Saturday, April 28, 2007

 

To the Generous People on Mineral Springs:

Allow me to say thank you for the generous tip you offered me on your $13.48 delivery order Saturday, April 28th. It meant so much to me, in fact, that to show my appreciation I had to splurge and spend twenty times that tip amount on a stamp, just so I could mail this to you. I'll be adding your tip to my savings account and, after doing a little math, it should only take about 36 years for the interest to add up to enough money so that I can pay for the gas I had to use to deliver your food to you.

Thank you once again,
D

p.s. I was hoping I could make a joke about giving me "your two cents," but I figure the fact that you tipped me two cents is a joke in and of itself.

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And here's another thing I didn't mention in the hypothetical letter: if you're going to have the driver deliver your food to the gate in the back, at least have the common courtesy of coming to the gate yourself, rather than making your daughter, who has been playing in a sandbox, go see who the stranger at the gate, which is not even close to being in your line of sight, might be. That's just irresponsible and stupid. Then, don't make me wait five minutes for you to go and find a pen so you can fill out your check (yes folks, she wrote the two cent "tip" in on a check; talk about a cheap bitch) and then make your little girl bring it to me. Allow me to reiterate one more time: little girl in a little girl bikini, going up to a stranger out of eyesight, because you're too goddamn lazy to handle a simple transaction yourself. Grow the fuck up, lady.


Sunday, April 15, 2007

 

Going it Alone

We've been having turnover problems lately. One of our drivers just up and quit a couple weeks ago without notice for a new job, so that kind of screwed us. Then, another driver absolutely refused to work all three days of Easter weekend and got himself fired because, if you don't want to work Easter, that's the wrong way to go about it considering many of us (myself included) work Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays every freakin' week so he got zero sympathy from any of us.

In any case, with him gone there were suddenly only two drivers. Side note: we're an independent chain and our primary business is with the dine-in customers, so four drivers is (usually) plenty; two at a time during the week and three at a time on Fridays and Saturdays. Our second driver works at another one of our stores on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he's unavailable then. For the past two Tuesdays I've ended up working solo all night, and you can bet your arse I've been making great money.

Generally, we've been having a waiter work as a driver when we need him so long as he was available. Last night, there were just the two of us drivers on a particularly busy Saturday. Again, great money. The waiter will be switching to a driver effective this coming Tuesday, and we have another guy (who used to work for us a year or so ago) coming back to deliver again.

But tonight... tonight I'm going it alone. Sundays aren't like Tuesdays, either. I'll be running my ass off tonight to get all the deliveries there on time. But I'll tell you one thing: if you want respect from everyone you work with, prove to them that you can carry an entire night single-handedly. After I pull this off tonight, I'll remind everybody that I'm trying to get a raise. Soon enough, I'll be giving them the ultimatum: either I get a raise or I find a new job, period. Napoli's can survive without me, but I guarantee it'll be rough for a long time since nobody there seems to know how to get their shit together.

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Oh, right. In my last post I mentioned this was coming soon: "Assholes who don't seem to realize it's FUCKING POURING OUTSIDE"

I realize there really isn't much to say about that, let alone enough to focus an entire post on, so I'll just say this: last week we had some rain, then the rain stopped, then suddenly we had a torrential downpour. That part didn't last too long (maybe only 20 minutes) and it was toward the end of the night, but I did have to take one delivery in it. About 5-6 miles from the store. I don't remember their total, but whatever it was deserved far more than the $1 "tip" they gave me. Being that they're that far from our store, we will refuse delivery service to them. We try to stay within 4-5 miles, but give anyone (within reason) a first chance. If they tip well, they continue to get service from us. If they tip a dollar in pouring down rain after making me trod through their muddy gravel driveway, they don't.

A couple nights ago, the weather situation was pretty much the same, in fact visibility while driving was practically zero for a while (good thing it got so busy I took the phones off the hook). I had a fantastic night, though, maintaining over a $5 tip average for 13 deliveries.