Objections 4. The pizza was late. Most people blame late deliveries on the driver. After all, the driver is the only employee they actually see. They can't see inside the store. They don't see their pizza waiting 30 minutes to enter the oven. They don't see their pizza waiting in the store for a driver who's out making other deliveries. It could be another 20 minutes before the driver has a chance to grab it. Please understand that lateness is not the driver's fault. Blaming the driver is ridiculous. Your house is only five or ten minutes from the store. That's how long the driver had it, no matter how late it was. Understaffing is the frequent cause of late deliveries. The store had more business than it can handle. Management is usually the problem here. With high gas prices, it's hard to fill a position that is third most likely to be murdered on the job. There are many safer, non-driving jobs available. Late deliveries happen when the store becomes busy. The store was running behind. Please be patient. Believe it or not, you're not the only customer. More people tend to order during bad weather. It actually takes longer to drive in bad weather. The store may suddenly be busier at the moment you call. All the phones start ringing at once. This causes the real delivery time to increase and we don't know how busy we will be. It happens and it's impossible to predict. This is called the rush. The driver has no control over how long it takes to cook the pizza. When it's busy, there's a backup of pizzas waiting to be made by the cooks. There's another line waiting to enter the oven. Another line leaves the oven. There's another line at the cut table. Finally, there's another backup at the delivery station. The driver was working non-stop on previous deliveries before the chance to deliver your pizza arose. Your pizza may be ready, but none of the drivers were inside the store. They were delivering other pizzas. Your order must wait for a driver to return before it can be delivered. Believe it or not, drivers do not waste time for 60 minutes. This is no reason to lower the driver's tip. If you feel it was excessively late or cold, by all means, call the store and get a discount but still tip the driver. This way, you punish the store but not the driver. If you get the pizza 90 minutes after you ordered, please don't assume it was 90 minutes old. It was almost always 5 or 10 minutes out of the oven. You can tell by its temperature. For more information, please read about late deliveries from a driver's perspective. Last updated: August 6, 2008 return to top