Friday, June 16, 2006
The Shit List
Just to be clear: Tipping your delivery driver $2.49 on a $62.51 order is like humiliating the wife or daughter of a mob boss in public. Once you do it, you can't take it back and you're pretty much screwed if you ever show yourself again. You just don't do it. You do not fuck with the guy who gets a significant amount of unsupervised "alone time" with your food.
Anyway, last night started out pretty crappy. First there was that large order for a 3% tip, then there were several other orders where the customers essentially ripped me off. Out of my first five deliveries last night, the best tip I received was from an order that was only $10.77. The other four added up to be $9.12 in tips for $141.48 in food. Do you know what percentage that is? Well, if you're one of my customers you're probably not very good at math so allow me to do it for you. That's less than 6.5%. Now to be fair, that crummy little "tip" on the big order probably brought the percentage down a little, but the other three deliveries still averaged only 8.5% in tips. What I'm trying to say is that those tips are pathetic. Any person in the food service can tell you that.
Any decent human being can tell you the standard for tipping is 15-20%. Yeah, you thought that was only for waiters, didn't you? I hate to break it to you, but waiters don't drive up to 100 miles every day on the job, constantly stopping and wearing out their car and tires, in any weather condition, through crummy neighborhoods with a wad of cash on them. They walk twenty feet this way... then they walk twenty feet that way. Then they repeat steps one and two when necessary.
I did say last night only started out crappy. Yes, it did get better. In the end I still only averaged about 13% in tips, but I was satisfied with the dollar amount I walked away with.
Now I know you've read this far because you're wondering what the title of this post means. "The Shit List." What is that? I can tell you from experience and discussions with many other drivers across the United States that around 95% of us carry shit lists in our cars. These are because while we pride ourselves on our topological memories, we don't have the space in our heads to memorize every one of our customers who disrespect or insult us (the stiffers, namely). So what's the point? First, we're generally never surprised anymore when we get stiffed. Because of our shit lists, we've known it was coming since the moment we left the store. Second, people on our shit lists get zero priority if we're leaving with multiple deliveries at a time. Customers on the shit list will most likely be receiving their food later than they were told on the phone and possibly cold. The third, and most important, reason for the shit list is that should a driver ever feel the need to contact a stiffer, they'll know where to go. Some drivers have sent letters explaining what a tip is and why they feel they deserve it and other drivers have just vandalized the stiffers' lawns. I've never done either, to this day, but like to keep my shit list around "just in case."
On the contrary to the shit list, many drivers (myself included) also keep a list of customers who either tip us well or just treat us with respect and are friendly. These customers, unlike stiffers, will receive top priority when we leave with multiple runs and some have been known to receive free food as a token of our appreciation.
Anyway, last night started out pretty crappy. First there was that large order for a 3% tip, then there were several other orders where the customers essentially ripped me off. Out of my first five deliveries last night, the best tip I received was from an order that was only $10.77. The other four added up to be $9.12 in tips for $141.48 in food. Do you know what percentage that is? Well, if you're one of my customers you're probably not very good at math so allow me to do it for you. That's less than 6.5%. Now to be fair, that crummy little "tip" on the big order probably brought the percentage down a little, but the other three deliveries still averaged only 8.5% in tips. What I'm trying to say is that those tips are pathetic. Any person in the food service can tell you that.
Any decent human being can tell you the standard for tipping is 15-20%. Yeah, you thought that was only for waiters, didn't you? I hate to break it to you, but waiters don't drive up to 100 miles every day on the job, constantly stopping and wearing out their car and tires, in any weather condition, through crummy neighborhoods with a wad of cash on them. They walk twenty feet this way... then they walk twenty feet that way. Then they repeat steps one and two when necessary.
I did say last night only started out crappy. Yes, it did get better. In the end I still only averaged about 13% in tips, but I was satisfied with the dollar amount I walked away with.
Now I know you've read this far because you're wondering what the title of this post means. "The Shit List." What is that? I can tell you from experience and discussions with many other drivers across the United States that around 95% of us carry shit lists in our cars. These are because while we pride ourselves on our topological memories, we don't have the space in our heads to memorize every one of our customers who disrespect or insult us (the stiffers, namely). So what's the point? First, we're generally never surprised anymore when we get stiffed. Because of our shit lists, we've known it was coming since the moment we left the store. Second, people on our shit lists get zero priority if we're leaving with multiple deliveries at a time. Customers on the shit list will most likely be receiving their food later than they were told on the phone and possibly cold. The third, and most important, reason for the shit list is that should a driver ever feel the need to contact a stiffer, they'll know where to go. Some drivers have sent letters explaining what a tip is and why they feel they deserve it and other drivers have just vandalized the stiffers' lawns. I've never done either, to this day, but like to keep my shit list around "just in case."
On the contrary to the shit list, many drivers (myself included) also keep a list of customers who either tip us well or just treat us with respect and are friendly. These customers, unlike stiffers, will receive top priority when we leave with multiple runs and some have been known to receive free food as a token of our appreciation.
# posted by D @ 10:46 AM 
