I worked for Domino's in Charleston, SC (actually North Charleston) part time for about 3 years. There had to be at least one story per night. I wish I could remember them all. The only stiff I ever got and can't complain about was this one. I had a delivery of a small order, I think it was a medium 1 or 2 topping pie. The delivery stickers for the orders would sometimes have other descriptions of what was in the yard, carport, driveway (something like "Green Honda in yard" or "extra large mailbox in front") if it was a semi-rural area like this one. This sticker said, "shed in back" and I didn't really give it a second thought. For the life of me, I couldn't find the place. I knew I was in the right area, it was either one or the other of these two mobile homes, but neither had the right address. One had no answer. The other had this HUGE fenced in yard with....yep, you guessed it...a Rottweiler patrolling the front. There's no way I'm setting foot in this yard! I went back to my faithful Geo Tracker & beeped for a good 2-3 minutes. No one heard me. I call the number on my cell phone & a lady answers. She says she hasn't heard me outside and to hold on. Still on the phone, she stepped out the door where I could see her to let me know that yes, the pizza was ordered from her phone but it wasn't her's. It was her neighbor next door that didn't have a phone & I see her point across the street. She told me it was in back of the other trailer with no one home. I wouldn't have believed what happened next if I didn't see it myself. I went into the back yard where I found an elderly couple living in one of those big aluminum tool sheds you can buy and put up in a weekend from Home Depot. I was so stunned that I can't remember anything but a bunch of magazines they had piled up, an army cot, a kerosene heater, a tiny b&w TV and one of those Lazy Boy type chairs. They were as nice as could be, offered to let me stay and have a slice & didn't tip. I couldn't have taken it anyway.
Working there so long, we got to know the regulars who would tip and who would not. For the non-tippers, we tried to make sure to get their pies on time as much as anyone else but we'd always give them all our pennies back in change. They never caught on. It figures. Anyone who is a non-tipper will take every penny that you give them and not say a word. I gave this notorious non-tipper back $2 in pennies once and he didn't blink. On the other hand, I've got about $2-3 in pennies as a tip from kids. Karma, I suppose...
Once I delivered a pie to one of those extended stay motels. There was a party of about 5 or 6 people inside. The order wasn't late at all because this was right down the street -- about a 5 minute drive from the store. When I got there, they all jumped me at once. I don't mean they robbed me, they all opened the door and demanded the pizza be free because I got there in over 30 minutes. Domino's ended their "30 minutes or it's free" policy YEARS before I started working there. Having a little experience under my belt from previous @&!&#@$#, I knew just how to handle the situation. The main guy that was complaining the most & demanding the free food insisted that he saw the "30 minute" promise in today's newspaper. Calling his bluff, not only by asking him for the time he had and comparing it to the time printed on the order sticker (it was something like 20-25 minutes), I asked him if I could see the newspaper he claimed the ad was in. Wouldn't you know it...someone had just threw it out right before I arrived. Then one of the drunk hags in the room says, "No, remember it was on the TV!" He says, "Yeah that's right, it was a commercial on TV." I ask him which station it was on so I could let the store know that someone was running an old ad. He can't remember and then says he should still get his food for free or at least a discount. For what, I can't figure out. I tell him that as a driver, I can't give him a discount. The only person who can is the manager. Then he said that he had called the store back and the manager said to do that. I (not using a gender specific descriptor) asked which manager he talked to. That was our code...if the customer could call the manager by name to the driver, we knew their discount was legit. The chump replied, "I don't remember his name." I started to ask the guy for his autograph ... thinking to myself, "this must be Reggie Jackson...no one else strikes out as much as him!" It just so happened, there was no male manager on duty that night! It was the female assistant manager & another female MIT (Manager-In-Training)! I let him know with a huge smile. Needless to say I didn't get a tip, but it was worth it to put those jerks in their place. :)
We had the policy at Domino's...don't know if it's still in effect...that if a customer didn't like a pizza, they could call us back and we'd either make them another pizza or refund their money. Believe it or not, not a lot of people called back to complain about a pie as you would think. We had a good product & MOST people are honest. But of course, there would be people who'd try to beat the system and either get another order or their money back & eat dinner for free. Once we had a lady call back & say that she didn't like her pizza and she wanted her money. She said it was the worst pizza she ever had, it was cold, blah, blah. After the manager talked to her & agreed to refund her money, he told her that a driver would be back to her house as soon as he/she had another run in her area with her refund and to make sure to give the bad pizza back to the driver so they could bring it back to the store. She said "I can't...I ate it all." I liked my old manager. He didn't take that crap from people. I guess I don't have to say she didn't get her money or another pizza. That was pretty much the store's policy. We were an independently owned store and the owner picked the national specials he wanted to run.
If a customer said they got a bad pie, they had to return at least half of it. My buddy had one of those situations and he made both runs. He delivered the first one to a punk-ass kid who didn't tip. Before he got back to the store, the kid called and talked the manager into making another pizza. My bud had to take the freebie right back out the door for a guarantee of 2 runs in a row without a tip! When he got there, the kid is waiting for him at the door, actually drooling over the thought of getting another pizza! My bud says, "Hey man, give me the other pizza. I gotta take it back." The kid gets this puzzled look over his face and goes back in the house. He brings my friend the pizza. He takes it from the kid...yep, the box is empty! He says, "Hey, where's the pizza?" The kid says, "I didn't like it so I gave it to my brother...he ate it." My friend brings both empty and full boxes back to the store. I had one of those "fixes" that another driver had delivered. I was bringing out a fresh pizza for someone who complained. I always hated those runs. When you bring out a free pie, there's no way in Hell you're getting a tip. Anywhoo, sure enough when I got there, the customer had over half the "bad" pie left & a bunch of screaming brats running around. When I gave her the new one & reached for the bad one, she couldn't believe it! She said, "You're really going to take it?" I said, "Yup. You said this isn't good, right? What do you want half a bad pizza for?" Stunned, she watched me carry it to the Tracker & head back to the store. If you can't afford to feed all your screaming brats, try anal sex as a birth control method or something. Just don't try to rip off a pizza joint & screw the driver.
On a similar note, we had this other jag-off who was starting to learn the system. This guy was a hot wing fanatic or something. He'd order a pizza and a double order of hot wings, then call back to complain the pizza was fine, but the wings weren't hot enough. He figures he's got the system dicked! He gets a whole pizza and a whole order of wings & the driver has to drive back out to deliver his refund and pick up the other order of wings. This happened a bunch of times & the manager is starting to get pissed. Off the phone, he's telling me "This guy should learn...we only make wings mild and hot...if he doesn't like our hot ones, he shouldn't call back!" I happen to love spicy food & I grow my own habanera peppers. If you don't know, these are the world's hottest pepper...I don't know how much hotter than jalapeno's they are, but some claim they are thousands of times hotter. Believe it. I had a gallon of them pickled at home & I brought them in to hook this @#!$@&%# up, both figuratively and literally.
We took 24 raw wings, dumped them into the jar of habanera peppers and set them in the cooler. We didn't think the guy was going to call back, but in less than a week, he wanted his usual of a pizza and a double order of hot wings. The manager took the pickled habanera wings (you couldn't stand over the open jar without losing your breath!) and ran them through the oven as normal. Then he used the usual Frank's Red Hot brand hot sauce over the wings & sent 'em out! The guy didn't call asking for a refund and I don't think he ever ordered from us again.
I remember making another delivery to a trailer park. I know it's a stretch...a trailer park in South Carolina, but try to imagine! It was this kid's birthday party. Kids screaming and screwing around in filth and old tires and rusty car parts. And this is 10:00 at night! To set this up, Charleston, SC is a big military town with an Air Force base and a recently closed Naval Base and a ton of military retirees. I delivered to the party... a rundown area is a big understatement...I had to have had about 5 pizzas...and when I asked to be paid, I got the runaround. No one had the money. I finally got directed to talk to someone who's going to pay me & this guy makes Jerry Garcia's drug dealer look like Ricky Martin. He's got hair down to his @&#, a bandana, tattoos, an earring, missing teeth, no shirt, no shoes and a pair of Levis made out of dirt. He'd had a couple of beers (at a kids party) I could tell and he starts #@%&*ing about always being stuck with paying for everything, yelling at his wife about why she doesn't buy something once in a while...yada, yada...I don't care, I just want SOMEONE to pay for the pies so I can leave! He pulls out the obligatory wallet-on-a-chain & in it he has what looks like about 10 $100 bills! I tell him there's no way I can change a hundred. He starts cursing and complaining that I don't have enough change and breathing stale tobacco/Old Milwaukee breath on me as he finds his checkbook to write a check. Holy crap! If the red flags aren't going up now, they never will! Mind you, the store DOES accept checks with proper ID. As he's writing the check (for the exact amount), I tell him that I'll need some form of picture ID. He starts #@%&*ing again and pulls out a retired military ID card. This guy is a retired full bird Air Force Colonel! I CAREFULLY read the check, note the address matches up with the delivery address and the name and picture on the ID. Still when I went back to the store, I told the manager that I possibly have a bad check. He just wanted to know if I matched up all the info as best I could and I had done that. As far as I know the check cleared. I just have to wonder what the hell a retired AF colonel (one promotion away from a General!) was doing in a situation like that! He must like to live on the cheap...he saves a bundle in haircuts, shirts, soap and toothpaste.
We'd also get these crack heads that lived in the projects that you couldn't understand -- even when they DIDN'T have a couple of 40 oz'ers in them when they phoned in their order. I swear, I had to turn the phone over to the manager when they called. I couldn't understand what the Hell they were saying. A popular thing for them to do...the combination of crack & St. Ides must do a number on brain cells...is to call in a carry-out order. Believe me. Anyone who takes an order over the phone always asks if the choice is carry out or delivery. The reason being that there are certain carry out specials that aren't offered as delivery. Anyway, their order would be ready & sitting on the rack for about an hour. Then they'd call back & "axe" where their pizza was. The manager would tell them their carry out was right here in the store & ready for them to pick up. Then they'd say something to the effect of, "Oh, I thoughts 'carry-out' meant that you's gonna carry it out here to me." That is if you could understand them. I swear that happened once a week.
I was in the military (still am) when all this took place & just did it for a few extra bucks. Don't get me wrong. The job did provide me with a lot of under the table income. I paid off a lot of bills & bought my kid's braces with pizza tips, so the majority of people tip well. For a while, my military boss also worked as a driver at the store & he was petrified of delivering to the 'hood. During the day we worked at a place where we were able to do upholstery and other jobs related to fabric. He took 3 of the pizza bags (this was before Domino's started using the electric bags) and sewed a pocket onto the bottom of them with the same color fabric & kept them in his car. The bag was just big enough for him to slip his hand in while holding his .357 Magnum. It's a natural thing to just carry the pizza with one hand on underside of the bag and in fact, the pocket gave him added stability. No crackheads knew they had a fine piece of Italian steel pointed at their chest when they opened the door. All they saw was a smiling pizza man holding dinner! (And awaiting the usual stiff)
It's always the driver's responsibility to make sure his/her vehicle is gassed up for a night's driving. I worked 2 jobs at this time, so sometimes I'd forget and have to make a gas run during my delivery. If I had to do this, I always made sure I did it on a quick run AFTER I made the delivery and that I was careful and didn't get gas on my hands. However, it never failed...when I would go in to pay for my gas, the clerks would say something clever like, "Hey! You got my free pizza?" I put an end to this crap by responding, "Sure! Did I just pump my free gas?"
We had a college at the very edge of our delivery area, way out in the boonies that was notorious for stiffs (no tipping). The store got 7 orders, all for the same dorm (different rooms) right before closing. It was my last run of the night. Normally it's store policy to only deliver 2, maybe 3 orders at a time but it was the last one and all of them were going to the same building. All 7 stiffed me, I had the store record! The manager was so pissed, he blocked the 7 phone numbers who made those orders & tipped me $5 from his own wallet. We didn't give any crap. We didn't take any crap. We weren't in the crap business. On the upside, I think my personal best was a $45 tip for several pies for a swim team. We also had a regular customer who always placed the same $9 order (the minimum for delivery) and he'd tell us to keep the change, always paying with a $20. He lived right down from the store & believe me he always got his pizza on time!
I've delivered to a couple of celebrities in the area. Sort of. Once was to Dave Meggitt who used to play for the New England Patriots. He owns (or did own) a huge house in this gated community. He tipped well. Also in the same community Darius Rucker of Hootie & The Blowfish (the 1990's version of the Bee Gee's) bought his mom a house & she tipped well. I also met Ace Frehley and Tommy Chong but pizza was not involved in either incident. That's my brush with fame.
We had this local authentic Mexican restaurant chain in town. The best Mexican food I've ever had. Good reason. The owner stocked it with illegals. Eventually they all got busted, closing about 5 stores in the area. What does this have to do with tipping the pizza guy? Well I'll tell you. The store would close about an hour before we did and when all the illegals got home, they'd order a huge delivery of pizza and wings and Coke EVERY SINGLE NIGHT! There were about 30 of them in one apartment and 99% of them didn't speak a word of English. They couldn't count the money correctly and they did some serious over-tipping. We fought over who would deliver to the Mexicans! It was a guaranteed $15-$25 tip EVERY night! Muchas gracias, mein froind!
On occasion we'd get a call from someone who'd want beer with their order. Of course Domino's doesn't sell beer, but these people normally wouldn't get that upset-they'd just start begging! The manager would usually tell them that if they wanted beer it'd be between them and the driver & that if a driver chose to do that it could delay their delivery. Since they were in a begging position, he'd also ask them nicely to make sure and tip the driver. Most of the time they wouldn't care, they probably wanted the beer more than they wanted the pizza and always tipped well. This wasn't a normal occurrence, but every 3 months or so. Someone will probably read this and start selling beer with pizza delivery. Hats off.
If you're a pizza driver and not a football fan, make sure you work on Superbowl Sunday. I think more pizza is ordered that day than any other and as the game wears on the drunker people get and the drunker people get, the more they tip! You'll make good money during any sports playoffs/championship games. Another good day for us was the day after Thanksgiving. I'd figure I wouldn't want to eat for days being stuffed with turkey, but we'd work our @#%es off on that day. I think it was second to the Superbowl. A bad day is Easter and Valentines Day. Most people go out to eat those days and don't order in. If you know nothing about the pizza business, remember one thing. DO NOT attempt to order pizza on Christmas Eve. Drivers & store workers have lives too and want to be with their families as much as you do. Cut off a chunk of the hog @#% you're going to have tomorrow and microwave it or something. Believe me, the pizza joint will be open bright and early the day after Christmas. Thank you! :)
