Delivery story 128 TX *3 Pizza guy writes: Well, first off, let me start by saying that I have worked for Pizza Hut for three and a half years in three different locations. I had good deliveries and I had horrible deliveries. The first Pizza Hut I worked for was in El Paso, Texas and we had easily the largest delivery area in the city. It basically covered the entire west side of town. For those of you unfamiliar with El Paso, it is a 90% Hispanic city and has nothing but dislike for anyone that isn’t Hispanic. We had one customer that always used to order from us every weekend and tipped very well so I was really pleased when I got their address. I showed up early, 3 pies in hand, knocked at the door, smile on my face, and was greeted with a rather unpleasant attitude. I, being new to the prof, decided to maintain my composure since I knew I was going to be getting a good tip out of the mix. Wrong. These pricks had me count out exact change for them and when I was a penny short made me go to my car to find one on the floor board. Now this really pissed me off, but what got me even more mad was when I got back to the store. The other drivers asked me if I had gotten a tip. I told them, "No," to which they replied, "It’s because you’re white." I brushed this off as complete BS and went on with my evening. Over the next two months, this same customer called and ordered and every time the same thing happened. NO TIP. It doesn’t take long for someone in the pie delivery business to get jaded and by month three I was as jaded as they come. I came into work in the rain and low and behold my first delivery was to -- who do you think. My non tipping buddies. I get their pies and head out the door knowing full well that I’m not going to be getting shit in return. I get there and deliver the pizza. As I'm once again counting out exact change, the guy proceeds to tell me that the Lexus in his driveway is a brand new one and he got the first one in El Paso. (The prick could buy a Lexus but couldn’t tip me!) So standing there in the rain I wait, looking at him, deciding that this is going to be the day that he gives me a tip. Nope. He just stares at me for a minute and shuts the door. FINAL STRAW. As I walked back to my car, I just accidentally happened to drag my keys down the entire length of the passenger side of the car. Now this wasn’t a minor scratch at all. I made sure I got this puppy deep and made sure it would cost a lot to repair. If the dumb SOB had tipped me, he wouldn’t have had to get a new paint job. In the span of working for the Pizza Hut in El Paso, we had three different drivers get jacked. One was at a home in a great neighborhood using the typical setup: waiting out back as you pull up and cornering you against the door. The second was in the ghetto. One of the drivers (a girl) got out of her car. She was hit over the head and smashed into her car and left on the ground while these worthless ghetto trash bastards ran off with her measly $20 and pizza. The third was in the same area as the second, but this time my buddy almost got car jacked trying to deliver due to the stupid ass sign on top of his car. Needless to say, delivering to the ghetto was soon a nonexistent thing after dark. Now the best delivery I ever had in El Paso was the sought after nude delivery. I showed up to this nice house on the upper Westside, pie in hand, and rang the doorbell. About a minute later I heard a girl’s voice tell me that it was a double keyed lock (have to use a key to get out as well as get in) and that she didn’t know where the keys were, so I should meet her at the garage. In El Paso, all the garages are on the front of the house, so I wasn’t very worried about her plan. I walked over to the garage and she opened the garage door up to about 2.5 feet off the ground. I would have to kneel down to give her the pizzas. As soon as I did, I looked up to find this cute late 20's Spanish hottie in a bath robe looking down at me. She smiled and asked me how much. I rattled off a price and started pulling the pies out of the heat bags. When I looked back up, I got a perfect view of the kitty. It seemed she had lifted her leg onto the bottom of the garage door to write the check and left herself completely exposed. She looked down when she finished, finding me still staring dead on and smiled, "That’s your tip." One of the best damn tips I ever received while delivering in El Paso, that’s for sure. Another great story was to a really anal guy. This guy wanted his pizza cut with a clean blade to ensure that he didn’t get any thing from other pizzas or any juices from any ingredients from other pizzas on his. Being that I took his call, I made sure to deliver his pizza so I could ensure him that his wishes were looked into. As soon as the pie came out it was cut with a clean blade, bagged, and out the door. I got to his apartment in no time and knocked, hoping that I would be getting a good tip out of this delivery. He answered the door in a pissy mood and started writing out a check for exact change. As he was doing that I cleared my throat and stated that I, personally, made sure his pizza was cut with a clean blade. The guy stopped writing the check, looked up at me, and smiled, before looking back down and writing void on the check. I walked off with a tip and a regular from him every time after that. After delivering Pizza for the Hut in El Paso, I moved to Dallas about 5 miles away from Valley Ranch, home of the Cowboys and at that time the Stars. So being that I was a seasoned driver, I decided to get a job with Pizza Hut again. This was a great move on my part due to several reasons that I will cover. Upon getting a job there, I was promoted to driver coordinator within a month of being hired and had full control of all deliveries to every area as well as first say in who got deliveries. My first and largest tip came on a 100-pie order to a business park located on Luna just inside Carrollton. We usually don’t deliver there, but due to the order size, decided why the hell not. I came in early and helped the cooks prep, cook, and cut all the pies and get them in bags and into my car. Being a Monday, I was the only driver until noon so it was up to me to get all these babies delivered. After three runs by me, and two more with the next driver, we finally got the delivery finished. I always hated having to collect for large deliveries due to the fact those people rarely tipped. So I headed to the managers office where I was presented with exactly what I feared: a check for the exact amount. Noticing my dread she asks me if the tip had been included in the overall price, to which I reply, "No." Looking a little annoyed, I assume that I was about to get bitched out. Instead, she walked out to her secretary and came back with $120 cash. That’s right: $120. I swear, I must have looked like the happiest guy on the planet because I was beaming ear to ear. Since I was the coordinator I took $100 of it (since I showed up early and prepped and readied them all) and the other driver got the $20. One of the great things about working in Valley Ranch as I stated above was this was where the Cowboys and Stars practice facilities were located, so we would randomly get orders from players or executives. One night we were getting hammered and I had no drivers in the store when 5 pies came out with the address to VALLEY RANCH (Cowboys facility.) I jumped on this so damn quick you would have thought I was Mario and the pizzas were running turtles. I bolted out the door to my car and headed around the corner to the Ranch. After getting through security, I was directed to the main entrance and told to speak with the receptionist. Now I’m figuring that I was going to be going no further than the front desk. To get that far into Valley Ranch, being a HUGE Cowboys fan, was an honor. Well, it was about to get better. The receptionist didn’t want to carry the pies (all specialties) to the back of the facility so she gave me directions back to the room where they were going to be delivered. Now this wasn’t just any room; it was the Cowboys Linebacker room. I knocked on the door and opened up to see the Cowboys LB core watching game film for the upcoming Cardinals game. I was in shock. Completely in shock. To be able to A) walk the hallways of that place was amazing; B) be able to deliver back to the guts of the facility and walk by players like Emmitt Smith was amazing; and, C) get to walk into the room while they were watching game film of the Cards was just awesome. Well, it seems that the person who ordered the pizza was the newest rookie Dexter Coakly. The guy was cool as shit even though he was being harassed by the other LB's while paying me. I walked out of there with a tip and had just been where millions of Cowboys fans would kill to go. As I said, we also delivered to the Dallas Stars which was located on Cowboys Pkwy right around the corner from the Cowboys practice facility. This is a two part story. This was back before the Stars won the Cup and basically no one in town gave a shit about them. One day they called up looking for 15 pies for the team after practice. I gladly took the order and the delivery. DIEHARD STARS fan. I showed up and headed up to the executive offices figuring that I was going to be delivering to them. Wrong. I was going to the locker room. As I was heading by the practice ring, I saw that Daryl Reagh and Ralph Strangis were interviewing Craig Ludwig in front of the locker room. Craig saw me coming and stopped the interview and opened the locker room door for me, allowing me to once again go where fans only dream of going. I walked in and was surrounded by Mike Modano, Andy Moog, Todd Harvey, Derian Hatcher and the rest of the team. As soon as the guys spotted me, they crowded me and started snagging pizzas out of my hand. Usually I don’t allow this to happen, but under this situation I was too star struck to do anything. After getting loads of thanks and back pats for delivering the food, an executive told me I needed to go upstairs to get payment for all the pies. So I turned and made my way out of the locker room. A I left, Craig stopped mid-interview again and asked me if there was any pizza left. I replied, "You’re going to need to get in their quick." He then asked me if I got a tip. I told him, "I haven’t even been paid yet." He laughed and stated, "That’s what you get from this organization." (Later that night, I got home and watched the sporting news and, boom, there I was talking to Craig Ludwig. My friends nearly shit in their pants when they saw that.) I headed upstairs to collect the check and received 8 tickets to the upcoming Bruins game as a tip. The second part of the story is this. It took place right after the first. After getting the tickets for my tip, the executive asked if we were Stars fans. Of course I replied, "Yes." He asked if I have the power to make deals. Oh, you should have seen the smile on my face grow! I said, "You bet I do." He told me that if we delivered them free pizza he would give me 10 tickets for every order we gave them. I said, "You've got a deal." He then gave me an additional 10 tickets to the Coyotes as advance payment on our deal. We hooked them up around 9 or 10 times before our execs found out. I thought that both me and my manager were going to get fired -- yeah right. The Pizza Hut execs trumped our deal and traded them free pizza whenever they wanted for glass seats. Bastards. Now this location wasn’t all fun and games. We had one lady who always tried to get us to deliver to her in the south end of the business park. We always refused until one day we were slow and decided to go ahead and deliver. I took the delivery, got the modest $1.00 tip, and came back. About 10 minutes after I got back to the store, she called up and said she found carbon paper in her pizza. WTF. There’s no carbon paper near where we make pizza. We told her she’s going to need to bring the pizza in because we didn’t believe her. She showed up with all the pizza gone except for one slice with the carbon paper. She started going on and on about how we need to give her a refund and a future store credit or she’s going to call our corporate offices. As I dealt with the customer, my manager took the pizza and decided to look at this so-called carbon paper and viola, there it was. Now the problem was A) it was under the cheese between the sauce and cheese; B) it would have been affected by the heat of the oven; and, here’s the best part, C) it wouldn’t have had her company’s name on it. My manager pulled the carbon paper out and walked back up to the front smiling as this woman proceeded to rip into me. He asked if she supports the local police department. She was stunned and replied, "Of course. I'm an upstanding citizen." My manager replied, "Good, because you're about to see your money put to work." He told her that when attempting to rip someone off, you shouldn’t use something that has your own company's name on it and try to pass it off as something else. The lady just stared at us stunned. We both smiled at her and informed her that if she didn’t leave we would call the police and report her. The lady had the nerve to ask for the last piece of pizza back before she left. I delivered at a store in north Dallas off of Skillman. I worked there until I was mugged by three teenagers while delivering pizza to the ghetto. The little bastards knocked me down from behind, grabbed one of the bags, and ran off. When I went back and quit, my manager tried to charge me for the bag that wasn't stolen because I put my fingers through it in a state of pure rage. You see, I had just stood there and stared at them as they ran off with the pizza, squeezing the other bag until I punctured it and the box within. I told the manager to go to hell and left. For all your noobs and vets, there are several ways to get tips that I have learned over the years. I'll list a couple to help you along the way. When you make a cold weather delivery, you can easily get to keep the change if the following happens. If the customer shows up at the door in shorts or something that doesn’t pertain well to the cold, screw up your count multiple times when counting out change. Usually they will just say screw it and let you keep it. If they ask you to come in, use the good old company excuse about entering homes. When you know that you're going to be delivering to a house that always asks for exact change, don’t mess with them by taking all pennies. Don’t take any change at all. Tell them you're running short on change and have to stop at a grocery store to get rolled change on the way back. A small tip is better then no tip at all. Most managers will tell you to throw away mistakes. Now if your manager is cool, he/she will let you keep them. If you do, find the closest bar around and start yourself a bidding session. The most I've gotten for a mistake pizza was . You can walk in with four mistakes and walk out with . Now this is a big one. I found out that a big reason why lots of people don’t tip is due to pizza places. The majority of pizza places hiring put out ads stating $12-15 an hour. The average Joe sees this and assumes you're getting that hourly. I had to explain to multiple customers in multiple cities that this is considered an average scale of pay which includes our tips and delivery mileage. After finding this out, the majority of those people not only started tipping but they started to tip well. I know this one is pathetic but it works. Anytime you can start up a conversation with a customer, you should. Now the key to this one is to steer the conversation to something about your life. You can say you've got a pregnant girlfriend. For the ladies, a laid up boyfriend. Your car is breaking down, you're working three jobs to pay for college, or the always pathetic you're trying to save up money to move to a city with a school you want to attend. These people will tip unless they are completely heartless. Now for dealing with non tippers. You can drop their pizza on the way to the door. Make sure to flip it so all the cheese gets stuck to the roof of the box. Shake up any sodas that they order. The loss of the couple bucks is worth them spending the time to clean up the mess that will happen. If you're dead and bored, you can take them the wrong pizza. I once did this three different times in one night to a customer that never tipped. He asked me if I was stupid. I responded, "No. Just underpaid." He got the hint. Or the mean one. We had a customer that not only never tipped, but was a royal dick to anyone they talked to on the phone. One day we grew tired of this great customer and strained Jalapeno juice into the sauce before it was added to the dough. They never ordered from us again. I have since left the pizza world and am nothing more than a customer. I will tell you one thing. All the drivers love me, from the ones in college we used to get high (they fought over delivering to us) to the ones we hand out 5 dollar tips. Always remember this. Never bite the hand that feeds you. return to top