Delivery story 64 Alan P writes: I worked for about 8 years, mostly during the 1980's, at Mr. Gatti's in Seguin, TX. Gatti's is a small chain that I think is only seen in central and south Texas (it was started in Kerrville.) Seguin had a population of about 20,000 or less back then, 90% of them cheap non-tipping bastards. I am amazed at some of the stories I've read on this site, most of them are worse than anything I ever saw, but I have a couple of stories. Here's a good story. One summer they were holding cheerleading camp at Texas Lutheran College (now University) in Seguin. One large group of cheerleaders ordered about $150 worth of pizza. When I got there I was suddenly surrounded by hungry cheerleaders. Their sponsor handed me a bundle of bills and said, "This is at least $155. Just keep the change." So I took her word for it, said thanks and got back in my truck where I sat and counted it out. It turned out they had actually given me $172 and that was the best tip I ever got. A bad story. I took a pizza to one house where the woman told me that someone else had gone to the store to pay for it. I was not entirely stupid so I told her I'd have to call the store and verify that. So I had to go find a payphone, and of course was told that no one had paid for it. I went back to the house and told the woman that no one had paid for it, and she began getting very belligerent. Just about that time a Domino's driver turned up, and apparently she had been stupid enough to give the woman a pizza without taking any money. As soon as I saw what was going on I quit arguing with the thief and just left. By the time I got back to my truck she was screaming at us that she was going to follow us around and run us down in the street. I screamed back that her fat had better be bulletproof (an empty threat--I was unarmed.) There was one time when, just as I returned to the store, the customer called and asked to speak with "the man who just delivered my pizza." I thought something was wrong, and in an upset tone of voice she asked me if I had received a tip. I said that I hadn't. She said that if I wanted to come back by her house on my next run she would "make sure I got the tip." I did so. When the door opened her son was standing there, grudgingly handing me a bill and apologizing while his mother stood behind him glaring at the back of his head. The little sucker had tried to stiff me when he paid for it and his mother had caught him. On Friday and Saturday nights, we would have such huge bursts of business that we couldn't keep up, and our manager would just send us out with whatever was ready, no matter how many different parts of town the deliveries were in. I would often be gone from the store for an hour or more at a time. Most of the time that I was there, our managers were morons. I went up and down the management ladder there and finally ended my days back as a driver. I made more money driving than I did as a sub-manager. My seniority gave me the position as a mostly daytime driver (with extra evening hours on Friday and Saturday.) At night, I never kept my car-topper lit away from the store. As soon as I was out of sight of the store, I would turn it off so I couldn't be spotted from a distance in the darkness. I felt like going around with a lighted sign at night was just asking for trouble. One odd thing was, during the whole time I worked there, not one of our drivers ever got mugged. But it seemed like we would hear of a Domino's driver getting mugged every six months or so. I could go on and on, but I guess this is enough. You have a great website. return to top