Though I last delivered a pizza in 1989, this is probably my favorite sub. I like hearing from the people still in the trenches and thought some of them might like to hear my stories from way-back-when. Here are my Tales from the Pizza Guy.
Walnut Creek
While delivering in Santa Barbara, I realized I wanted to change schools, so I began the process of transferring to UC Berkeley. I also realized I had not been able to save up enough money to get back to school that Fall, so I decided to take a year or two off. I moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and lived with my mom and younger brother in the small house she was renting. I tried to find a different job for a while but I ended up driving for Domino’s again. I didn’t stay a driver for long, however. The area supervisor asked me to move inside, so I became an Assistant Manager (a huge drop in pay anyone will tell you -- but I was on track to be a Store Manager -- I guess the term for that on this sub is “GM”).
I worked as Assistant Manager under a couple different Store Managers -- this franchisee was opening new stores every year and was promoting from within, so there was a lot of movement in management. I finally became manager of that store a month or two later. One week the crew in the store was held up at gun-point. The manager was in the store at the time and was shaken up, but OK. One week later, a driver was having a party and I had asked the manager to cover my shift. He agreed -- and had a gun held to his head again that night. I stopped by the store after the party and he handed me the keys and walked out. I never saw him again. The store was (actually still is) across from a gas station, and the police placed an undercover officer in the booth of the gas station for a few weeks after that, but we weren’t robbed again.
Brett was one of our drivers and a character that is hard to forget. He once told me “I could be smart like you if I didn’t do so many drugs.” This is before cell phones, so store managers had pagers. We had a code, 411 meant you should call when convenient, 511 was call back ASAP, 911 was stop what you’re doing and call (666 meant there had been an injury -- fortunately I never saw a “666”). One day I get a 911 page from the store. When I call, it was Brett, off-duty, who sent the page. He asks me if he can borrow $50 from the store, saying “I need $50 today or I WILL go to jail.” I told him that I couldn’t let him borrow from the store, but I’ll personally loan it to him, and to just leave an IOU in the till. When I get to the store later that evening I find an IOU in the till for $80. He’d first written “$50” and signed it, but then wrote “+$30 Thanks!” under that. I actually know Brett’s last name because he never paid me back and I still have the IOU somewhere.
There was a phone girl at this store named Stacey. She was very young (I think 14 or 15), but she was smart. She was smart and beautiful, but had a horrible home life from what I gathered (even having excema on her arms from stress). You just want to wrap someone like that in your arms and take them away from everything. As manager I always liked to give the women more responsibility -- I felt that too often they were looked over by the men in charge. Stacey was too young to open on her own, but there was another phone girl who was a little older, and I told them they could open the store together. It worked out well, and one day I came in and the two of them were giggling about something. I asked what it was, and Stacey told me that the other girl (I’ve forgotten her name) would always take off her top when prepping the sauce -- she didn’t want to get sauce on her uniform shirt or bra. Let’s just say my mind wandered on that one for a while.
I think Stacey sensed the paternal feelings I had for her. She told me more than once that I would make a great dad.
This store had been around for a while and was a little grimy. The area supervisor decided we would have an all-hands-on-deck clean-up party. We would close early one night, and clean the whole store. “All hands on deck” meant that even managers and staff from the franchisee’s other stores would be there (I think he had six or eight stores at this point). As incentive, the supervisor decided we would have a keg in the walk-in. Here is a lesson for everyone. If you want to use beer as an incentive, be sure that it is very clear that the beer doesn’t come out until the job is done. I think the store actually looked worse after the great clean-up party fiasco. On the plus-side, a walk-in refrigerator is a great place for a keg!
One of my most awkward moment at Domino’s happened at this store. We had needed to call back an order to check on something and discovered the phone number was incorrect. There wasn’t much we could do until the customer called 40 minutes later. Apart from getting the information for the order, we learned that the phone number on the slip had two numbers reversed. I joked to the driver who had taken the order “have you been dyslexic for long?” An hour or so later he pulled me aside and said “I am, you know.” I must have looked confused because he repeated it, “I’m dyslexic.” I think I said something like “Oh, I’m sorry,” and then made sure he double-checked his orders.
One evening this guy called the store four or five times asking for “Rochelle.” It was pretty clear what had happened, but he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and grew increasingly hostile. I wonder if “Rochelle” was even her real name. I figure she was a somewhat regular customer since she had our number memorized enough to give it to guys who were pestering her.
To be continued...
Submitted January 24, 2017 at 06:20PM by ADeweyan http://ift.tt/2jY4MAb TalesFromThePizzaGuy
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