Back to Looking
Color me fooled. We talked at length during my interview with my current night job. At no point was it ever said, “We aren’t looking for drivers.”. Or anything similar to that statement. The only thing the manager said was, “You know driving isn’t all that a driver does right?”. No kidding. I’ve done this job on and off for over 30 years at many different places. Papa Johns (x3), Domino’s (x3), Chanello’s, Pizza Tonight, some small chain in Petoskey that’s no longer there and this place (x2). That was on my application. So yeah I know I will also have to take and make orders. Prep food and clean. It’s not my first run at this rodeo. Nor was it said we need mid-day and morning people.
I also put on my application I am available to work nights and weekends. That I work a day job. All this was clear. I even explained in person that I was looking for 3 – 4 nights. Something like 4 or 5pm until close. Which would give me 20 – 25 hours per week. This manager however lives in an alternate reality. The past two weeks I’ve been coming in at 1pm. I figured it was for “training”. So I’ve been rushing from the day job to the night job. I thought this would change after the first two weeks.
When I looked at the new schedule, it was all 1pm shifts except one. It was for 9am. So immediately I queried about this. Get this, they asked me to change my day shift schedule to fit theirs. Not happening. Homie is pissed. On top of that, I’ve only taken a handful of deliveries since I started there. Turns out I’m not a driver, but listed as one when they need someone to pick up the deliveries other drivers can’t handle on busy nights. Oh yeah, let’s also mention I’ve been generally working from 1pm to 8pm or 11pm. I’m likely to get overtime. But standing on my knee for all those hours, hurts like hell.
So I, as politely as I could, said no. I won’t switch my day job schedule. I re-explained what I applied for. So now it’s 5pm to whenever a few nights a week. Still doesn’t fix the fact I’m not actually a driver. What I applied to be. I have never applied for a job before to be something other than what I applied. I didn’t hire in at my day job to be a janitor. I am a tech. What I applied for. Never have I applied to a pizza place to be an inside person. I’ve always asked to be a driver. I enjoy it. Time to find a new job. Even if it’s out of town again I guess.
The New Night Job
Well I can’t say much about it or be specific. NDA, hush-hush, super secret society bullshit. Let’s just say I’ve worked at this company before. They like to think of themselves as a big deal. Whatever, they have a handful of stores. The last chain I worked for had more stores than these folks have. They weren’t all hoity toity about it. Just as a comparison, this place is almost 30 years old. They have a little over 30 stores. That’s just over 1 store per year. I worked for Domino’s and in 30 years they celebrated their 1000th store opening. Now that’s a big deal. For all their talk and manuals, a lot of the “rules” aren’t followed as strictly as they would like.
As I dig into the trenches, the crew is fairly decent. They like to have fun and so far none of them have been a problem to work with. They do work. A lot… Saturday I worked 10 hours with no breaks. It was balls to the wall most of the time. The only down side is in the first week I didn’t take many deliveries. Hopefully once training is over, I get behind the wheel every time I work. I didn’t hire in to be an inside person. If they are thinking differently, I’ll move on quickly.
I still wear a knee brace, though more for stability now than anything else. Several hours straight on my legs hurts like hell. I’m not about to put myself back in medical care for that.
It’s not a bad job though, but I’d rather be back at Mancino’s. That’s just not an option at the moment. If I move more North Western as I want to do eventually. Perhaps I can grab a job at Mancino’s in Petoskey or perhaps the Jets. They also have more pizza places up there. Though Boyne City is also looking like a nice place to land as well. Anything to get me out of Gaylord. We don’t just live in the snow belt. We live in the fucking buckle. Prized to having more snow than any other Michigan town in the lower peninsula. Go in any direction out of town during winter and you can watch the level of snow go down greatly. The year I did delivery in Petoskey, we’d have 2-3 feet of snow but get by Larry’s Bar and the snow was almost gone completely. I’m all for less snow.
There are days…
There are days. Quite frequently it seems, that I share the opinion of one of my favorite cartoon characters, Bender. There are an awful lot of people on this planet that piss me off to no end! Self-centered, self-involved and have an over abundance of self-entitlement.
Most days I just mutter to myself and move on. Sometimes, I find myself talking loud enough to let them know I’m dissatisfied with their flagrant disregard for everyone else around them. Once in a great, rare occasion. I let them know face to face that they are in fact a dumb-ass!
I could sit here and list things for hours on end. I won’t. Though I may hit on things that I’ve mentioned before. If so, well tough.
Of course there are the people who text and drive. That should’ve gone without saying. Though, no matter the ads, no matter the research, no matter the proof… It never changes. It’s an addiction. Much like smoking, many people don’t want to quit. No matter who has been hurt or killed by it. Anymore, jobs preach no texting at work, but it happens anyway and they turn a blind eye to it.
The one that got me to write this was I can’t count the number of times I’ve stepped aside or held a door or assisted someone who had a handicap. Especially if it’s a recent injury. Like folks on crutches or in wheelchairs. Folks who aren’t long term and unlikely to get upset at a person for trying to be nice. (Folks, such as ones in powered chairs, who are long term sometimes get upset when you try to help them.) I go to the store, needing groceries. I get to the door on my crutches and people are oblivious to me and won’t let me go through. Once I finally get inside, and no one will move out of the way. I have to stand and wait while they ignore my repeated spoken, “Excuse me.”. What the hell ever happened to people being nice? I don’t want much, just to get what I need quickly so I can get off my leg and rest it like I’m supposed to do. I’m sorry, but I need food to survive, and don’t have anyone else to do my shopping. If only I had a good enough memory to pay back these fuckers when I see them in need.
Other people that make me hate the human race are:
- Lazy fuckers who can’t put trash in the can or walk a few feet to put a cart in a corral.
- People who call for tech support and don’t listen to anything I tell them.
- People who fill their yards with trash making my neighborhood look like crap.
- People who talk on their phones while you’re trying to interact with them.
- Assholes who don’t know what that stem on the left side of their steering column is for.
- People who don’t know what that red octagon sign on the corner of streets are for.
- People who don’t know that a stop sign is an octagon.
- peoople who dont know what punktewation and capitaizationand spelling are (Yes, that was intentional.)
- People who want help, won’t tell you anything about the problem to begin to help them. Then complain that you’re not helping them.
- People who don’t know how to safely handle a gun.
The list goes on and on…
… and on…
And people wonder why I want to breed flying monkeys and take over the world 😈
KILL ALL HUMANS!!
Dislike
I still hate Facebook. Always have and always will. But I’m forced to use it, so I take advantage of it the best I can. Many people have made it their only means of communication.
However, do you remember when people talked to each other? I mean actually called up, or came over and talked about a trip they took or when their child did something special? Now it’s a low grade picture and a caption shared among certain groups or possibly publicly. If you’re lucky, you can get a couple of horribly worded paragraphs.
OK and sure you can “like” something. Or even now we can laugh, be thoughtful, angry, shocked and love something. Where’s the “fuck you” button, or don’t give two shits button? I bet they’d get used more than the others.
But here’s where you really find out who gives a shit and who don’t. People who used to call and tell you I love you, or want to talk about their life, now just wait for attention from everyone to see who wants to give them a like or some pity comment. Or wait for that praise on how pretty your 5000th selfie is. Seriously, for some of you beauty is only skin deep.
When a special occasion happens like a birthday, graduation, wedding or a “first” of some sort. Such as your baby’s first word or step. Is now a mere photograph or video online reduced in quality for easy loading on grandma’s phone. No one shares actual high quality photos or videos anymore. As an example. I have two kids who are married. Wedding photos? Why you can look at them on Facebook! Low grade, grainy quality, good luck putting them up on the wall and don’t look too closely as they are pixelated from trying to “blow them up” to fit a 5×7 photo frame. Same thing goes for my grand children. Can’t get an actual photo to hang up, just have to right click and save from Facebook. I live a little over 30 minutes away now. But unless I go and take pictures myself, this is all I get. Sadly, I generally am not there when something special happens.
Video’s are even harder to deal with. Your phone may be able to record in High Def or Ultra High Def, but good luck getting Facebook to allow you to download that quality. Phones generally automatically reduce quality when uploading to social media. Again, so you can look at it on a portable device quickly.
I remember a few short years ago, I tried share a life event on Facebook. Mostly because I was very weak and could barely speak cognitively and my mom didn’t know most of the phone numbers needed to contact folks. I got a lot of angry people telling me finding out on Facebook wasn’t cool.
Though I could say the same about finding out a month late that my step daughter was pregnant for the second time. By chance I was scrolling through old posts of hers. Which is hard to do when you have to fish for anything worth while among the bat shit crazy list of things I could care less about. Foamy says it best here:
Unfortunately I catch myself sharing things that I’m sure some of you don’t care about. Before Facebook, this would’ve never been known that I have such feelings about stuff. Though I don’t apologize for who I am. I know I’ve lost a few “friends” because of this. If you can call Facebook friends real friends. Some of these people I don’t really know, they just added me to their list or follow me. Though, I do try to keep things I share to a minimum.
Honestly though, I miss things the way they used to be. Family gatherings, talking on the phone or in person, and sharing photos and videos in ways that they can be appreciated by showing them off on a wall or full size screen. Mobile isn’t great for people with fading eyesight.
What a Weekend
So it turns out my websites were hit with some Website SEO Spam a few weeks back. Taking various steps to handle it included installing better security software for my websites. This led to realizing that the web host I was using, while good tempered folks, had features disabled that most web hosts have enabled. Thus breaking my security software. Not enough to stop it working but to hinder it working at full strength. After asking politely to have the feature enabled, they suggested that my $7 shared hosting should be upgraded to a low end VPS for $13 plus cPanel expenses on top of it. Which would put me at about just under $30 a month to run my websites that don’t make any money. I pay out of pocket to have my individual space carved into the internet. I decorate it exactly how I want, and I can be who I want to be here. I don’t have to worry about Facebook removing my content if someone gets butt-hurt by it. That being said, I spent the majority of my time off this weekend moving my sites to a new host that provides what I need technically. They cost me $12 a month. It will be a month or so to see if I stay. So if things feel sluggish or broken, let me know.
A few days ago, I ordered a 3 zone cymbal pad for my drum kit. A Roland CY-13. I found it on Walmart.com for $199 from a partner seller called GigaSonic. That’s $40 less than anyone else and I happen to have a Walmart Card. So I jumped on it. The lesson here kids, is do your research of the partner company before ordering. Don’t just assume Walmart has your back. As you see, last Friday a large box ended up on my doorstep. It was from Amazon. I didn’t order anything from Amazon. It was addressed to me from Everything Music. Of course I became confused. Especially when I opened the box and found a Roland KD-9 Kickpad. I didn’t order that. It’s sort of the ballpark. They are both Roland and both go to my drum kit. So I wasn’t sure if someone else sent it to me. Naturally I emailed the company via Amazon and as well emailed the other via Walmart.com.
It turns out they are the same company, doing business under different names on different online retailers. Both sadly have some bad reviews from some very angry customers.
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- So I got this…
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- When I should’ve got something like this.
By 4pm Friday I had a UPS return label and had the item on it’s way back to the seller. This is about the time I found the reviews. As of today it’s in Illinois. While I was hoping the company would simply ship out my cymbal pad. They did not. In fact it dropped off of Walmart.com and it’s now listed at the normal retail price of $239 that everyone else is selling it for. Under a different company called Music123. Which, guess what, also has some bad reviews. Same company? I’m beginning to think so. Now I’m hoping I actually get the refund they owe me. Granted, I have to wait for them to get the part back.
To top it all off, my left shoulder has been hurting for weeks with added numbness to my whole arm and hand. This weekend was hard to do anything. Especially sleep decently. I fear I may have a pinched artery in my shoulder [Thoracic Outlet Syndrome] (according to initial thoughts of my Chiropractor today). I will have something confirmed as soon as I can with my regular doctor.
Just a few RANTS!
If you think I follow Foamy for a reason. You’d be right. His famous rants and sense of logic are shared by my own feelings and thoughts. Right now there are a few kinds of people pissing me off. Here’s a few of mine lately that have been driving me to the edge of insanity…
Dumbasses with Smartphones
I can’t wait to find a new job. Lately the night job has become infiltrated with teenagers and some adults who have an over-the-top addiction to their phones. I came in one night to find six employees standing in a circle all looking at their phones rather than doing anything they get paid to do. I wanted to take a picture of the non-productiveness, but then I’d just be number 7. The other night I walked in on a customer just standing at the counter. He was coyly watching three employees talking and playing on their phones. As I walked passed him to go behind the counter, I asked loudly if he hand been helped. He knew what I was doing and replied loudly that no, he had been simply watching the same people for several minutes while we waited to be helped. I helped him and by then, they had magically moved to different places in the store and started on his order. Why should we put up with this nonsense to have employees? As I’ve said before, I’d never make it as a manager in today’s world. Because I would be putting foot to ass, proverbially speaking, by putting a stop to all this wasted labor costs.
I certainly don’t like having to do something while others stand about gawking at their tiny screens making sure their friends status updates get noticed right away. Of course if I say anything about it, I’m likely to cause trouble and be fired. I hate having to drop hints, as it makes me disliked among the offenders. Clearly the current management don’t care as a couple of them do it too. These kind of people keep getting hired. I guess that makes me the the problem. God knows I’d love to resolve it by finding something new for a job. I never expected it to last so long. Though I do pretty good as the most customers tip me, so I guess they like me.
I do average $16 per hour. I have yet to go below $12 per hour. One night it went as high as $38 per hour.
Still, I don’t understand why this is allowed. Sure we all are guilty of doing it a little. However, when people are ignoring what they are getting paid to do. As well as doing it for long periods of time, that’s BS. It’s a real shame when the overweight guy with heart problems works more than healthy people do.
The Men’s Room
Men, stop being a bunch of lazy Gits! That was the only word I could find to not be vulgar. It’s not nearly as vulgar as what the majority of you do to a public restroom. I would have to say that “Public Piss Syndrome” isn’t the only reason many of us avoid the Men’s Room. It’s because we know we’ll walk into a room that stinks to high hell and is absolutely gross with piss and shit all over the toilet. Trash on the floor and a sink that you’d be surprised to find dirty, because by the looks of the rest of the room, so you wouldn’t think it was getting used. There are a lot of gross and lazy bastards out there. Sure the Women’s Room isn’t always roses and candy either. There are obviously some really inconsiderate so-called ladies in the world too. Though the Men’s Room takes the prize by a landslide. Or in some cases, a shitstorm…
Clearly many of you are not NBA All Stars or you’d hit the waste basket. But do you bother to pick up your missed shots? Hell no. You lazy twats leave it on the floor for someone else. You don’t wipe the toilet off when you miss or make a mess. You don’t bother to tell anyone if the trash is overflowing. You just let it fall.
Do you do this kind of thing at home? If so, I hope your significant other eventually snaps and clobbers you in the face with a baseball bat. It’s just obnoxious to be that lazy and inconsiderate. Not too mention, I’d never want to be invited to your house.
And…
There was a third rant, but I’ve gone on so far with these I can’t remember it. Stupid old age. I’ll have to save it for another post someday.
Oh… Darla also feels this way 🙂
Too simple to bother with…
Ah the beginning of the month. That time where I take a bunch of calls for the first five days from customers who got that nifty notice our system sends out.
This is an automated note to let you know that the expiration date of the credit card number you have on file, with us, has passed, or will shortly. In almost all cases, your credit card company has sent you a new card, with a new expiration date. Please contact our office and update this information as soon as possible.
It triggers on the first of the month, when the month and year matches the month and year found on our customers credit/debit cards expiration date. This gives the customer an entire month to call us with their new credit card information.
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- Credit Card Old
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- Credit Card New
So the phones are busier from the 1st to the 5th of the month with customers calling to update their info. Some however, despite the fact we notify them, don’t call until the payment fails on the following month. Even though the paper included with their new card also says, “Please update your information with your billers.”. They just activate their cards and move on. Life is far too busy to be bothered with simple, but mundane tasks.
Then we get much nastier calls during the following month when their payment fails. Such as:
My card is the same!
Hey, now it’s a month later. You’ve forgotten about getting your new card. Sadly our system won’t accept payment if the date on the card doesn’t match what we have. Especially if it is passed the expiration. Sure your card number may have remained the same, but not the expiration date. Now that date has come and gone and we can no longer process your payment. Like it or not, a simple phone call is needed to update this with us. Please though, leave your attitude out of the conversation. It’s not our fault you didn’t call.
Only the date has changed.
Sure, OK. No problem. Many times this is the case. However, when you call, we always ask the same questions so as to keep card processing failures from happening.
- Does the name on the card still appear as [insert customer name here], such as Henry R Dependett?
- Is the card still a [MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover]?
- Does the card still end in [last four digits], 5432?
- Do you still live at [customer address on file]?
And you can hear the annoyance in the customer’s voice. Like asking these few questions has somehow interfered with their busy day. I’m sorry, I’m trying to be thorough so you won’t have to call back angry because your payment was rejected. I’m not being stern, I’m not raising my voice. I’m simply asking questions to help you help yourself.
No matter what, some still call back later pissed off because they got another email from us saying their card payment was rejected. If you look at the images above carefully, you’ll see why. Generally always happens with the 5 being changed to a 2. Or vise-versa. I guess they look similar. One number is all it takes to make a card fail. However, I’ve taken calls where the last 8 numbers are different even though I asked them on the previous call if it was right. I guess they were still looking at the old card. Still I don’t know why they take it out on me. I asked.
My bank should’ve notified you!!
Uh… No. They don’t do that. That’s why when they send you a new card, there is a paper attached with remindful statements such as, “Please update your information with your billers.”. Just saying, reading is fundamental. Again, park your attitude.
I mean I get it. Some people just can’t be bothered with taking an hour or two out of their busy day to call 3 – 10 businesses or logon to 1 – God-knows-how-many websites and update their credit card information. You have these setup so you don’t have to call them, or log on to them every month to simply make a payment. That’s too much work. Golly gee. Sorry your life is so horrible. Goodness knows we try to help by sending you reminders. Your bank gives you pointers too. We try to be thorough on the phone. Yet no matter how hard we try, some folks still call with fire in their eyes and hate in their voice because something went wrong and they got a nasty email or their service was cut off for nonpayment.
Then & Now
I’ve been a manager before at a couple of different places. Handling customer concerns, training new employees, hiring and firing and disciplinary measures when needed. There’s no way I could do that in today’s world. Even if it wasn’t for the worry of having another heart attack due to the stress it can cause in a fast pace food chain. If I were in excellent health I would simply be a very hated individual. Mainly because I would expect the employees to actually do their job. As I would also expect the other management to set a good example for the crew.
I’ve watched the world change dramatically from the introduction of the internet, computers and the now dominating social media and smart devices. This past year has been an up close view as to why standards in the convenient food (no fast food place is actually fast anymore) workplace have declined severely in the new age.
Dress Code
Although I don’t know of many places that do this, the place I work at, has no real dress code anymore. We just got bought by a new franchise owner from out of town. Since then, the black t-shirts with the company logo and khaki pants/shorts are no longer a requirement. You can wear what you want. Hence I’ve seen dirty shirts and jeans and shorts that are all torn up. In this environment I work, it should at least be clean, decent jeans and a company shirt. At the very least, look clean wearing clothes with no holes and like you actually care about your job. For the customer’s sake, fake it.
Poor Cleaning
Many times I will walk into the store and the floors look like they haven’t been mopped in days. Dirty pans stacked high. The area where the food is made is a wreck. If I were the customer walking into a restaurant, the first thing I do is look at the cleanliness. If it looks like a rat-hole, I tend to walk right back out. I don’t want my food made in a place where they don’t keep a fairly clean kitchen. Whatever happened to “clean as you go”. I remember that being a policy in many employee handbooks over the years. This is especially annoying when the crew is standing around playing on their phones or chatting with friends, family or coworkers amid the destruction. My philosophy has always been, “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.”. It would be different if everything was in order and then they had nothing to do.
Job Description
It doesn’t matter if you are a crew member, driver or manager. There are things that are expected of every employee. This way the workload won’t fall squarely on only a few individuals. You must be able to help make food, box food, prep food, answer phones to take orders, run the cash register, stock the makeline and clean. If you are weak in any area of your job, it’s the manager’s duty to help you strengthen this weakness so that the employee can be a valued part of the team.
Instead, some employees who manage to show up for work on time and only have to achieve some of the responsibilities to be valued as good enough. If they don’t want to take orders, operate the register or answer phones; it’s ok to make others drop what they’re doing to pick up the slack. If they don’t know how to clean the bathrooms or floors, just do a poor job and then the other employees who do those same duties at closing will take care of it.
Honestly that makes for a very unhappy work environment. If some employees have to make up for the weaknesses of part of the team on a consistent basis, they will feel they have to work twice as hard to make the same paycheck. Which will make the good employees quit eventually.
Personal Calls and Texts
In the good old days before smartphones, you weren’t allowed to use the company phone for personal phone calls unless it was an emergency or had gotten the manager’s permission prior to making the call. This kept employees doing what they get paid to do, rather than getting paid to socialize. Holy hell has that changed. You hear an alert noise or buzz and someone will drop what they are doing and beeline straight for their phone. In today’s society you expect that from teenagers as their phone is their world. God forbid they actually go out and do things. I digress. However smartphones and social media have pretty much taken a hold of the world. Turning people of all ages into helpless minions compelled to answer the all mighty tones and buzzes produced by their pocket devices. I’ve seen old people text while driving now. As if they didn’t have trouble behind the wheel. I digress… again.
In the workplace it’s very detracting to the workflow. Especially when there’s a lot going on. Suddenly a noise and grandma stops making food and checks her phone. She tries to be sly about it and walk around the partial wall where the break table is. Same goes for the young married man. His pants vibrate and suddenly he has to use the bathroom. Right… Like none of us have a clue what he’s really doing.
I admit I check my phone too, but not when it goes off. It can ding and buzz all it likes. It will wait until there’s little to nothing going on. I use a very standard ideal. Unless it’s an emergency it can wait. If it’s a real emergency. A true bonafide life emergency. Then don’t call me, call 911 first. Afterward leave me a text or voicemail and I’ll come as soon as I can. It won’t help anyone if I just drop what I’m doing to call 911 for you.
Friends and Family
This kills me. Doesn’t matter if the place is dead or busy. People wander in and just distract employees by interrupting their work to chat. Wait, what? If that happened when I was a manager, I’d ask the offending people to leave if we were busy. Or if we were slow, I’d ask the employee to take a 15 minute unpaid break. I’m not about to let someone get paid to just socialize with their friends or family members. They can do that on their own time. Are there no standards anymore? Talk about your personal lives on your own time. Not the company’s time.
Drama and Facebook
This one is just as bad as the Friends and Family. There is always some rant about someone’s ex or something that got posted to Facebook. Who the hell cares? The employee is there to do a job. Not worry about social media and relationships.
Overall I know it’s a low paying job, but honestly there has got to be people out there who would actually work for their pay. Just because you show up, doesn’t mean you should get to just play on your phone, do a half-assed job and socialize while looking like a bum. While a handful of people do what is expected of them. While I wish I could bring my concerns up to the person in charge. I can’t. The last time I tried, I got a whole lot of hate from that person. So no rocking the boat for me. I’ll shut up and endure for now. I hope to find a new job much like my day job where I get to dress decent and work in a clean office. This night job is incredibly taxing on me physically. But hey, my floors look awesome 🙂
When you order…
Every single day I have to deal with stupid people. We all do I’m sure. I swear it’s getting worse as time goes on. It’s not helping that I now work over 40 hours a week between two jobs. It’s taxing to say the least. My day job I am more understanding of when folks come off as stupid because I don’t expect them to know what I know about computers and technology. At my night job however, it’s just mentally draining to deal with idiots.
It’s not like I get one or two every couple of nights. It’s several. Every single night I work. God knows I try to make everyone I talk to laugh. For the most part I can. Silly voices, funny quips and little things I do when I show up at their door so that I can get them to like me. If they like me, the better the tips. It’s a very simple formula.
It’s when they call to place the order that it gets hard to deal with them. I’ll explain some of the calls I take very regularly that make it hard for me to not want to reach through the phone and punch people in the face for their blatant stupidity. If it’s Half-Price night, Friday or Saturday night and the phones are ringing off the wall, we don’t really have the patients for stupidity. Other customers want their food made and delivered. If you’re tying us to a phone, then food is getting cold and orders aren’t being made. When you are a delivery driver, that’s not all you do. You do everything and then deliver too. It’s that way at every place I’ve ever worked. Domino’s, Papa Johns, Chanello’s and the place I work now.
All of us clerk types suffer from stupid customers.
The Credit Card
Why do folks have so much problems dealing with these? You called and ordered. You want to pay for it now and… “I have to go get it out of the car.” “Expiration date? Oh let me get it back out of my purse.” “What do you mean declined?” Two things would make this all go so much smoother. Know what you want to order and have your credit card in hand.
Giggling Gaggle of Teenage Girls
Oh holy shit… Every single night there ends up being a group of teenage hormones calling up. Giggling their asses off and it takes a good 5 – 10 minutes just to take their order as they can’t make up their minds, can’t afford the price quoted or can’t stop laughing. I’ve noticed that over the years. It’s like when teen girls get together, the over all I.Q. level drops drastically. Maybe it does with boys too, but they aren’t so obvious about it.
Little Timmy or Tammy
You know it might be heart warming to want your little 8 year old to order pizza for you. But unless it’s a quiet Monday afternoon at around 3pm, the aww factor is lost on us taking the order. We’re busy and don’t have time for little kids who can’t enunciate or are way too shy. I’m all for it if you can get them to practice their lines first. Then it’s cute. Otherwise mommy or daddy needs to take care of business.
Do you deliver?
This one kills me. Every couple of days I get this one. Just two days ago I got these exact words. “Do you deliver here?” Where? I’ve no idea where you are. So I ask for the address. I get some neighborhood name like, “Meadow Farms”. I clarify I’m not from Petoskey and don’t know the neighborhoods by name. Asked for the address again. I get the road name. What house number? It took 5-6 tries to get the address. Even then, they didn’t give me the city. Turns out they live in a different town. So I give them the number to a different store. They proceeded to ask if they deliver to them. Call and ask. Why is it so hard to give us an address? If you don’t know where you live, we can’t deliver. Simple as that. Same goes for the phone number. We always ask for it in case we get lost or need some help pin pointing you live on a hill, in the woods and we should be able to hear the banjos in the distance. We have a massive delivery area. Some places are redneck hell. Yet folks don’t remember their phone number either. You’re talking on it, so might want to look. Sorry caller ID doesn’t always get a number for us.
Uh…
The constant muttering. Oh how I hate it. Uh… Um… If you don’t know what you want, think it over and call back. We don’t have “um” for a topping. We don’t know where “uh” is. Take your finger out of your nose and stop drooling on yourself.
How Much?
“How much is a large pizza?” Depends on what you want on it folks. Specialty pizzas are generally a set price while making your own costs per item. Plus is it pick-up or delivery? We have specials sometimes. It’s better to tell us what you want and wait for the total. If you don’t like it, then make changes. Asking how much before hand won’t work well.
Oh! And…
You’ve got their order complete, you’ve hit print and it’s now off the screen. Many times you’ve already totaled out their payment with a credit card, and now they want to add something or change something. Our setup doesn’t allow us to just void their credit card purchase. Oh and God forbid you tell them they have to pay for the extra with another credit card payment or with cash. Which means they were hoping you’d let it slide and give them a little something for nothing. I’m sorry folks, that’s not the business we’re in. You want paper plates? Sure that’s free. Sauces? Not so much. At 75¢ each, that adds up quickly and the boss wouldn’t appreciate giving $3 of stuff away 10-15 times a night.
Douche-bag on the Line
This is the asshole who wants someone else to order, but he or she is on another phone constantly correcting the person placing the order. Or is in the room, but yelling and interrupting. Just put the douche-bag on the phone and let’s get this over with already.
Hello?
I never get why when you can’t hear someone, they insist on not hanging up and calling back. Instead if it’s all static, they just start yelling. Like I’ll somehow hear them over the noise. Instead they are just adding to it. They could simply try to reconnect by calling back or waiting until they are in a different location where they get better signal. Instead they “bang their head against the wall” trying to make it work.
At the Door…
Then there’s the assholes who when you get to the door do some of the dumbest shit ever.
Not Home or Not Paying Attention
You get to the door and no one answers.
I took an order to an apartment complex. No one answered. After 4 tries and trying to call them, I started to leave. They came in the complex with ice cream. They weren’t even home.
They call from work and we beat them to their own house.
Watching a movie at full blast and they can’t hear the door or their phone.
No Money
Suddenly they can’t pay for it. This happens more often than not with rich people. Massive house or at a super fancy hotel. Money to burn and can’t find any cash when you get there. Poor folks pay with coins at least. Rich have to call people or run to an ATM. Why didn’t they just put it on a credit card in the first place?
Do You Take Credit Cards?
Seriously? I get to the door, the customer doesn’t have enough money and wants to know if I can take a card on the spot. OK being me I can. But it’s charged to my business and not the pizza place. Then I have to go to work and pay for it. So there had better be a damn good tip involved. But in most cases, no we can’t do that. The customer should’ve used some brain power to know if they had the money before they finished their order with us.
And for fuck sake parents. Teach your kids to put pants on when they answer the door! Nothing makes a driver feel more creepy than having some tween open the door in their underwear.
Remember When?
When the world had a sense of humor? I remember a day when you could tell a story or joke and people who may have been offended would let it roll off their shoulder in the spirit of a laugh? Now it’s all screaming and crying about how you hurt their feelings. Everyone is so damned sensitive these days. To the point it’s sickening. You have to watch every single thing you say. Especially because someone will whip their smarter-than-themselves-phone, video record it and post it online before you even reach the end of your story or joke. Sometimes I wonder if you’ll be viral or on the 11 O’clock news before you even start telling it.
It’s like you have to constantly watch everything you say any where you go. There could be ears and a smartphone waiting for you at any time in any place. I hate having to be so guarded when talking with a friend, relative or loved one when I’m in public. As it is, I see people stop and sneer at my t-shirt or take pictures of my bumper sticker. (Sometimes they aren’t smiling and laughing at it.) They genuinely get offended by it. Though it is funny how many people stop me and ask what my shirt says. That always makes me giggle. Seriously the definition is right under the phonetic spelling for fuck sakes. Remember when your third grade teacher chanted, “Sound it out.”.
There’s a reason I sell those. I’m sorry if you’re not smart enough to own one.
When it was safe? When you could go see the latest Batman movie, or any movie for that matter and not wonder if some nut cake would come in and kill you at random? When you sent your children to school and felt fairly safe they were in good hands? Now you have to worry if a shooter, rapist or another student was about to go bat-shit crazy. In a world where being social is now the standard, you worry that your children are in a war zone. You want to home school them just so you know your child won’t find a dead body or become one. It’s ridiculous.
When fast food was fast? I’ve talked about this before. It used to be we didn’t mind having warm food because in a younger day, fast food restaurants actually had food made up before the breakfast, lunch or dinner rush and it was go, go, go when they hit. I remember working at Hardee’s in Petoskey and we had a goal of 45 seconds from the time the order finished to the time they left the drive thru window with their food. Fast food. That’s why we went there. It was fast.
Now you’re luck if you get it any faster than you would if you went to a sit down restaurant. More or less you are just creating more paper waste than saving time. Not too mention with the vastly expanded menu’s they now offer. You’re lucky if they even get it right. Too many choices for it to be fast. Too many things to go wrong to get it the way you ordered it.
Pizza places set goals to have your food to your door in around 30 minutes. That’s when you finish your order on the phone, it was made in 1 – 2 minutes, cooked for 8 and bagged and delivered in the next 20 after that. It was a short 3 mile range from the store to be able to provide that kind of service. Now pizza places go 5 – 7 miles out in each direction and you’re lucky to get it within an hour on busy nights. I should know. Because it never fails that after 10pm, customer A lives on the outer ring in one direction and customer B ordered at the same time on the other side of the delivery area. That’s 7 miles out, 14 miles across to the other customer. That’s a lot of miles. Then the driver has to drive 7 to get back to pick up the other 3 orders that are waiting on the counter. With heavy traffic, that’s some cold ass pizza.
Maybe we should stop calling it fast food and call it you don’t have to cook or do dishes food. Or, “It’s cheaper than hiring a butler.”.
When folks took pride in their work? This one really bugs me. I used to scream buy American. Now I’m not so sure about that anymore. As an example, I’ve had better luck with foreign cars over the years. I love my new Chrysler but I’m sure a good chunk of it is from out of the country. That, and I’ve only had it over a week. Not enough time for it to piss me off yet.
When it comes to pride in your work, I’ve had my time over the years working with so many others who are just at their job for the check. They take no pride at all in their work. So of course they do shoddy work at best. I’ve also worked with others who put me to shame at what I do. I look up to them. Mostly. Sure there are days when I just want to say, “Fuck it.”. But not very many.
I can go out today and probably count 5 – 10 people who hate their job and could care less about their customers. Texting at the register. Completely ignoring the customer and not so much as greet them. Or do it so empty it’s like they just say things out of habit. Some will outright tell you they don’t like their job and don’t want to be there. Or over hear their conversations that are not contextually appropriate for customer ears.
Then there’s the products you buy and they break immediately or have problems from poor workmanship when they were made. How the items made it to sale in the first place is questionable at times.
It just seems like I’ve become my parents. They too once said things aren’t like they used to be. People don’t take pride in their work. The world isn’t very safe. Though I wonder if it’s worse now than it was when they said it. I have to believe it is.
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