Thursday, February 15, 2007
Valentine's Day
Last night, Valentine's Night, was insane. Fucking insane. Around 5:30, the rush started. Around 8:45, it ended. We were not prepared for Valentine's Day, to say the least. I ended up working with Cory because Mike's daughter, our manager, made our other scheduled driver work at another store. Forgetting about the holiday, I figured that would be alright. It was, except for the fact that we were fucking slammed and he decided to go to a street way out of our delivery area instead of calling the customer first to find out there was another street (the right street) much closer, with the same name, and in our delivery area to boot. Meanwhile, I got stuck taking doubles after triples after triples during that hour he spent driving back and forth across town.
Don't get me wrong, taking a lot of deliveries is a good thing, but when we're slammed and all of the deliveries are late because there are only two drivers taking them (a waiter helped by taking four), I expect to make about the same in tips for six deliveries as I would for two or three on any other night.
Fortunately, I was wrong. Aside from one stiff (the woman's young child had cancer, so I had a hard time being pissed about it), a couple $2 tips, and maybe one $1 tip, I was pulling in $4s and $5s the rest of the night, mixed in with a few $3s. At the end of the night, surprisingly, I had only taken 14 deliveries and made $42.84 in tips for my efforts.
Now that I've explained the situation and given an idea of how hectic things were at the store and how late all our deliveries were, let's take a look at a few things that went wrong last night.
For three deliveries in a row (a single first, then a double) I was rushed out the door with an incomplete order.
For the first one, I forgot a dozen garlic rolls. I tried calling the store to let them know I was on my way back to pick them up, but was told to "just give the customer credit for next time." Hell no, I thought. I don't want to compromise my tip for someone else's screwup by telling the customer I didn't have part of his order. But I also knew they'd just get on to me for coming back to the store anyway. So I went to the guy's house, didn't say a word about the rolls, and walked away with a $4 tip. He called back to the store and I ended up being sent back two hours later with his rolls and a couple free slices of cheesecake.
The second one, which I realized as I was walking up to the customer's door, was missing an order of meat lasagna. Again, I said nothing. I took my $4 tip and left. The result of this was another driver (the waiter who was helping us out) taking the lasagna to the house and being shoved by a man living there for "getting [his] food here so fucking late." I'm sure I'm not much of a fighter, but I would've done more than just walk away at that point, so for the sake of not getting myself fired or arrested, I'm very glad I did not end up taking that remake.
The third one, immediately following the second, was out in another city. They were missing a regular side salad and the delivery was already about 20 minutes late. I called them up, explained to them that I was on my way, said nothing of the rogue salad, and hung up. When I got there, it was a $5 tip. As far as I know, they never called the store back about the salad.
I ended up with a delivery (one of a few, I believe) that was already running around 45 minutes late. Remembering the woman as a good tipper, I called her up and explained that, as she could probably already tell, we were running way behind today. "It's alright, I figured you guys would be pretty busy tonight," she reassured me. I told her I was on my way and would get there as quickly as possible, and that was it. When I got to her house, I realized I didn't have a price. I've forgotten prices before, sure, but this was only the second time where I didn't realize it until I was at the customer's door and standing in front of him or her. I called the store a couple times (both lines were busy the first time), got the price, got my $4 tip, and left.
One delivery, Cory's probably, was taken without the Greek salad that was ordered. The customer called back to get the salad. Cory took the salad to her. At the door she pointed out that they had ordered cheese lasagna but just realized they'd been given meat and her husband was a vegetarian. Cory apologized and went back to the store for the appropriate lasagna. He was given a lasagna to take back to her. A few minutes after he delivered the new lasagna to the woman, she called back to complain again. They had delivered her another meat lasagna. She wasn't calling back for a re-delivery this time, though. She just wanted to let the po' folks at Napoli's know that we'd ruined her Valentine's Day. Darling, I think the moment you decided to order greasy, fattening Italian delivery instead of going out for a nice dinner or, perhaps, making your deserving husband a delicious home-cooked meal, you ruined your own Valentine's Day. Stop taking your grievances out on us. We just make the food. Sometimes accidents happen. If that was enough to ruin your night, then it couldn't have been that great a night to begin with.
One last thing that a waitress told me while we were cleaning up at the end of the night. In-store wasn't all fun and games, either. The dining room was packed, customers were getting their food a little late due to the high volume of take-out and delivery orders, and some people were even being mean about it. This particular waitress, who admitted she was stiffed three times last night, was being mistreated by a customer. No matter what she was doing -- busing a table, taking another customer's order, or picking up food for someone -- this jackass would be calling her over, "Ma'am this," and "Ma'am that," simply for the sake, it seemed, of being a jackass. That was until a guy at the table behind him turned around, tapped him on the shoulder, and told him to leave her the hell alone and "can't you see she's working as fast as she can? Do you see how busy it is in here?" and something along the lines of "You're not the only customer in the store, and you're certainly not the most important." Pretty much, all the things that we'd like to say to some of our customers but aren't allowed to.
In any case, that was Valentine's Day. A manager described it as the "worst night ever," due to the large amount of customer complaints. It got to the point where waitresses would answer the phones one after the other and hand them over to a manager, saying "Angry customer," "Another angry customer," etc. We survived it, though. Somehow.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Requested.
Two nights ago, one of our waitresses was requested by some customers to be their server. When all was done and paid for, they stiffed her. A big zero on the credit card slip. That, my friends, is the lowest thing anybody could ever do. Not only did you stiff your waitress, you chose the waitress you were going to stiff.
Yesterday, when I arrived at work, said waitress and I were discussing what had happened (even though I was present when it did happen). I casually added to the conversation, "if the woman at 1533 X street ever orders and requests me by name, tell her 'I'll see what I can do,' but don't write my name on the ticket." This woman, who had never actually requested me, did know me by name as I had delivered to her many times before. She was always very friendly, one of my nicest customers, in fact, but only ever tipped a dollar and change. Once, when it was cold and rainy, she tipped me two dollars "because of the weather."
Anyway, last night she called maybe an hour after the exchange between the waitress and I and, lo and behold, requested me to deliver to her. Unfortunately, it wasn't the waitress who took the call so my name ended up on the ticket and I was stuck taking it. Again, don't get me wrong, she's an incredibly nice woman, but I don't like having to miss other deliveries to potentially good tippers for her dollar.
Her order last night was $22.xx and she handed me a check for $24, as I expected. Before I left, though, she stopped me.
HER: "D, be honest with me, and I trust you will."
ME: "Okay.."
HER: "Have I been tipping you enough?"
ME: "..."
HER: "I haven't, have I?"
ME: "I'm not used to being put on the spot like this."
HER: "Well, how much is an appropriate tip?"
ME: "Honestly, about 15-20%, like a server at a restaurant. We may get paid slightly more, but we have more expenses like gas and repairs."
HER: "I never thought of it that way."
ME: "If you don't like to go by percent, a good average is about $3 per delivery."
HER: "I'm so sorry! Thanks for being honest with me, D. I'll upgrade my tips from now on."
In the end, I was happy that she requested me. I don't think, had another driver taken her delivery, that such an exchange would have taken place. The one dollar tips, I hope, have come to an end.
Thank you for asking. That's all it takes.
