Make me a better pizza dude

November 22, 2007 8:46 AM

I am interested in taking a pizza delivery job. Any tricks of the trade in performing this job as efficiently as possible?

I hear this job is pretty laid back but I have a few concerns. One being that I have a horrible sense of direction and I might be working in a part of town I am not familiar with. I knew a cab driver that had a a little GPS road device that she swore was the best investment ever. Any navigational or road advice? Also, I am rather skinny and not a fighter. I imagine having to deliver to some rough neighbor hoods and having someone jack the pizza. Anybody ever had to deal with this? I look forward to serving those of you in the Austin area.

posted by Brandon1600 to work & money (28 comments total)

Check out
http://www.tipthepizzaguy.com/

I tip well now.
As for GPS, the Garmin Nuvi is awesome.
posted by asavage at 8:49 AM on November 22, 2007

Not really a tip, but be aware that pizza delivery is hard on your car. Try to be extra-conscientious about maintenance.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:04 AM on November 22, 2007

I delivered pizza for a few years, but I don't have too many tips for safety, since I delivered in a mostly very safe area.

- Buy a map book of your city. One of the coil bound ones that you can just flip through. You should get to know which pages cover your area, and make lots of use of the street index. This is your lifeline.

- A cell phone is almost a necessity. If you don't have one, seriously consider getting one.

- Check and double check the bills before leaving. Check again before walking to the house with the food. You don't want to deal with having to go back to the store for a forgotten item or for mixing up the deliveries. Make sure you have everything and that the address is proper and includes a buzz code if it's an apartment.

- When on the receiving end of deliveries... tip well. Tip karma is very real :) Also, try not to be too grouchy at those who stiff you but make sure you give the good tippers a very genuine thanks and maybe give them preference in the future. In Winnipeg, my average tip was maybe $2. (I got paid $2.25 a delivery plus tips, cash nightly). Tips ended up being equal or greater than my wages on a good night.

- If you are offered a tip in the form of pot... take it. Even if you don't partake, it's a virtual gurantee that some of the other drivers do. In my experience, 90% of pizza employees smoke pot :) Also, this is Winnipeg, so that might be skewed higher than it would be in other cities.

- Learn to change a tire if you don't know how.

- Here's my one big tip for safety... drop your cash often on busy nights. There's no point in carrying around hundreds of dollars in your pockets, leave it at the store.

- learn to drive like a (safe) asshat.
posted by utsutsu at 9:10 AM on November 22, 2007 [3 favorites]

My husband was a delivery driver for about a year back in 1999-2000. Here's his advice:

Take as many deliveries in the same neighborhood as possible, to limit gas consumption. That way, some other guy whose deliveries are closer together doesn't take your tips. Use the maps in the pizza place to figure things out, but a GPS would have been great in my day.

ALWAYS lock your doors when delivering in seedy neighbourhoods and don't carry a wallet, only your ID and an ATM card. Never carry more than 40 bucks on you in change.

Day shifts pay more since corporations tip better.

If you have the choice of being paid by the delivery or by the hour take by the delivery on the weekends as you will always come out further ahead.

Hope this helps!
posted by melissa at 9:16 AM on November 22, 2007

Your car insurance may not cover you if you're delivering pizza. Being cheery and personable helps with tips. Drive slowly in residential areas - you're going to be in a lot of residential areas, and hurting someone with your car would feel awful, possibly result in charges, and be wrong. There's a pizza place at the end of my street now, and some of the drivers speed. I ask the cops to ticket on my street because this is my home, and I want to be safe.
posted by theora55 at 9:24 AM on November 22, 2007

I did it for about a year and a half, and all this advice is good, ESPECIALLY the part about it being hard on your car. If you live in an area where $500 cars are available (I did it in NC; I'm assuming TX is similar), I would suggest buying one and using that as your pizza delivery vehicle until it stops working.

As theora55 said, your insurance won't cover you for pizza delivery. I got away with not telling them, but I have no idea what would have happened if I got into a wreck.
posted by lovetragedy at 9:39 AM on November 22, 2007

I knew a cab driver that had a a little GPS road device that she swore was the best investment ever.

Cab drivers make a lot more than pizza drivers, and they have people in the car who they probably don't want to get out a map in front of. Just use a map.

(Lovetragedy is onto it there -- note that they're suggesting a car that's probably the same price as the GPS you're thinking about.)
posted by mendel at 9:43 AM on November 22, 2007

Pizza-jacking might happen once in awhile, but it never happened to me in my year and a half of driving pies. If you think about it, even people who would normally just steal something like to eat their pizza in peace and you already have their address and phone number. 2+2=safety, more or less. I am skinny and super white and never had a problem in downtown San Jose (which runs the gamut from ghetto to fabulous). Basically, most people understand the pizza guy is not the enemy. That doesn't mean they tip well, but that's a separate issue.

Pizza guys do get robbed from time to time, but it's not your money anyway so if on a slim chance you do get rousted you can throw your wad at them and be done with it. Pizza delivery people rarely get killed or anything like that, so I'd call it statistically insignificant. It was never a concern for me, even though maybe once a year it would happen to a coworker.

As for being the driver, the biggest piece of advice I can give is to work on volume. If you get a gas allowance, great, but drive as many pizzas as you can. Don't fall into the Mystic Pizza trap of being all cool at the pizza joint and yammering on with your friends. It's true, pizza places are social centers, but to get into this when there are pizzas to be delivered is to sell yourself short. Maximize your gas allowance by driving as many pizzas as possible, which will also increase your tips. Once you have the streets memorized you'll be able to zip all around and give people hot pizzas and they'll come back for more. Get a car that lasts, too, like a 10yr old Corolla or otherwise famous for going to 200,000 miles so all you have to worry about is the oil change and yearly tune up.
posted by rhizome at 9:47 AM on November 22, 2007

Get a a good flashlight. Maglites are good. And a recent map will also do for most of your needs.

Always be aware of your surroundings. And if you can get away with taking the window wing (big pizza sign on the roof) off your car, you may want to consider it, at least sometimes. Some managers will bitch about that, but won't escalate beyond whining. Some may have fits.

Most of the other important points are covered above.
posted by dilettante at 9:52 AM on November 22, 2007

You can buy a decent GPS for about $200 these days, so it's not that much of an investment (especially considering my map book was $30), especially if you'd like to have one anyway. Here's the thing about them, though--they're not that efficient. They will get you where you are going, absolutely, but they will not, as a general rule, take the best route. They might get close, but they don't know which roads are crowded at that time of day, or where you have to make a left and don't have the right of way so it's a bitch waiting for a chance to turn. You need something to tell you where the streets are that you're not familiar with, but if you're not hopeless with maps, chances are you'll be able to pull better routes out of your ass than your GPS can, once you've located your destination.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:01 AM on November 22, 2007

More of a psychological tip but read the first few pages of Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson, in order to feel like quite the cool dude. Hiro Protagonist is a pizza delivery man in perhaps the coolest delivery setup ever. He's the Fonzie of Pizza Delivery Dudes.
posted by WCityMike at 10:02 AM on November 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Here's some anecdotal goodness.
posted by Diggins at 10:08 AM on November 22, 2007

Maybe before you make your decision you could stop in at the local police station and ask if there have been any issues with pizza delivery robberies. Boston has had some problems with armed robberies. Cell phones make it easy to remain anonymous. The pizza place might not be so upfront about past events.
posted by InkaLomax at 10:21 AM on November 22, 2007

enjoy your job and the free pizza that comes with it, but every day you should be thinking about what comes after pizza delivery careerwise, because a career in pizza delivery as an endpoint objective might not be an optimum use of your talents and earning power.
posted by bruce at 10:52 AM on November 22, 2007

5 years experience at 4 stores in 3 different neighborhoods:

College stores are busy but the kids don't tip

Forget the flashlight, get a million candlepower light you can plug into the cigarette lighter.

Don't wait around for one more delivery to come out of the oven, get in and out as fast as possible.

Work to close, that last hour is good money

Tuesday's suck

Weekdays suck (only busy for 2 hours and then dead)

See if you can come in at 4:30 (so you're there before the other drivers and therefor get the first dinner run)
posted by Mick at 10:57 AM on November 22, 2007

Get a cellphone and each house's number. Call them if you can't find the place.

Make good friends with the manager / dispatcher. He or she will hook you up with the best / most deliveries

Your productivity will go down if you smoke weed at your friends houses whilst out on deliveries.

Park as close to your store's exit as possible. It may not seem like much but those extra steps add up after 25 deliveries.

Double check your tickets before leaving the store.

If change for the order is 5.00 / 10.00, give back change in singles. You're more likely get a tip.

If your store has a POS, punch back in as soon as you get back to the store so you get back in line ASAP.

Talk sh*t all night long to the other driver's about how fast you are and how much better you are at procuring tips.

Be cool and friendly with all of your patrons.

Be ready to find yourself in some strange predicaments. I went to a hotel room once. The door was answered by a huge biker who was apparently having a photo-shoot with two naked biker chicks.

Be ready to deal with people who are drunk and passed out.

If you ever have to deliver to the pediatric ward at the hospital, ask the front desk 'Dude, where's the baby department?'.......One of our drivers had a bit of a limited vocabulary.
posted by jasondigitized at 11:43 AM on November 22, 2007

Oh, and don't get too good at actually working inside the store. They will want to promote you to manager or pizza whiz.
posted by jasondigitized at 11:44 AM on November 22, 2007

Got myself through undergrad driving pizzas around.

Forget the GPS. It can do a lot of things, but (I think) it doesn't know what one-way streets, alleys, parking lots, and convoluted apartment complexes are. You're much better off just getting a good map (usually the one the shop uses is good-- get a duplicate or make one). One thing that helped me was marking the "main drags" in your delivery area with a highlighter-- that way, you can easily route yourself in relation to the main streets, and you'll start to see how your town's laid out. Take an afternoon to drive around your delivery area-- you'll learn a lot.

Alleys and parking lots are your friends. Use them as shortcuts whenever possible.

People like getting pizza delivered to their door, so you are the gatekeeper to the pleasant experience they expect. Reinforce their expectations by moving quickly, making change fast, being polite, and letting them get to their food ASAP.

Seconding the cheery attitude. The customer's jokes are always funny. Their kids/pets are cute, their house is nice, and you really like their shirt/dress/hair. "Thanks a lot," "I'm really sorry," and "Have a good night/holiday" are key phrases you must master.

Seconding the cell phone, the flash light, and dropping your cash often.

Seconding doublechecking your orders before leaving the store (see utsusu's pothead statistic above).

Seconding locking your doors if the area warrants it, but (the environment be damned) i recommend leaving your car running whenever possible. it's hard on your engine and starter to keep starting, and you're usually away from your car for only a short time.

A less honest man than me would advise you to tell your insurance company you work in the kitchen of a restaurant, not as a delivery person. He'd also advise you to avoid listing your occupation as a delivery driver anywhere official in case there's ever a question.

DON'T SPEED (seriously, it's not worth it), but remember that the quicker you get back to the shop after each delivery. Avoid time-wasters like fueling, stopping for food (do these on your way to work), or yapping on your cell phone.

You'll notice that a large percentage of your deliveries are to repeat customers. Establish a friendly rapport. If you have a choice of taking that delivery or another one, take that one. Tips tend to get bigger if people like seeing that it's you again.

Mistakes will happen. Cars will break down. Your orders will be late for reasons beyond your control. How you handle the situation will determine the customer's reaction. Sometimes taking control of the situation is necessary; to be frank, lying your ass off when necessary helps you, and helps the customer feel better about the situation. What sounds better: "I forgot your side order" or "Boy, I'm really sorry about the holdup. Those trains know just when to cross, don't they?" Most customers will sympathize, and their pleasant experience with you remains intact. Nobody but God knows the truth, and he doesn't tip anyhow.

Having said that, proactivity is ideal: if their pizza gets smashed en route, call and tell the customer you'll be a few minutes late ("It'll be fresh out of the oven for you" can soften the blow). If you forget a 2-liter, don't go back to the store. Bite the bullet and buy one at the nearest corner store. It'll keep you from being late, and you'll be more careful next time. If your boss is cool, he/she might let you apply your purchase to the next 2-liter you deliver.

Help your fellow drivers out whenever you can, with shift switches, dividing up good runs, giving smokes/lights, etc. Someday you will need their help.

What's good for the business is good for you. Keep a supply of menus with you, and drop a few off when you can at neighboring houses, bars, etc. If you're on delivery (especially if you're identifiable via uniform or sign on your car), don't be a dumbass, an asshole, or a bad driver.

Not tipping sucks, but it's less common than you'd think, and it's for different reasons. People who make excuses for not tipping are full of shit, but people who don't say anything might not know you're supposed to, or they just realized they only have enough cash on them to cover the bill. Either way, be polite about it. Sometimes those people learn you're supposed to tip, or their friends call them out for being cheapasses. In the rare case of somebody who is a prick and a non-tipper, put those people on low priority (if their stop is one of 3 on that run, guess who gets their pizza last?).

You'll meet a variety of people who work at the shop, who work there for different reasons. Some will be cool, some will be morons, and some will be assholes. Some will be grad students, some will be single moms, and some will be felons. Lots of the rules are unwritten (every shop is different), so it might be wise to keep your mouth shut the first few weeks and listen to how people interact. Lying, backstabbing, and shameless opportunism are common. Don't get caught up in games, shit-talking, drug-dealing, scams, or betting-- and keep your mouth shut about the people who do.

Get used to high turnover, and if your boss starts to lean on you (a reliable person) too heavily to compensate, make it cost him/her something or the leaning will get heavier. Ask for more days off, the best days off, ask to make food on the store's dime, etc.

Lastly (finally!), remember that most towns have tons of pizza shops, and most are hiring at any given time, so if you get sick of one place, you can move to the next. Shops differ radically in character and structure, so their differences can be day and night.

But really, if you play your cards right, you can make decent money, have a good time at work, and reduce your grocery bills significantly. The hours are usually flexible, and you're out and about instead of tied to your workplace.

I can't imagine you'd want to hear more from me about this subject, but if you have any questions my email's in my profile. Good luck!
posted by Rykey at 11:48 AM on November 22, 2007 [5 favorites]

My GPS knows where the one way streets are. It's a lot easier to have directions read to you in a pleasant voice that's immediately rerouted if you make a wrong turn than it is to read a map while you're driving. The most important thing about a GPS is it tells you where you are; no map will tell you that.

All this advice is great, but I wish someone would have told me before I started delivering 'za that I shouldn't let the management and cooks use me as their personal concierge. I was delivering purchases to houses, picking up wives and kids, getting ingredients from the farmer's market, dropping off lunches to relatives, getting coffee, AND delivering pizza. This, of course, led to a huge blowout and me getting fired, but not before my car had all flavors of Italian food spilled all over it and many many many miles tacked on.

DO NOT FORGET to get a phone number for the place you're delivering to. It's a lot easier to call and say, "I'm having a little trouble finding your place, I'm at x, what's the best way there?". The gentlemen taking the orders were not the greatest English speakers, spellers, or clear writers, so more than once I would get sent to the wrong address, which no GPS can help, for example 81 Davis St instead of 81 Davids St.

Good luck on your Italian food transport technicianship.
posted by knowles at 12:22 PM on November 22, 2007

I did this during my school years back in germany. over there, they give you company cars and boy, you should have seen how trashed these thingies were after a year or so. being driven around the city every day by us tip-hungry youngsters really put a toll onto them.

I second the suggestion for a strong flashlight. a maglight is good since when in doubt also looks kind of menacing but there are some million candle-light ones rather cheap at home depot now that I wished I had had back then.

here's the thing though: it's kind of stressful, you are out in all kinds of weather and it doesn't pay well at all. looking back, I'd say it wasn't a job worth doing.

again, I was 18-20 when I did this. it's been a long time since then.
posted by krautland at 12:26 PM on November 22, 2007

- Do nothing to attract the attention of cops. If you spot any cops, become gray, invisible, one of many. While cops are around drive like one of the sheeple. Abandon all other priorities. You want to interact with cops *only* as customers (always ask if they've seen any roadworks), or (on the off chance you get into some trouble) as defenders of yourself.
- If for some reason cops *do* stop you--and you will normally know the reason why--have your license out of your wallet before the cop gets to your car. Be polite but untalkative, ask no questions, do not engage in chitchat, and respond to idiotic cop questions such as "Is this a pizza emergency?" or "Wow, is this an antique car?" with a polite no. You saw nothing, you know nothing, you are of no interest, you are worth only the time spent writing up your ticket and not one second more of the cop's time. If for some god-unknown reason a cop wants to check your car over tell the cop you need to call the store, and call the store immediately in the cop's hearing and tell them "The cops have stopped me, they want to check my car over thoroughly for some reason, I probably won't be able to make my deliveries to ..., do you want to send out another driver?" This is the behavior of an innocent, responsible person.
- Make sure your car *can* pass the kind of casual inspection a roadside cop will give it. Mirrors, seatbelts, tires, license plate, lights. No drugs! If for some reason a customer offered you pot as a tip, you should have stashed it somewhere safe as soon as you got back to your car. An empty pizza box at the bottom of a pile of full ones on the back seat is good - this is also a good place to put a pile of money. Put pot under the money too.
- Always look for emptier lanes as you approach lights. "Slip" lanes and turn/forward lanes are great for getting around clumps of traffic.
- The easiest way to avoid 2-vehicle accidents is to be on your own whenever possible. Try to drive such that no vehicles are close behind, in front, or beside you.
- Work out your stopping distance. You can do this on the roads - just brake hard a few times at various speeds when no-one is behind you (and no cops around - despite this being essential knowledge, it attracts adverse police attention). Protect that stopping distance, it is more essential to your safety than anything else. If someone jumps into it, back up.
- *Always* let people in. If they indicate beside you, slow down if they're a little in front or speed up if they're a little behind.
- Work out *exactly* how wide and how long your car is. The easiest way to do this is for you to sit in it, while you watch a friend walk all the way around the car touching the edge.
- Chicane on multi-lane unidirectional roads. This means, change lanes on curves to reduce the distance you travel, and speed yourself up just a little bit. Obviously this isn't perfectly safe driving; use some judgement with it. Don't chicane on bidirectional roads.
- Jackrabbit takeoffs get you your choice of lane and get you away from the mass of cars. This is really the only reason to do 'em, as they cost extra fuel. So once you've gotten your choice of lane and are away from other cars, back off a bit.
- Accelerate around corners and up hills; back off just a little before a hill top so that as you're crossing over the top, you're decelerating. This is just in case of--WHOA PARKED CAR!
- Keep to the inner lane outside of rush hour, for that exact reason.
- Drive *actively*. Always be thinking about what might be ahead. If all the cars ahead of you are changing into one lane for no clear reason, do the same - you're coming up to a "lane closed" sign or a parked car.
- If behind a bus take note of the "next stop" light, if you can see it. It's easier to overtake it before the upcoming stop.
- SUVs suck. They really, really, really suck. No-one realizes how much until they are driving around as a job and continually find themselves behind these sight-blocking, slow monstrosities. Prioritize getting in front of SUVs. On the upside, you can take off much faster than they can.
- Trucks and buses, for the same reason, suck worse. Remember that a truck or bus has a *much* longer stopping distance than you do and do not cut in front of one unless there is free space for you to zoom away.
- As you get to know the roads you'll learn the lane-changes, but there will be roads where lanes kind of alternate which of them is faster, due to the presence of exits/entrances. Experiment a bit.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 12:59 PM on November 22, 2007

What everyone else said, and emphasizing that it is hard on the car. You might want to set money aside for maintenance.
posted by unknowncommand at 2:21 PM on November 22, 2007

Know the speed limits and more importantly, know the speed traps in the community. Be careful (or simply know your company's policy) about taking checks as some companies will take it out of your pay if they bounce. 10mph over is a good speed on main roads but in über residential areas, try to stick around 6-7 mph over. Always pay attention to the neighborhood and surroundings; if it seems sketchy, it usually is. I second an early 90's Toyota or Civic. I put 40K on a 93 civic delivering pizzas and fortunately, made enough to pay for college... Change your oil every 5K miles. Do not take up smoking cigs if you don't already.
posted by priested at 3:04 PM on November 22, 2007

When I used to deliver to high rise blocks of apartments using elevators I'd get out at the recipient floor, press the top floor button, then re-press the floor I was on. The elevator would go up straight up to the top then back to my floor by the time I'd completed the transaction. This avoided someone on the ground floor "stealing" my ride and allowed me to get in and out of the building quickly.
posted by brautigan at 3:16 PM on November 22, 2007

Regarding leaving your car running - when I was driving a cab, I had to get in that habit (the first time you go to answer a call and discover your cab won't start, you'll never want to turn it off again). What I did was make a copy of the key, and attach the spare to my keyring with a detachable connection. Thus, when I had to jump out to buy smokes, use the bathroom or whatever, I'd leave the cab running but lock the doors. This will deter casual thieves (and you might be surprised at the apparently safe locations where someone might decide to take your car for a spin), and assuming you have a beater people are unlikely to be motivated enough to break a window/jimmy your door. Just make sure you take the other key with you - locking your keys in the car is embarrassing, locking them in the car *when it's running* is downright humiliating!
posted by Banky_Edwards at 4:36 PM on November 22, 2007

Round 2:

Get your manager to give free pizza to the local cops (then you can have a little more leeway on the road).

When you're really busy and late with the pizza if you learn to come across as doing your best and sincerely sorry you can actually make better tips (pitty tip!).

Ask the manager if you can take any mistake pizza at the end of the night, head to the closest dorms and sell them for $5 a pop.

Most of your coworkers will be unreliable, so if you are reliable the manager will love you (unless he's a burnout too).
posted by Mick at 5:06 PM on November 22, 2007

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm gonna think about this a
little while.
posted by Brandon1600 at 5:58 PM on November 22, 2007

More of a psychological tip but read the first few pages of Snow Crash

Wait, don't you mean read all of Snow Crash?
posted by baphomet at 1:05 AM on November 23, 2007