanks to the regulars! And to everyone else, too!

The Office, Feta, Caesar's Palace, and Riding Pants

So it's been a while...longer than usual anyway. I'm feeling the pressure of giving you something good, but there are only short snippets of interesting pizza activity.

But I guess the first order of business is letting everyone know that I now officially consider my car my office. And that's what I'll be referring to it now as.
My office has a faint smell of pizza that is just part of it now. My seats have completely absorbed the odor and I expect they will be giving back for some time. So there will never be a shortage of pizza memories in my office. Except for that I don't notice it anymore, so maybe my immunity will minimize the effect of olfactory memories, or however you would phrase that. I don't know...I'm not a sensory scientist or anything like that. Just a pizza delivery lady. In case anyone was wondering or forgot.

Yesterday, I answered the phone at headquarters ready to take an order, and it was a black lady on the phone and she was asking me about some of our specialty pizzas, and especially liked a spinach and feta kind. She said hold on, I'm going to ask my husband if that sounds good to him, and then she yelled 'baby! what do you think about a spinach and feta pizza?' I heard him say spinach and who? So she repeated herself and he said 'what the hell is feta?' And I'm like laughing on the phone, and she said 'do you just want a philly cheese steak sandwich?' He said 'yes, that sounds great.' Haha so she talked to me again and was like ok, we'd like a spinach and feta pizza, and a philly cheese steak sandwich please.
When I took the delivery to their apartment, her husband answered the door and was wearing one of those shirts you can buy with your own pictures on it...it had two school pictures of what looked like his grandkids on it and it said happy birthday pappy or something like that.
I loved everything about that couple.

A few days ago I delivered to this duplex out off of Charlotte by Walmart, which is just the classiest area (that's sarcasm for people who don't live in Nashville). I pulled into the driveway and this man came right out of his side of the duplex to meet me, and was like 'Hey! Headquarters!!' (obviously he said headquarters' actual name, just to clear that up) I realized after talking to him for a minute that this was not even the guy I was delivering to, he just came out to greet me anyway. I realized he was either a. a little tipsy/drunk or b. just a little off. Or maybe a lot off. He asked me if I worked for Caesar's Palace as a delivery lady and I was like uh no, I just work here for headquarters. And he was like oh, I thought I'd seen you in those commercials. You kind of look like that sexy delivery lady, except I've never seen her sober or in the daytime. And I was like thanks?
I still have no idea what he's talking about. I even searched for commercials for Caesar's Palace when I got home that night, and came up with nothing. If anyone knows what this guy is talking about, let me know. I can post the video and take a vote on whether I look like this lady or not.

Today I made a delivery to the horsebarn at steeplechase to some cops. They had on tight riding pants that were still part of their cop uniforms (like navy blue with yellow stripes down the sides). I didn't notice them until I was leaving and thought it was a little strange. I wonder if they ever accidentally wore those pants out in public. Or like when they leave work from the horsebarn if they change into other pants and regular shoes instead of riding boots. If I was a cop, I think I would want the riding boots and riding pants option for my uniform.

Mohib

One guy that I work with that I have not talked about yet is Mohib. Mohib moved to the U.S. from Egypt. (Shout out to Emily Kuhn!! I told him you grew up in Cairo and he loved it, especially that you're parents were missionaries.) He said he moved here because the government there was corrupt, and everything was run by Muslims. At least I think that's what he said. Sometimes I have a hard time understanding him. Sometimes everyone has a hard time understanding him. But he's awesome. So sweet and full of love, and jokes around a lot.
Ever since he found out that I'm majoring in economics, he has been telling me I should get my MBA (I'm sorry if it's insulting to assume that some people don't know what this means, but just to be safe I'm going to spell it out...MBA = master of business administration). Every time I see him, he says it again: 'You should get your MBA. It would be good for you to help you get a good job.'
The other day we had this same conversation, and he told me that the best jobs are in Dubai, and that after I get my MBA, I should move there, even just for a year, because the cost of living is low and wages are high, blah blah blah. He also added that in order to be happy, I should find a good husband.
I told him that I would really like to do that. Find a good husband, I mean. And I tried to not say too much about not wanting to move to Dubai...I didn't want to hurt his feelings and tell him that that did not sound appealing at all. But honestly, I really can't rule anything out as far as my future goes. If you would have asked me a month ago, or maybe two months ago, what I would be doing this summer, I really think that delivering pizzas would literally have been close to the last thing on my list. And we all know that happened.
Anyway, Mo is a quite a character. Everyone jokes about him needing to go to driver's ed because every time he parks his car, it's just basically diagonal in parking spots. But it's endearing. I really like him, and he looks out for me, always making sure I know what's going on in the store and giving me advice. And as you can see, he never limits the advice to just within the pizza biz realm...he is not afraid to include suggestions for my future happiness, such as needing to find a good man. So thanks for that, Mo.

On a completely different but fantastic note, I want to give another shout out to my friends Sparrow and Chef for spotting Cosmo on a delivery tonight! When they told me, I about fell on the ground with laughter, and pride and joy, because I can't help but feeling as if I have given a special gift to those who know his story and get to see him in action.

So a few things that have now become routine:
Every time someone leaves headquarters on a run (aka delivery), someone tells them to be safe. Whoever sees them going, usually. Whenever I'm leaving I always say: 'see you soon!' (to no one in particular) And someone always replies, 'ok, be safe!' But I really secretly love it more when it's just me and my boss and she says, 'give em hell!' I think I love it so much because I've never heard her say it to anyone else, and it's just better than the usual, mundane 'be safe'. Which, don't get me wrong, that's great too! Who wouldn't want someone wishing for your safety? Cosmo threw me a curve ball the other day though...he said 'Godspeed, youngling!' And that just takes the cake.
Actually, that's really the only new routine. I'm really sorry if anyone feels as if I led them on to believe there were more great things in this category.

One more thing that I feel is an important addition to my public sentiment records: today a mentally challenged girl (is that a politically correct term? if anyone is offended, comment about it, and i will change it to something better asap) showed the same excitement about seeing me as the little girl with her grandma displayed; her face lit up with sheer joy when she saw me, and she just waved so hard to get my attention. Of course, I waved back and smiled. I'm well aware of the fact that I'm changing the world just one pizza delivery lady admirer at a time.

Also, one very last thing: tonight, I got the pleasure of delivering to a beautiful Australian man. He called me love and everything. I just stumbled with my words the whole time. I felt like such an oaf walking away from his apartment. But still, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have no title for this

Okay, so...I've been holding this story up my sleeve for when I don't have anything else to talk about. I hope I can do it justice. Because everyone at work loves this story, but y'all don't know Cosmo, so it just might not be the same.

So...I'm going to explain a little bit more about him before I go on.

Cosmo. He's 69. He used to play music for a living...the bass. In the 70s. He apparently is married to his 3rd wife right now - he told me when he was married to the first two, it was while he was playing music, and that he was...you know...a fun guy, and that his lifestyle wasn't really compatible with marriage. That's exactly how he phrased it for me, pause and all. He told me eventually he remembered something his daddy used to tell him: "if you don't lie, you won't have to remember what you said." He said he's been living by this philosophy in his 3rd marriage, and that things have gone great.
I found out later from my boss that he mostly played at strip clubs. So ridiculous. And he played with a few famous people every once in a while. But they were all well before my time, so I don't really remember any of the names.
Anyway, he often goes on rants about political things...there's a little example of that in my 2nd post. A lot of what he says would be extremely offensive to many people, especially those of a more liberal nature, so I will spare some of the details, despite the fact that some of these would make great stories all by themselves. But one thing to note every time he goes of on one of these rants...he just inches closer to me constantly. He talks kind of quiet, and keeps eye contact with me the whole time (oh, I forgot, he has a lazy eye...so he keeps one eye in contact with me). And because he talks quietly, he makes sure he's close enough for me to hear. He'll take a small step forward, and I'll take a step back, and it'll just go like that gradually across the whole store. Not a joke. It's just so uncomfortable because his body is just so close to my body, and it's just...oh it's the worst. The other day, I took a step back and hit the counter where the computers were. Aka, I couldn't back up anymore. But he just still kept coming closer!! Luckily, just as it started to get bad, my boss made us all start cleaning counters or something like that. She's really good at saving me from those types of situations. And we laugh about it later.

So...my boss told me this story literally on like my 2nd day of work, when I was still watching training videos. She told me I should always think of this every time I see Cosmo. And that's exactly what I like to do. It just makes everything better, and funnier.

One night, Cosmo had to take a double (aka 2 deliveries in one drive), and the second one was far away. In Boone Trace actually, where the whole ex-teacher's almost ex-husband thing happened. His first delivery was on the way there, but on a back road where there's like nowhere to stop in any sort of emergency. Just houses, a church, a cow field, and a junkyard. It's on the way to my house, actually. Go figure. Anyway, Cosmo, being an older guy, has stomach issues from time to time (probably because I usually see him eating KFC during his lunch break). So this delivery should have taken him probably around 35 minutes, but he showed back up to the store almost an hour later, and my boss was like dude, what took you so long? And he was like well, my stomach started bothering me just all of a sudden, and it couldn't wait, so I had to stop. And she was like, where did you stop? And he explained that he was on McCrory Lane (the back road) when it happened. And she was like wait, but where did you stop?
He had pulled over on the side of the road, and just squatted there by his car and took care of his issues.
And my boss's first question was...did you take your car topper off? (the big light up headquarters sign we stick on the top of our cars).

Just imagine driving down the road and seeing a pizza delivery car pulled over to the side, and then seeing a weirdly shaped overweight man with a long grey pony tail and a lazy eye squatting there, doing his business.

Shout out to Emily Erland and her mom for now always joking about needing to take an extra long time every time they're on McCrory Lane.

So on a completely different note, the other day I figured out that there's like a public perception on delivery men (and ladies, of course). I was stopped at this stop sign in Bellevue right by this bridge sort of thing that looked over a creek, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye...it was a little girl that looked ecstatic, waving like crazy at me. She was with her grandma who also smiled and gave me a wave. I felt like I was on a float in a parade or something.
But then just a few runs later, I was driving through a little neighborhood and slowed down to pass some kids playing in the street, and a little boy spit at my window.
So I just decided that those two events cancel each other out, and that the public actually has no perception of delivery men/ladies.

That's all.

P.S. I added a section at the very bottom of this page, by my profile info and stuff, where you can follow this blog if you have some sort of google account, or if you don't have one of those, you can subscribe via email for updates every time I add a new post. Some of you might be wondering why in the world I would ever think anyone might have the desire to do this, and I would say to you: I don't know. But apparently some people have enjoyed the read, and so I just wanted to make the option available. Thank you, and good night.

Embarrass: to cause to experience a state of self-conscious distress

So Friday night is a stereotypical pizza/movie night, and we usually stay super busy, which was the case tonight. I was just scheduled for a few hours during the rush and ended up needing to stay like an extra hour to help out. My last run of the night was like halfway to my house (which is relatively far away), in Boone Trace, which just sucks driving pizza there because it uses so much gas. It wouldn't be so bad if there was like a sliding scale for tips, like people were required to tip more the further they lived from the store. What would really be nice would be if everyone would just tip, period, but don't get me started on that.

Anyway, last run of the night, I'm jammin on the way there (someone stole my antenna off my car when I was still in Chattanooga, so I've been listening to a bunch of my old CDs, which are awesome and hilarious). I printed out directions before leaving the store rather than just looking at the map because that neighborhood's a little confusing to me at night and I didn't want to waste time trying to memorize the route when I could just take it with me, you know? So I didn't really ever look at the name on the receipt, I was just looking at the directions and for the address. I pulled up to this house, and a dad and his daughter came outside to meet me by my car, and the daughter was holding a kitten, so we started talking about it because I told them I thought it was precious, blah blah blah. Anyway, we ended up figuring out that she goes to Kingston Springs Elementary, and I told them that's where I went a long time ago. And then he was done signing the receipt and everything, and I started thinking that the daughter looked familiar to me, but I didn't say anything about it, because it was time to go. So I threw the hot bag in my backseat and got in my car, and the first thing I always do is look at the receipt to see the tip they gave me. This time I looked at the name and realized that I was at one of my old elementary school teacher's house! And we had had a really good relationship and stayed in touch every once in a while and stuff. She was invited to my high school graduation, and we had her and her kids over for dinner about a year ago or whatever. And that was the last time I had seen her - the dinner at my house - so I decided to go back to the door and say hey. I rang the doorbell and the dad and kids came back and I was like, sorry, I just realized that you're one of my old teacher's husband! Is your wife home?? (I was pretty excited about this whole situation, just to set the scene) He was like, yeah I am (her husband), but we're getting divorced, so no, she's not here.

I about fell over on his front porch. I'm sure I my face flushed red and I just started apologizing profusely. And he was like no, it's no big deal. Some people know, some don't, so it's not like we're trying to keep it a secret anymore or anything.
And all I could think of was I'm sure that's exactly what you wanted this Friday night when you ordered pizza...a reminder that you're getting divorced. I just wanted to crawl in a hole.
But he was really great about it. He told me a couple of times, really, don't worry about it. It's ok!

So I got back in my car, and called my mom ASAP and we laughed and felt awful about the situation, and when I got back to the store I think I told someone I work with, but they were busy and didn't care. Well sorry that I was worried about the fact that I was the biggest contradiction tonight: a pizza delivery lady ruining a fun night!

So there's that.

Ms. B

One of our policies at headquarters is to never ever enter anyone's home no matter what. I was told in orientation a couple weekends ago that even if it's pouring down rain and a customer seems like they're just trying to be polite, or if they are just being polite, you never can know what's on the other side of that door. But at my headquarters, we have one exception to that rule - Ms. B.

Ms. B is an older woman who has been a customer at headquarters for years. No one really knows how long. But she always orders the exact same thing. I don't know how often she orders, but it's multiple times a week. My boss showed me her order history, and it goes back forever, and her total is always $10.37. Apparently she got hooked on some special a long time ago, and the special doesn't even exist anymore, but we still always give her the discount. Ms. B is bed-ridden, so in order to get her pizza to her, we just walk in her house (I guess the nurse leaves it open for us when they know we're coming) and take the pizza back to her bedroom. I was the day driver today, so I got to take Ms. B's order to her.

For some reason it just made my entire day better, and more sad, all at the same time.

We had really slow day...I only made 8 runs in the 9 hours I was there, and most of the runs were in the last 2 hours of my shift. So when we got the call from Ms. B in the early afternoon, it was a relief to get out of the store (and take a break from the day that consisted of folding boxes and cutting sandwich bread, but mostly folding boxes) and drive somewhere. I'd heard a little bit about her from a few different people at our headquarters, and pretty much already knew the situation, you know? But when I was walking up to the door, I just felt weird, like am I really supposed to be going to this woman's bedroom that I've never met before? But I walked right in anyway, and kind of hesitatingly poked my head in every room in the first hallway, unsure of which was hers. But I finally found her room at the end of the hallway; she was propped up watching tv, and when she saw me in my headquarter's uniform (complete with tucked in shirt, black pants, white socks that cover the ankle, and of course...the hat), she smiled and perked up a bit as I told her my name and that I was there to deliver her pizza. The way she responded made me feel like I was doing her some great favor, like I was actually an in home patient care assistant or something like that. As I walked over, I was wondering how to hand her the pizza and everything, because she couldn't really move that well. She asked me first to put the phone that was sitting on her lap in the charger on her bedside table, and we exchanged the pizza and the money. I noticed that she had all the things she would need for her day spread out around her on her bed, and some dirty dishes probably from her breakfast. I asked her if there was anything else I could do for her, and she just asked me to turn on the fan and lock her in when I left. It's amazing how much she trusts anyone in our uniform.

My boss told me a story about a headquarters driver in Memphis who saved an elderly lady's life. This lady was also a regular, and had been for years. They hadn't heard from her in a few days in the store, and so they called her house to check in on her and see how she was doing, but there was no answer. So after a few tries, one of the drivers decided to check on her after she clocked out for the day. She went to her house and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. She tried the door and it was locked. She went around and asked a few neighbors if they had noticed anything, like if she had left her house or anything like that, and none of them knew anything. So the driver decided to call the police. They got in the house and found the lady on the floor...she had fallen and wasn't able to move enough to reach the phone for help. But because of the driver deciding to see what was going on, they got there in time to save her life.
My boss told me if we ever didn't hear from Ms. B, we would do the same thing. But Ms. B has a nurse that helps her, and a daughter in town, so we think she's in better hands.

Anyway, my trip to Ms. B's made me feel like I was part of something special today, even though delivering pizza just doesn't seem like it should be a big deal. Apparently when she calls the store and somebody answers with our typical headquarters scripted opening lines, she asks them "Do you know me?" because it always says her name on the caller ID. I think that's hilarious, and precious. It's really refreshing to see a relationship that has been built for so long that it's not just business anymore. At least not on our end.

False Alarm!!!

So I had yesterday and today off, but headquarters called me yesterday and asked me if I wanted to pick up some extra hours last night. And I said 'duh'. You see, i need a full time job and I'm not getting full time hours. Go figure.

It was a rough night. I had 2 runs that didn't tip me. And one of them was far away.
And the rest of my runs I got average tips, except 1 $1 tip, but all of them were also far away. And then they didn't even tell me that I was going to be the late driver!! Aka I'm in charge of doing the dishes.
BUT I'm not going to complain about doing work that I get paid for. Because that's a blessing. So just pretend that I didn't just complain.

But some things that I was taught last night:
Apparently, if you're a girl, you get way better tips if you're wearing make-up and have your hair in a pony tail instead of a bun out the back of your hat. I never thought I would try to look nice to work in a pizza place. Guess I was wrong. And I guess that means I actually have to make an effort to be Hot Driver. Because there's another hot driver in town, and she's the one showing me the ropes.
Another thing she told me...prop your elbow on your hip to hold the boxes, because it accentuates your hips and makes you look more feminine.
She admitted that these tips sounded ridiculous, and were totally demeaning, but she said in her experience, they really have produced better tips. *If the customers are men*
If you're serving women, don't worry about looking nice...they relate to a messy woman working hard. Nice.

I can't believe I'm buying into this stuff.

First Day

The title of this post may be a little misleading. Today was my first day to deliver, which is, as you all know, my main job description. However, this was my 4th consecutive day to work. So, let me give you a brief overview of my REAL first days:

Well, actually, they were pretty boring. I had to watch about 11 hours of videos and take quizzes on them and stuff. But I met a bunch of the people I'll be working with, and they're awesome.
So the first guy I met was Cosmo. I actually met him when I went to turn in my application...he's this short man shaped sort of like a pear, with long grey hair tied up in a low pony tail under his visor. The first time I talked to him he told me about how great the huge map is on the store wall for showing me how to get where i'll need to go. The second time I talked to him, he told me he was old enough to be my grandpa, and that he was still working because he lost money in the stock market, and then he complained about socialists and giving people money, and told me everything that was wrong in Europe, and why Germany is obviously the best European country (because they are the hardest workers, which is actually true...everyone else gets more vacation time and great unemployment benefits, but Germany won't put up this that stuff, as Cosmo would say). He usually works during the daytime, making sauce and deliveries.

The second guy I met looks just like Will Ferrell. Like exactly like him. He was making sauce with Cosmo and was pretending to be Martha Stuart, or really just any cook on a cooking show. "Make sure you get those spices really stirred in good...it's the secret to a tasty sauce, and it's what keeps headquarter's customers calling again and again!" And he was saying it in a feminine voice...it was pretty funny. He's super cool though. He just got back from Las Vegas where he was doing real estate and was working as a taxi driver. His shift started at midnight, and I think he has a lot of great stories from that job.

And there's one lady I worked with tonight who goes by Matilda now, but her name used to be Dana...apparently she changed her name because at some point she really changed the way she was living and wanted to leave a bunch of it behind, and really start off fresh. Like with a new name fresh. She wears these brown hiking looking shoes but they have springs on the soles of the heel. Like Air Jordan's on steroids.
                                            

And last but not least, there's this guy named Tim. He has tattoos on both of his forearms (I forgot to ask him what they mean, but that's our next conversation for sure), is married, and has I think like 3 kids. He's super awesome...his kids are homeschooled and we were joking about homeschooled kids and he said they made fun of most homeschoolers. Tonight we talked about Keynesian vs. Austrian economics (after he found out I was an economics major). He's really smart and is the most normal guy out of them all. Well...maybe not...I left out almost everyone else I work with. Because they're mostly normal.

Last night, I didn't have any more videos to watch, but I learned how to answer the phones and take orders on the computer. I picked it up pretty quick (I didn't have much of a choice...when the phone started ringing they were like Rachel you start taking calls now). I had a little bit of everything...regular orders, complaints, wanting to change a cash payment to a credit payment, and I had this one annoying guy who I took his order and repeated everything to him at least once, and then he called back after it was delivered and told me he had asked for something different than what he really asked for, and that he wanted a free pizza next time because of it. And our policy at headquarters is to give our customers what they want, so I had to give it to him. I didn't make any pizzas though...I'm not experienced enough for that yet.

But PTL (praise the Lord) I am and driver and not a customer service expert (aka insider). That means I get to be on the road. And that started tonight. Nothing all that exciting happened, really. Here are the highlights:
I took 2 pizzas and some parm bites and a Dr Pepper to a group of people who were too stoned to look at me. I pulled up and they were all standing outside, like totally spread out from each other, none of them talking to each other, and I got out of the car and looked around and one girl sort of met my eye and so I walked up to her and she handed me a wad of bills and was like 'keep the change' and turned around and walked inside, and the other guys followed her in. It was weird.
I went to this neighborhood twice in a row where I got a $1 tip the first time and a 40 cent tip the second time. I hate that neighborhood.
On my way back to headquarters one run, I passed a Pizza Hut delivery guy. I tried to wave at him, because I felt like we had this special bond or something. But he avoided eye contact and sped up! Apparently the pizza delivery business is a lot more competitive than I expected. But really I think he was just taking it way too seriously.
I got ready for one delivery and my boss told me that this lady has a dog named McNair and that if I talked about the dog the lady would give me a $5 tip. And I was like this is great. So I got out of the car ready for some doggy talk and a man answered the door, and barely talked to me. I mean, we said what was needed, you know? But anyway I got in the car a little disappointed, and looked at the receipt (he paid with a credit card) and he had given me an $8.18 tip on a $15.82 tab!! That was definitely a good highlight.
The last delivery of my night was this guy who I can't remember his name, but he lives with his mom in a retirement neighborhood right down the road from headquarters. Apparently he orders something every night, and always comes to the door in his boxers and usually tips pretty well. So I prepared myself for the boxers part, pulled up to his door, and he walked up and held out his hands for his order and I noticed that he hadn't clipped his fingernails in I have no idea how long.

I have a feeling a lot of the weird things I will see will have to do with people's hygiene, because those have been the things that have stuck out the most so far. Which is super weird and kind of gross and odd. But it is what it is.

So, the pre-game jitters are over, I've learned a few handy tricks:
Never ever get yourself in a position where you have to turn left at lights in busy places (it doubled my route time once tonight) - ALWAYS plan your route so that you can make right turns.
Make small talk with every customer every single time they are about to sign their receipt if it's a credit payment or when they're giving you cash so that they feel like they connect with you. That's where the money comes from.
Keep snacks in the car.

I now have a few days off, and I'm going to enjoy them by reading a lot and spending time with well-groomed people.

Introduction

Let me introduce you to my blog, A Day in the Life (of a pizza delivery lady).
This blog was thought up by a few friends and former employers (I do dog-sitting too if anyone's interested). You see, most of my friends are scattered throughout the world right now doing their community development internships. But I (being wiser than they) changed my major to economics at the last minute (halfway through my junior year), and no longer am required to be dropped off in the middle of some crazy place to develop communities for 3 months. (If you can't tell, that means I'm kind of jealous of them for doing awesome stuff). Instead, I am taking calculus at community college, and saving up money so that I can eat next year. There's no sarcasm in that...my summer earnings are my senior year's food budget. So...they're all keeping blogs about their summers (my community development friends), especially for people financially and prayerfully supporting them, so I decided I would keep a blog as well. Partly for their entertainment, partly for my entertainment, partly because I have never really done much to realize my childhood dream of becoming a writer (a dream which I no longer aspire to, just fyi, but I still have fun writing), and partly because maybe there are people prayerfully supporting me that want to know the highlights of my awesome job. Who really knows?

If you haven't figured it out by now, my job this summer is to deliver pizzas. My mom's friends have all asked me if this will be dangerous. All my friends have fully supported my decision. People in the middle of me and my parent's ages have typically told me how much money they, or their friends, made as delivery drivers. This is always an encouragement.

You might be wondering why I chose this job: basically, I literally applied to like 20 places, and headquarters hired me basically right away. They seemed as desperate as I was. But I like to tell myself that they saw potential in me to be a fantastic delivery lady, and just had to have me on board, and that they would have fired other employees just to make room to hire me.

This is, obviously, my first post. This is partly because I have not officially made any deliveries thus far. It is also partly because I feel a lot of pressure to make this an enjoyable read, and I only hope that there will be lots of things that will make you laugh. There are a few of reasons for that: a) if there's a story that makes you laugh, it probably made me laugh first, and I like to laugh, so i hope (for all of our sakes) that funny things happen this summer; b) if you don't enjoy my posts, you probably won't return to my blog, and for some reason I really want people to read this!; c) my decision to take this job as a delivery lady this summer was not part of a greater career choice, like a stepping stone to some other job or something, so I really need to squeeze some worth out of it, and telling good stories would be worth it.

There are a few things I feel like you, the reader(s), should know:
1. I have decided not to disclose the name of the pizza company I am working for. I don't know that there's a policy against this or anything (blogging about my job), but I really can't tell what will come up this summer, and I don't want anyone to get a bad name. And I don't want to get sued (is that even a real possibility?). SO...I will be referring to my employer as headquarters. I work for headquarters. (Everybody reading this blog already knows who I work for, but I don't want the internet to know. It's nosy.)
2. I may end up changing people's names as well, just to protect everyone's privacy. Including co-workers. Some of them I won't change. I might not tell you if they're names are changed or not. I haven't decided.
3. I've never done anything like this before. Bear with me. By 'this' I mean writing things that I want people to read. I mostly just journal, and obviously you don't write in a journal planning for other people to read it. Except for that I did that for a long time when I was little because Laura Ingalls Wilder's journals got made into books. Which, obviously, I thought that my life would be important enough for my journals to be turned into books, too. So I wrote to please an audience of generations to come. I have always dreamed big.
4. If you become a loyal follower, and like every single post, I might could get you some free breadsticks. It's just one of the perks of the job.
5. I might periodically refer to myself in 3rd person as Hot Driver. If no one else ever calls me this, I will still believe this about myself. We'll see what other people think throughout the summer. My dad says when boys see me in my uniform, they will HAVE to give me extra tips because of how cute I look. Dad's are always right, right? And dad's will never call their daughters hot, so when dad says cute, that means other people see me as hot, right?

Ok, I don't want to lose any possible followers by writing a book in my first post. Plus, the book won't come until the end of the summer when I compile all of my posts together and publish it. Just kidding. Maybe.

Also, I promise I'm not as egotistical as I have made myself sound. I just think these things are funny. I think it's hilarious and a little awful that I'm devoting myself to personally transporting pizzas from store to door, and I am kind of being self-deprecating in my sarcasm about my 'accomplishment' of obtaining this job.

I feel like I need some kind of slogan to end each post with. I'm open for suggestions. If someone comes up with one that I like and decide to use, I will give you free breadsticks. I know, what's not to love about this job right?