Dead body in the Loch Raven Reservoir! Er, that’d be where the drinkin’ water round here comes from. Hope you’ve got a Brita, if not bottled water!

Seen on 695 today, a handwritten sign in the back of a station wagon:

“I break for tailgaters.”

At first, I was like, “Woah, dipshit. You meant the other brake.”

But then I thought, “What if he meant, he’d break when the tailgaters hit him?” Because on 695, if a tailgater hits you, you’re going to get broke.

So I’m still not certain if the mispelling was accidental or not. Something to ponder at work tonight when I’m sitting in the back, feet propped up on dough trays, desperately wanting the day to be over.

You might not want to read this, particularly if your name is Zebulon. That’s it, only warning you’re getting, you’ve been warned you egotistical fuck (and it’d be one thing if your ego was justified in being a fuck, but it ain’t).

There’s a saying that goes like this: “If you want something done properly, you’ve got to do it yourself.”

Working at the Franchise, it’s more accurately, “If I want something done, I’ve gotta fucking do it because the guy whose job it is sure as fuck ain’t gonna.”

Yesterday was really fucking super asstastic slow at the Franchise, slower even than Saturday. I spent much of the day in the back, reclining in a chair, feet propped up on oveturned dough trays, reading a book. I had a few deliveries. There was even a carryout or two. I’d topped and folded all the boxes Friday, so after I spent two minutes washing the dishes, my job was essentially over. It was one of those days where even if you wanted to work, you’d have to give yourself busy work because there was literally nothing else to do.

So, anyway, I read. And I took a handful of deliveries, and I got some really excellent tips. But mostly I just sat around, reading.

I’m a little ticked at Zebulon from last night, and I’m not going to make bones about it — he’s an easy target, and I should probably lay off, but boy, I’m still steamin’. It’s coming off of me. Look, steam. It was something he said, namely, “yeah, but you overtopped,” as he was checking me out. I nearly reached over and ripped his precious rat-tail off the back of my head, instead I chose the snarky reply, “Help you? I had to make all the pizzas for you.” This was at seven.

So it was dead slow during the day. And at four, Zebulon showed up and Ghetto Boy left. And Zebulon walked into the back and did his whole “sigh” routine — which is, he walks to an employee he wants to talk to him, and sighs, and waits for the employee to roll his eyes and ask why he’s sighing. Of course, I was really wrapped up in my book so when he sighed, I asked him if there was a delivery up, and when he said no, I went back to ignoring him (although not so much I couldn’t see him screwing his jaw around trying to look scary).

He spent the next hour or so complaining how he should’ve come in to make sure the store was ready for him to work in while he apparently went about making the store ready for him to work in. When I say “apparently”, I mean because all I saw him do was to drain the juice from a tub of pinneapples. Really, if that’s what he’s worried about, he’s fucking overreacting.

About five the phones started ringing. A couple carryouts and three deliveries came in — three different directions, and Ross not scheduled until six, so OMF and I split ‘em up — I took the one north, he took the one south, and the first one back would take the westerner. I got back fast, and not just because I drive a lot faster than OMF (which is to say, I don’t drive like an old motherfucker). I walked in to quite the clusterfuck.

First, let me say that it was not busy. At best, it was steady. So here’s what I found — the western delivery was still in the oven. There was a twenty-minute old carryout still on the makeline screen. Zebulon was conversing with another carryout customer, and the new guy — the new guy who doesn’t know how to answer phones or make pizzas — was standing by the oven with the peel in his hand looking generally clueless like any new guy who hasn’t been trained tends to look.

Because I’m a team player — and honestly, because I still had to wait a few minutes for my delivery — I went over to the makeline and made the carryout pizza. Got it in the oven, headed into the back where I made a cash drop into my safebox, then took a quick stop in the employee rest room. Heading back up to the front, I noticed that my delivery was neither in the oven, nor the hot bag I’d set up on the route-table for it. Instead, it was on the front counter where Zebulon was busy selling it to the carryout whose pizza I’d just made!

Ok, ok, so my first thought was that the order had been a carryout all along and it had just been entered into the computer wrong. I walked over and asked Zebulon if it was a carryout, then told him he needed to change it because I’d already routed it to myself. Zebulon seemed to clue in that he’d grabbed the wrong order, and apologized to the carryout — in that guy’s place, I’d'a been pissed — he’d already been waiting over twenty minutes, but I really don’t see how either one of them thought that order was theirs — the carryout’s order was two large pies, the delivery was two large pies, two bread, and a 2-liter soda. You’d think he would’ve noticed what he was being given was a lot more than what he’d ordered, and you’d think Zebulon — who most likely took the carryout order — would’ve either noticed that the order was different, or the big bold letterings on the tickets on the side of the box which read, in plain, clear, King’s English, DELIVERY.

Whatever. I bagged up the run and was out the door. $7+ tip. You guys rock, and I’m glad you weren’t a carryout!

Back to the store, and again pizzas were way late being made on the makeline. Two of them, both twelve-minutes plus. Look, I gotta stress this, two pizzas at twelve minutes and both unmade, during an hour where MAYBE twenty pizzas total were ordered, is worse than bad, it’s a fucking disgrace, even for Zebulon who doesn’t have a reputation as a speedy pizza maker. Once again, Hero Snay raced over to the makeline to get the pizzas in. And while I’d like to present myself as the Noble Pizza Guy, the truth is that one of those pies was for a delivery heading in a direction I would already be going. See, I’m greedy like that.

So I got my double, and I came back, and it was slow for the next forty minutes, and I read a bunch more, and then it was time to check out, and Zebulon, who is delusionally egotistical to the point he believes he’s God’s gift to humanity (much less pizza shops!), chided me for overtopping on the carryout’s pizzas I’d made earlier in the night.

I tell you what. That kid has no fucking right to complain about the help he recieved. That kid certainly had no right to complain about the carryout’s pie being overtopped — I’m certain it was — after he left it on the screen unmade for twenty minutes.

Zebulon: it’s called CUSTOMER FUCKING SERVICE! And you’re not supposed to fuck the customers, literally or metaphorically. And pull your head out of your ass while you’re at it, ass.