I usually work Saturday day-shift at the Indy shop. Lately, they’ve been slow. As in: dead slow. As in, three weeks ago, I came in at eleven, opened a book, and got 200 pages into it before Robin showed up three hours early and asked if he could finish my driving shift. I found out the next Monday that the first delivery of the day didn’t even come in until after five.
There’s a generally understood theory in pizza shops, and I imagine it applies to any job where manpower is a concern. When you’re overstaffed, you’ll be dead. When you’re understaffed, you’ll get your ass kicked.
Gary’s a big believer in this theory, so today the schedule was a bit different. Usually there are two insiders and two drivers Saturday day-time. The “swing” insider and the “swing” driver both leave about 2ish. Gary cut the “swing” insider altogether, and asked that I come in at 12 as opposed to 11. As I mentioned earlier, the hope was to trick the Deity of Busy-ness to think that we were understaffed, and thus, drum up a little extra cash all around.
It worked.
Well, sort of … we weren’t actually that busy in terms of a line of people out the door, but we had a large order from a credit card company located in the Industrial Park. It was something like twenty pizzas, fifteen feet of subs, and over 100 sodas spread out over four deliveries. Plus, there were several folks who individually ordered food. Zap and I split the CCC’s order and at the end of the day I left with a solid $40 in my pocket, a nice change of pace from the average Saturday where I leave with a big fat zero tip.
***
One of Gary’s buddies either owns or manages a tool rental warehouse in the Industrial Park. A few months ago, this buddy let Gary (free of charge) use some specialized equipment to rip up the age-old tile in the shop so Gary could put new ones down (it’s a black & white checker pattern, now). I think he might also be letting Gary use some equipment (FoC) at his house, but I’m not sure.
In any case, ever since replacing the tile, every Saturday afternoon, Gary’s been sending over a few pizzas, free of charge. We never deliver them to Gary’s buddy — I don’t know if he works Saturdays or not — instead, we deliver them to whatever grease monkeys are working the counter. My beef is that these guys never tip. Maybe it’s just me — and I might be biased in saying this — but if my boss were arranging for his buddy to deliver to me a lunch free of cost to me, I’d find a buck or two for the guy bringing them.
Whatever. I’ve mentioned it to Gary, and every now and then his buddy’ll leave some cash for me. Rarely.
Last week, Gary was out of town, and the counter boys called up the store looking for pizzas. I don’t know if it was Gary’s buddy who called or not, but as we’d had no instruction on giving them free pizza, Brett was all, “No free shit on my shift!” They were quite unpleased when I told them the total upon my arrival, but as I explained to them, there’d been no instruction left for us, and I was sure Gary and his pal could work out a refund. Finally, grudgingly, the older guy took cash out of his till for me.
Exact change.
I swear, I can never get a break from these assholes.
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One of my deliveries today was to the Oregon Ridge Nature Center. In short, you drive past the Oregon Grill, past “The Beach” and up a road to a parking area. There is a road that leads up to the Nature Center itself but a large sign is posted which reads, “Authorized Vehicles Only.” I contemplated parking my car and walking up the road (I could use the exercise) but laziness won out and I drove up anyway. After (accidently!) kicking a trashcan containing a copperhead snake (sorry!) I joked with the woman who paid me that I was presuming a vehicle used for pizza delivery was authorized.
