We're out...

So I'm out and about with the little lady. We decide we are going to go spend some time with my family. My family is kinda strange. If you bribe them with food they won't eat your face off. So I suggest we stop by House of a Thousand Pizzas  to get some food for them. I can get some great deals there. So I walk in to a mess in the dining room. I ignore it because I am going to carry out.  I go back and start putting my order in. We are out of regular dough. Well that's fine I'll get thick and just discount it down. Nope we are out. So the pizza joint is out of pizza. Great times. I just left, I didn't want to walk into the back and start yelling at people wondering why the pizza store is out of pizzas and why no new dough was getting made. Scary stuff.

Yo Mamma

Jimmy and Wonder Boy almost come to blows the other night. Not fun. I guess they were both having bad days. I didn't care I was leaving in 30 minutes let #2 deal with it. They ended up both getting heavily disciplined and told if they are rude or yell at any other employee or make any more threatening remarks they are canned. The Boss Lady was catching me up to speed on the situation when Luigi heard this. He double checked that this was true. Boss Lady said yes. Them We watched dumbfounded and horrified as he walked right up to Wonder Boy and asked him if it was true. All Wonder Boy did was nod. Then Luigi started ripping on him with Yo mamma jokes.

Aliens and CNN

The other day started out being a good day. Well being a good day minus the waking up. Oh and minus the going to work. Well... there was that whole understaffed thing also. Ok, ok, so it wasn't much of a good day. I did however realize where my first mistake of the day was. Wonder Boy walked into the store. I, without thinking, asked him how he was doing. I know, I know stupid me. He said he was doing fine, and that aliens were invading the nuclear power plants. Well, at this point I think any semi-sane person would go drown themselves for opening up their ear to be raped by his ignorance but i was feeling froggy, which leads me to my second mistake of the day. I asked him how he cam to that conclusion. He told me without missing a beat that CNN told him. Sometimes I wonder why I can't put employees through the oven, or give them baths in the fryer.

What a Trooper

So yeah, Frankie gets an honorable mention. He went to the hospital this morning. He was diagnosed with tonsillitis, then went home, got dressed, and is here at work now. He is now waiting tables. What a trooper, he is stumbling around in a circle mumbling about hating certain boss people. What a trooper, I might try and send him home once I clock in.

Credits

Customer called in wanting to talk to a manager about why he only has a $10 credit on his account. I took the call and looked up the history. The Boss Lady put a credit on his account for wrong toppings on a pizza. He was telling me it was because his whole order was late and it should be for the whole order amount. Um... The Boss Lady doesn't give credits for pizzas being 'late.' I told him nope, its 10 dollars. He placed an order, I took it. I figured it was done. He called back stating the pizza was wrong. I asked him what he got and he said it was suppose to have pepperoni on the whole thing it only had half. Ok, that's what you ordered. That I why I read the order back to you. Then it changed to it doesn't have certain toppings. And then it changed to i could go @#$% myself.
   This might seem like a weird concept, but House of a Thousand Pizzas is a business and we sell pizzas to make money. Yes... that is correct ladies and gentlemen, we are trying to make money. We are not giving food away for free. It costs money. Maybe one day people will realize this and start paying for their food without undue complaints.

Randomness

The other day was a bit interesting. I wasn't feeling well so I was more prone to wandering around aimlessly. I saw a few things that stuck with me through the sickly haze.
I saw a woman walk across our parking lot. This is not strange in itself. What was strange about it is that she was rapidly tapping her glass eye the entire time. How do I know it was a glass eye you ask? The answer is easy... I could hear it clinking 25 to 30 yards away.
A lady came in and asked if she could dig through our trash looking for cans. Ok... so why would you look through our dumpsters when we don't sell canned products. All our beverages are bottled. Sure go right ahead. Have fun!
The Boss Lady's new boss  has decided that Lisa is going to train all our cooks from now on. *twitch* The same Lisa that cost us over 300 dollars in food cost in one week. The same Lisa who can't keep up on a Tuesday night because "we are to busy" (For those playing the home game, Tuesday nights are one of our slowest nights for Pizza. They are so slow in fact that we do a Buffet that night to try and raise business.) Sometimes I wish it was legal to carry a concealed shovel.

Did She Really?

So I had to deliver a pizza or two today due to business being more than expected. Before I left I put up a prep list for my drivers. This lets them know what dough to set out so it is ready for me tomorrow morning when I open. When I come back notice #2 has taken my list down and is putting her own up. Not only did this happen but the numbers were screwed all to poop. A few minutes later I was going to be petty and rip it down and put my own back up when I realized something else. She had put my name on the list and was assigning me to do dough prep, instead of the fun loving manager stuff that I'm paid to do. Now, if we are short handed I don't mind doing the work. No problem there. But we had 5 drivers in the building and not all of their names were on her 'list'. The other thing about this as she had me doing some 9 inch deep dish, which we are out of. just two 6 inch ones.... 2 another driver is doing 20 of them, but she wants me to do 2..... and take some packs of thin crust out of the freezer. I wonder if it was petty of me to rip that off the wall and throw it away. Not real sure. I don't think so though.

Excuse Me?

   So I was standing beside The Boss Lady when #2 came up to us. She looked at the Boss lady and stated the following. "Listen, when it says paid on the compute I need it up front." Now this statement doesn't seem to mean much, but it was said with such disrespect that one of the employee near us bolted as soon as she said it. I looked at Boss Lady to make a comment but I saw her face. Her face went from confusion, to shock, to 'I'm going to rip someone's face off'. I didn't say anything, I bolted also. A few minutes later I looked over at Boss Lady to make my comment, my comment got choked off as I saw the hatred she was putting into cutting the pizza she was working on. I thought she was going to cut through the table. I've never seen the Boss Lady look that angry before. Someone is going to get a shovel, I am pretty sure of it.

A Great Rolemodel

I'm sitting here in A House of a Thousand Pizzas  waiting to clock in. I just happen to look over to see #2 carrying drinks all sorts of wrong to a table. This normally wouldn't bother me that much, but she is also training a new employee who is watching. Just grand, I'm going to have to wipe the new persons mind clear to get them trained correctly. Just friggen great.

Why

One question.
Why am I working on my three year anniversary with my fiance when I put in to have today off two months ago?

Smooth Criminal

   One of my lovely employees I think has the record for having the cops called on them while at work. Not real sure how that works but we had to move them to driver from server to keep bad things from happening. I get a call from a customer the other day, telling me that my smooth criminal got in a disagreement (straight yelling match) with her pregnant sister about parking issues. Then came up to the door step still yelling and that she just had surgery on her leg and argued with them on her front door step. And on her way out slammed their fence door into the car leaving a large dent.   Great   When Smooth Criminal comes in I pull them outside and ask them what happened. The stories are similar, except that if the sister is pregnant she just found out today because she looked like a skinny crack head. and there is no way a fence could have hit the car because the car was parked on the side of the road. And She said she had an attitude, yes, but wasn't screaming or yelling. And that they didn't even pay for the pizza, some mexican guy did, and even tipped a few dollars. Why did they want credits on their accounts?   I love some customers, I really do.

A Fun Loving Customer

So I get a call about some too thin bad tasting calzones. Great, no problem, let me make two new ones for you and send them right out. I get a call later saying these are too thick. At this point I know that there is nothing I can do to please them. They ate half of the first ones, more than likely half of these and they just want a free meal. I let em know that at this point I'm can't send any more food to them tonight. And what I'll do is I'll forward their information to the Boss Lady to either get a credit on their account or to refund them their money. I am not capable of doing either tonight. He tells me he is on his way. A little bit later he shows up and rips open his meal on the front counter screaming at me "Would you eat this $#*!?" No sir, your hands have been all over it. I still can't make any more for you, and I'm not giving your refund tonight. He threatened to come across the counter. I threatened to let him, and picked up the phone and said they can either leave with that answer, or the cops can come in and nothing will get done. I step into the back to talk to Boss Lady one more time before they go. And she tells me to just give them their money and let them go. Bleh

Brotha from Anotha Motha

Wonder Boy kept running into a repairman today. Over and over he bounced into this guy. At one point I apologized and his words were, "That's fine, its nothing a shovel to the face won't fix." I wonder if we were friends in a past life.

Holding Hands

You would think that someone working for House of a Thousand Pizzas for over two years should be able to run a shift. You would think that anyways. You would think that they wouldn't throw a little temper tantrum when you wont  stay and wash dishes. At least not stay and do so when there are no deliveries, no pizzas to make, and 5 drivers, 2 cooks, a server and a phone person, all standing around scratching their balls heads. I wonder if I should get a raise for having to hold an 'equals' hand. Bleh, just give me 4 hours with the shovel and no consequences and I'll fix all our issues.

Obviously

Great interview today. Just great times had by all. I started by questioning availability, he responded by saying he couldn't work weekend nights due to being a musician. That's just grand, but that's what I'm hiring for, but lets carry on. So a few questions later, I asked him my favorite question, Why should I hire you over everyone else. His answer was the absolute best answer I have ever heard.
"Obviously you shouldn't."
Wow... at least he was honest. 

Murphy Must Hate Me

   For those of you playing the home game, Murphy's Law states the following- If something can go wrong, it will. Today Murphy was sitting on my shoulder wacking it in my ear. The Boss Lady's new boss was supposed to come in and do an inspection. Sure lets show up during my shift. Whats that? You said lets show up in the middle of my lunch rush. Oh, you're not done yet? You want to show up when I am two people short? Oh, Those 50 cases of Pepsi Max that came in 30 min ago need to find a home before the store opens? Oh wow, that's just great. Oh how awesome is that I get to work again on my anniversary. Your bringing in someone to train for a position you've been promising me since March. Man, That's just friggin awesome. Sometimes I just want to flip the make table and set the oven on fire. Oh yeah, the oven that pizzas get stuck in when your not paying attention to. Stupid friggen job.

Like an Ice Pick in the Ear

   We had a managers meeting the other day at House of a Thousand Pizzas. It started all well and good. The Boss Lady said it was going to be a one sided meeting, and it started out that way and all was good. As least it started good. Then #2 started speaking, and it just went downhill. Her excuses seemed to center around, "This store is in the Ghetto and I don't belong here." I have to be real careful with what I say about certain people. I just wish I had the shovel that day. For those of you playing the home game, Madison, TN is not the ghetto. It is not even close to the ghetto. It does have a large population of ignorant individuals. By the end of the meeting I just wanted to stick ice picks in my ears to get the sound of #2's voice out of my head.  Ugh

Almost Made It

   Almost. I almost made it. I was so friggen close to going a whole shift without any huge problems. It was going to be great. But then I realized who was coming in. At four I walked up to my server and made a bet with him. I bet a nickle that #2 would come in early, clock in without asking (ruining my hard earned awesome labor) Then start counting money(taking 30 min to do so.) So at four thirty the above mentioned started happening. I have to call my labor in at 2, 5, and 8. At 5 I called Boss Lady and informed her of labor and the bet. Not even before I get off the phone #2 starts telling me to clock out early to save labor. That's fine, I did. Then I sat in the dining room and watched the kitchen go to hell. No one was helping the lady in the front. Pizzas started to get baked up in the oven, burning, Chaos erupted, and it was funny as could be. So, off the clock I started barking orders, while telling #2 to fix herself. It looked like things were fixed. So I left. #2 comes out after me and asks me if Little Guy was fired today. He wasn't because I was talking about giving him a few extra hours. #2 said she called looking for him and his mom answered saying that he told her he was fired. Apparently someone lied to mommy and is going to get a spanking,
  And I almost made it out the door with nothing happening. So so so so close. I only have a small managers meeting tomorrow maybe I can get out without a small nuclear bomb going off.

Off Work

I'm am off tonight. Woot!!! So I will pose a question. I want answers to this people because it almost sparked a fight last night. If a server, who makes 2.30 cents an hour plus tips, (if they don't make min wage we supplement their pay so they make at least 7.25)goes over to the carry-out window hands a customer their pizza and gets a tip should they keep the tip, or give it to the cook/cut table person. I have worked as both a cook and a server. Even as a server I personally gave the money to the cook. Now if i get one and i am the cook I stock pile it in my pocket of holding and use it to pay for my employees meals when they need some help, or other things of the like. Or I use it in the slaw game up front. That thing is as addicting as crack I swear. Now I leave the decision up to that person who got the tip. Here are both arguments.
Server- They have to deal with the customers. They only get paid 2.30 an hour +tips from their tables. (+supp pay if needed)
Cook- They don't feel that that person did anything to deserve that tip. The cook is the second hardest position in the store. the also only make 7.25.

The last part of the question. What about just a phone answering person who makes 7.25 an hour standing in the window. Should they keep it or give it to the cook.
You guys decide.

Who Dat?

   Wonder Boy was laughing to himself... again. This time the people in the dining room were getting a little discomforted by it. I look over at him and snap "Its not funny" He didn't realize that I had said it. He head snapped up and he started looking around, but never said anything. I think he was trying to find out if that was a new voice in his head. I think I'll try sneaking up on him one day and tell him to pull the trigger, or jump, or something else equally mean. All for academical reasons of course.

Slap That MFer

This one has a lot of moving parts behind the curtains that someone could actually lose their job over. I'm just going to skip to the funny stuff.
   A lady comes in wanting to talk to a manager. I'm the only manager in and I am yelling at my people for loosing a bunch of pizzas. (Pizzas that leave the store in over 20 minutes affect my score, and are considered 'lost') I come up front and the first thing she does is apologize for the cursing that is about to happen. She tells me that she isn't mad at  me, she isn't mad at the person who cooked her pizza. She also pointed at the two people on either side of me and said she wasn't mad at them. She said that she was mad at that MFer who took her order and the same one that hung up on her. She also stated that she was about to come across the counter and slap him straight across the face for getting smart with her and she thinks it is....drum roll please... Wonder Boy. She pointed over to him standing by drive through laughing to himself. I guess that gave him away. The two people on either side of me stepped aside more than happy to let her. Long story short I made her happy and she left not wanting a 'corporate number' or her money back. Although I did tell her she could come in and slap him around any time she would like.

The Driver Knows

   One of my hardest working drivers, Luigi came up to me last night and made a very serious comment. He said that he doesn't mind taking a pizza to a house that another driver can't find. He  doesn't even mind doing it when they ave driven around for an hour and blown any chance of a tip possible. He does have a problem with this when they point at the map and tell him where he is going. I love my employees.

What Were You Thinking?

Customer called today complaining about their service last night. They said they had to wait two and a half hours to get their food. And once they finally got it they said it was cold and nasty. They also wanted to know why the manager on duty, (#2) told them that the reason their pizza was late was that someone left in the middle of their shift without telling anyone.
   2 things about this that upset me.
1-Why would you tell a customer anything other than "Sorry let me make this better."
2-No that person didn't, it was 'me' that left because I'm not going to stay and hold another manager's hand. If they can't handle a shift they need to go. That's it, just go.

Laughter is the Best Cure

Wonder Boy really amazes me. Here is one of his stories tonight.
   The 'Big Pizza' pans have to be specially seasoned. It took us a week to cook the seasoning into the pans. Tonight the Boss Lady caught Wonder Boy scraping the seasoning off all the pans with a knife. She took him aside and explained what it was, why it was there, and to leave it alone. Ten minutes later, she hears the scraping sound again, and he is now scraping with a spatula instead of a knife. The Boss Lady now realizes that this is a loosing battle, so she tells him to leave the 'Big Pizza' pans alone and move on to something else. 15 minutes late one of my cooks pull me over to the sink area to settle a dispute between them and Wonder Boy, as he is again scraping the pans. This time I inform him why it is like that, and show him exactly how they need to be cleaned, not realizing that the Boss Lady just had this conversation with him. I go back to work, 10 minutes later I hear the Boss Lady telling Wonder Boy that if he won't listen to just go away and find something else to work on. This behavior I have to come to expect. Where we have to hold our employees hands and baby them. What still throws me for a loop is having to listen to the echoes of cackling laughter coming from the same person, over and over again.
   That and whenever he left, the dish area to get something, he would walk backwards. Not real sure why, I didn't think it was worth asking about.

Poor Poor Child

 Pretty smooth shift tonight. Now that everyone knows I am writing this lovely blog, a lot of the employees at a House of a Thousand Pizzas are acting a little better. This one is about a poor poor child that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
   My Delivery Driver, X, came in and told me to void a ticket he was suppose to take. That's fine, but why? He told me that the lady answered the door, and when he said, "Here's your pizza." She said "Just a sec." She then proceeded to find her young son and ask if he ordered pizza (somewhere between 8 and 13). When he said no, the lady then beat the #$%@ out of him for 20 minutes. I know it was 20 minutes because the driver stood there in the open doorway watching this child get taught the valuable lesson of what happens when you order food without permission before the lady told him to take the pizza back.
   This in itself would be a terrific story but it I'm not done yet. It gets better.
   About 30 minutes later I answer the phone and a gentleman wants to know where his food is at. He isn't mad just curious. I look up his info and it is the same order from above. I verify that his address is correct, and he says it is except they have to come to the back door, that he lives in a duplex. I cringe and ask if his neighbors have a young troublesome son. He says that that is correct. I tell him that my driver is on the way with some fresh pizza.
I wonder if my driver apologized to the kid when he went back.

Dazed and Confused

Today was a fun interview day at House of a Thousand Pizzas. I'm actually very surprised to say that out of four interviews I actually liked three of them. What confuses me is my employees actions during my interviews. On my way over to sit down and meet one person I noticed Wonder Boy Bubba Gump was staring at the phone. Not the phone on the hook, but the phone in his hand. Staring at it like he was wondering why there was a voice coming out of it. I ignored this and moved on. In the middle of one interview I was talking about how I like people that can think for themselves and stay busy. About this time I look up and see Wonder Boy standing in the middle of the dining room dazed and confused staring off into space. The person looking for a job notices something has my attention and he turns around to look. This keeps both of our attention for a few moments before Wonder Boy burst into laughter shaking his head walking away. The candidate looks back to me very confused. My statement, "Can we just forget that happened and move on." Their response, "Please."
   The next interview The Boss Lady comes out near the end to meet the person and to mention a few things. As soon as she mentions not liking to tell people to do things more than once, one of my drivers (Little Guy) comes out, and interrupts the interview asking how many wings he should bag. Where me and Boos Lady both reply, "All of them?"  Not the best time to ask said question.
   I wonder sometimes what my employees are thinking while they are working. But then I realize that that is a downward spiral. And that i should stay away from such dark thoughts.

Open Floor

Lets open the floor. So far its been pretty one sided. If there is a particular question on a story, or if you would like more details on anything, just let me know. That comment button isn't just there for looks. Lets open things up and get the ball moving. And don't forget to tell your friends to stop by and read.

Joke of the Day 2

I've decided that the employees here at a House of a Thousand Pizzas are not playing a joke on me. They are actually that lazy. This is very depressing. I thought they were just acting. So to cheer myself up I think I will start putting a few pizza jokes on the page to spice things up. I know that these people getting paid to (not) do this job is a joke in itself. But hey, why not.


A college pizza delivery boy arrived at the house of Larry Johnson. He delivered the pizza to his trailer. After giving it to him, Larry asked: "What is the usual tip?"

"Well," replied the youth, "this is my first trip here, but the other guys say if I get a quarter out of you, I'll be doing great." "Is that so?" snorted Larry. "Well, just to show them how wrong they are, here's five dollars."

"Thanks," replied the youth, "I'll put this in my school fund."

"What are you studying in school?" asked Larry.

The lad smiled and said: "Applied psychology."

Tastless Joke of the Day

What do a gynecologist and a pizza delivery boy have in common? They can both smell it but can't eat it.

Paid to Work

My last post reminded me about something very interesting. We here at House of a Thousand Pizzas make pizzas for consumption by consumers. To make this happen we pay employees to work. Now this is a very complicated process. A Person comes in, they work, and we pay them for it. Complicated right?
I have upwards of 50 applications coming into my store a week. Now half of these people can't pass the stupid little test that asks questions like-Do you steal money? Even after deleting the obvious idiots, that is still a large applicant pool. Its no secret either. We get several phone calls a day asking to talk to the hiring manager.
   With that said why can't I get my current employees to work. Lets break down some of my employees.

Lisa- Lets start with one of my favorite employees. I can't get her to work an hour without wanting to eat something or take a smoke break. And I have employees That are fighting to get hours. As soon as the second hand hits her time to get off it is time to go, it doesn't matter if her work is done or not.

 Wonder Boy(Bubba Gump)- He laughs at pizza boxes and talks to himself about pink elephants. I don't really think I should go on.

 I think I'll give some others some honorable mentions on some later posts.

PooPoo Head

I'm really curious about one thing. Frankie answered the phone the other day. He had a very short conversation, but I heard my name before he put the line on hold. He comes over and tells me it is a manager from another store. She was all nice the conversation went something like this.
 Manager (all cheery)-Hey, Frankie How's it going? I helped train you at my store.
 Frankie - Um yeah....doing great. What do you want?
 Manager- So yeah Who's your manager right now?
 Frankie- Jeremy is.
 Manager- Ugh... he's a dick... never mind.

  So first off.... why is she being all happy to him. That store manager told The Boss Lady that Frankie wouldn't last a week. Second, why am I a dick? I don't even know this person. I mean... well... I might  not be the nicest person. But managers at other stores are now scared of the shovel? Anyhow Frankie seems to think its because I work, and I make people work. This is a very strange concept at other stores. Work? Ha! I'm not getting paid to work.

Wrong Store?

   So... I don't mind helping people. There is a line though. So come come on in.
Want a menu? -Sure
Want explanations on specials? -Sure
Want to take up 20 minutes of my server's time during a rush getting mad when they walk away? -ugh alright
Then want to use my phone to call another store to place an order? -Get Out
   And thanks for choosing House of a Thousand Pizzas, have a great rest of the day.

Dine-in Up

   When a pizza comes out the oven a person at the cut table has a little screen that tells them where it goes. Whether carryout- where they put it in our hot box. Or delivery, where they call out "delivery up" and hand it to either a driver or the person running the dispatch station.(The dispatch station- for those of you playing the home game- is where we take the drivers money ad decide where we send them with what orders.) Or If it is a dine-in pizza we get it ready and place it on the counter and call out "Dine-in up."  This lets the server know they need to come get a pizza. Well #2 shift manager calls out Dine-in up. Frankie is the server, he is on the phone with a customer.He turns and acknowledges her. #2 sees this and calls it out again, and again, and louder. And for the rest of the night she is just yelling at poor Frankie. Well I send Frankie on a 30 minute break. (Yes, this does sound familiar to Fight Night.) #2 takes over the dining room. As soon as a pizza comes up, Frankie popped out from under the counter or from behind a picture or something and started yelling in her ear, "Dine-In up" he yelled 3 or four times at her then obfuscated back into the wall leaving #2 pissed and confused. I thought it was beyond hilarious and had to step outside to keep people from seeing me undermine another shift manager by laughing at their misfortune. Good times.

Blood Thristy Beasts

   My employees are special individuals. And they have special needs. One need of theirs is to fins a button on someone and press it until not only the button breaks, but the housing of the button next door.
   We have a new labor eating piece of poo monster pizza, called the Big Pizza. This things takes three times as long to make takes up twice as much room in the oven, and is just a blast to bag. And yes i said bag, because this stupid pizza doesn't go into a box, we have to put this 2 foot 'thing' in a bag. Woo.
   Because of said largeness and difficulty of bagging said pizza, other stores have come up wth ways to handle said problems. One is to have two people run the cutting station. We here at a House of a Thousand Pizzas think this is a great idea, we just can't afford the labor of having two people stand there when we can barely support one. Normally a manager has to run that station just for lack of hours. Another more interesting method is for a cut table person to call out- "Bagger", and some poor smuck runs over and helps you bag it. Hrm...Yeah... about that... I can't even get my people to do their current work. and why not just say- "Hey Smuck, come here for a second and help me put this stupid thing in a bag." Now myself, The Boss Lady, and one or two others have devised a secret way of doing it. Now don't tell anyone because its a secret, we do it ourselves and just get faster. Wow... I can't believe I gave out our secret.
   Now, the other night we go pretty busy. They said we would do 2200 in sales, we did 4000. So a few of us had to bust our rumps. One of our charming shift managers decided to try the 'bagger' method because tha'ts what they do at a store she used to work at. Again, it doesn't work when everyone in the store is doing three jobs, and just because you yell louder and more times the word "bagger' does not mean my cook is going to stop making pizzas and come help you do something you should figure out how to do yourself. This frustrated her but bless her she kept trying. Until those blood thirsty beasts caught wind of her distress. They began returning her cries for help with bagger calls of their own. Soon half the store was calling out "bagger."     The moral of this story. Don't let these Blood Thirsty Beasts see fear or they will attack.

The Big Beat Down

Just to make one thing clear, we here at A House of a Thousand Pizzas do not have a corporate number to give out for complaints. Just so everyone got that, we here at A House of a Thousand Pizzas do not have a corporate number for complaints. Sometimes it feels like I'm dealing with my four-year old niece. When ever I tell her no, she goes and slashes my tires. Or... well at least she would if she could get to them. "No, you can't have a free pizza because we don't deliver to your address. What... you want corporates number not because i don't deliver to you, but because I said no... that's sad." So.... on with the story.
   I'm doing something semi-constructive. Hiding from customers on the make line more than likely, when I hear the boss lady yell for me.   Boss Lady hands me a receipt with a customers name phone number and address. (We have all this fun stuff and they still want to pick fights?) She tells me that this customer was threatening to come down to the store to beat her ass. I ask the wonderful question that I ask every time I show up and see Lisa still at work- "Why?" She tells me that because we don't deliver to him and we have before. She tells me to take care of it when he comes in. Fine. A little later a lady calls in wanting to know why we have ruse people answering the phones. I took a guess that it was his mom. I was right. She yelled and complained that who-ever said that this lady on the phone was worthless and all kinds of rude. So I asked her a question, because I was felling a tad froggy and was getting a little upset. " Did he also tell you that the reason she might have been getting rude was because He was threatening to come and beat her down? Is that how you raised your son." She wanted to speak to the lady, I told her that I was now handling the situation and am waiting for him to show up. Then she said since I was threatening them they were on the way.
   Intermission- We here at A House of a Thousand Pizzas do not condone threatening customers. I might threaten to hit an employee in the face with a shovel from time to time, but never customers.  
   And hour or so later she shows up guy tow. (Want to guess if they seemed well to do or not? It looked like a trailer park threw up in my dining room.) She wanted to talk to who was in charge. Boss Lady was busy, I am. She begins to ask for my name, my boss's name, her boss's name, and all sorts of crazyness. I pull out a sheet of paper. I write down my name, I  write down the Boss Lady's name, then I inform her that Boss Lady's Boss just stepped down, that When she calls tomorrow morning to speak with the Boss Lady She can get that info from her. Then she asked for a corporate number because she didn't want to wait. (Because a district manager would want to deal with this at 11pm on a Friday night) When I tell her that we don't have one she begins to tell me her work history at a Sonic. I worked at a place with a corporate number before, this is how it works. "Corporate people, I have a problem with store blearg."  "Really, that's a shame lemme get your info and I'll look into it.  Store blearg, this person has a complaint, call them and figure it out."
Anyways after her screaming at me for 30 minutes about this I told her to leave and she said fine that she would Google it and left giving me a charming hand gesture, which to this day I still don't care about.

Just a Quick Thought

So... Just a thought. Everyone with a job out there might want to take this advice.

Doing something that your boss tells you to do- This secures your job for tomorrow. Just a thought.

HIt and Hide

Here is a fun one from a few months ago.
   I get call from a customer stating that one of my drivers backed into her car and drove off. I got her info and told her I would call her once my driver got in, to go ahead and get her insurance together. Driver comes in, and I ask them about it. They don't seem to know anything about it. I asked if we could go check out their car to take a look for damage. Lets call the Driver James. James's car had no damage what so ever. I figured This caller was crazy and looking for something free. I bent down to brush some dirt off the bumper when a paint chip moved. That when I realized, whoops... those don't belong to his car. I brushed them off into a little zip-lock bag and placed them in my pocket.  I told James jokingly that each night he did a great job I would give him a chip. I'll be damned if he didn't almost get Employee of the Month because of it also.
  I like the idea of bribery to get people motivated, don't you?

Is This a Bad Time?

Here is one from just the other night.
   I came into work on a busy night. My boss was throwing items, screaming cursing and slamming things. My boss is a very calm and collected person. I've never seen her do this. I asked her, "Boss, is everything alright?" She responded, "What do you think?!?!?" followed by a slam and a throw of a pan and then storming off. Everybody is entitled to a rough night. That's not the good bits. As soon as she leaves one of my best cooks comes up to me. (We held his position while he was on a 100 day "vacation".) He asks, "Do you think this is a bad time to put in my 2 week notice?"

   What do you guys think?

I Do That All The Time

Last week four of my cooks came in. Why 4 cooks came in on this weeknight when on the weekends I only get 1 or 2, I'm not real sure. I tell each of them what to do before I go home. I think everything is just grand. One of my... "favorite" cooks (Lisa) tells my most experienced ones, "I have to cook everyday. I'm not going to tonight." This comment sparks a great commedic event. For the rest of the night, any person in the store that is asked to do something makes that comment. "Hey Jimmy, can you sweep that mess up?" "Nope sorry boss, I have to sweep every night. I'm not going to."
"Nope I can't deliver that pizza. I deliver every night."
"Nope I can't go help that customer, I have to do it every night."
They were not exactly shy about doing this infront of her. I think they waited for her to come around before doing it. What really confuses me is that I just wanted her to cut pizzas for the night. She shouldn't be cooking anyways. Lisa just wanted to look important.
What am I paying these guys for anyways?

Just a Little Peeved

Just a quick one. Jimmy (Again, not a real name) comes up to me one day and pulls a glass pipe out of his pocket. "Dude, I'm sorry I'm brought this to work." Before I can reply. "I've only had it for two days and look how black it is."
   My first reaction is to hit him in the face with a shovel. I move past this to my second, more HR correct response. "Jimmy, put that away, you can loose your job for that" He replies, "Its Friday night, you don't have anymore cooks. You can't fire me."
   This is why I have 6 interviews set up this week for new cooks.

Fight Night

After being fed up with my current selection of servers, I hired a 16 year old kid, Frankie. In his interview he had great speaking skills. He was dressed nice. He had all his teeth and wasn't on drugs. Great, lets hire him. I found out later that he trains MMA. (That's mixed martial arts for the kids playing the home game.) So I kinda like this kid. He comes in and works hard and goes home, no baby-momma drama.
   Bubba Gump one day decides Frankie is not doing things right and starts messing with his tables. Bubba Gump was doing everything he could to piss Frankie off. Finally I get involved and send Bubba Gump home. Not thinking about it, I shortly after send Frankie on break. A few moments later I am looking out my front door the two are talking. I see Frankie's leg go back, and his hands turn to fists, and I notice that he is assuming the position. Bubba Gump is about to be a splat on the parking lot. I turn to one of my employees and tell him to go call Frankie's phone and tell him to come in. As he walks off I turn to a second employee and state the following, " I just covered my back in there by telling him to call him and tell him to come in, correct." The employee nods. "I'll bet you a nickle when he answers he tells him to punch him in the face." We both get a laugh. we notice Frankie grabs his phone looks at it then looks at us in confusion. When he comes in after hanging up, I ask him when was said to him. "Hit him in the face and knock him out!"
   Don't you just love my employees?

Just a Description

One of my employees gets a post all to himself just as a kind of back story. Bubba Gump sounds like a great name for him. He is a special person. I have no problems with mentally challenged people. None. This person though... I'm not sure what he is. He holds conversations with pizza boxes. He'll randomly start laughing to himself, loudly. I tried talking to him one day. I though he was talking back to me, until he walked away. I realized he was speaking to himself. I call him Wonder Boy. I wonder how he got the job. I wonder how he has kept the job. And I wonder how he gets up and dresses himself every morning.

A Great Customer Complaint

I understand that sometimes we mess up. If someone in my store messes up a pizza, I will go out of my way to make sure the problem is fixed. I've sent drivers to the far reaches of delivery zones with just a few packets of peppers.

   Now sometimes... people can get down right silly. The other night a gentleman called me. I  just happened to answer the phone. After going through our opening gibberish, he asks... "Where is my pizza." Now its a busy night. We quote around 30 to 35 min for delivery at slower times. I asked him his name so I could help him out. His response, "First tell me where my pizza is." At this point I know this will be fun. I end up getting his name. I notice it has been on the road for about 20 minutes. Alright that's just great. I let him know his pizza should be there any minute the driver left 20 min ago, they should be at your doorstep. His answer, "Well its late, I have hungry children I need to put in the bath and get ready for bed. What are you going to do to make me happy." Ok.... My first thought is why are your hungry children not bathed and fed at 10pm at night.... I didn't comment. I told him it should be there any minute I'll call the driver to see where she is. "I've already spoken with your driver, she can't find my house." To sum things up. when I refuse to give him a free pizza he wants my boss's name and number so that he can have me fired along with everyone else in the store. He uses very choice words. As soon as I hang up my driver calls. She says every time she talks to him he yells those choice words with her and hangs up.
   Now this is where things get funny. The next day i come in and mention it to my boss. She says he never called, go figure. A driver near by has a great idea. I will give it to you now.
   "Call up the customer. Ask them why they didn't call in in. Let them know that I didn't come to work because I didn't think i had a job, and now i have to deal with being late and playing catch up all day. Thanks a bunch."
   Just the thought of the look of anger on that inbred, stained wife-beater wearin redneck's face contorted in anger and confusion almost made me do it.

The Start of Everything

I work at a pizza delivery establishment. I deal with customer complaints and employee issues on a daily basis. I came to the conclusion one day that the things I hear need to be shared with the world. All names have been changed to prevent the hurting of feelings. Everything I post here actually happened. I will start off with some old things to get things moving. I hope you guys enjoy!