Can I be Nearly as Interesting as Slang?

[Elspode]

The Pizza Chronicles, or "Why You Should be More Frugal in Your Next Life"
(inspired by "The Shitjob Chronicles" by Slang)

An imperative has been looming over me like a menacing cloud for a few months now. The ravenous wolves of increasing living expenses, decreased income, kids in the hospital and an affinity for indoor living and hot meals have managed to back me into a corner. They now stand growling and salivating mere inches from my quivering face. We need more money, and we need it RFN.

I had been talking about taking a second job delivering pizza for some time, but the fact that I have a pretty busy life even without the burden of added employment had been keeping from actually engaging such a job. When it finally became undeniable that the proverbial wolves were indeed actually standing at the door, waving paws full of envelopes stamped "overdue", I
swallowed my pride and headed out to the Papa John's Pizza where our family friend Robert has held a "when I need pocket money" sort of job as a delivery guy for a few years now. As he had predicted, they were pretty much willing to hire anyone with an unencumbered driver's license. Apparently, there is something of a high turnover rate, and a constant supply of warm
bodies and warmer vehicles is always needed. Whoda thunk it?

It felt pretty weird sitting there, filling out the requisite application paperwork and the reams of disclaimers, arbitration agreements, MVR Report approvals...you know - the same stuff that I have other people fill out at my real job? I gave the mound of paper to the 30ish blonde manager lady, whom we will call Stacey (because that is her name), and was told I'd be contacted in a few days, once the MVR came back.

As luck would have it, I didn't hear from anyone for a week, and so I took it upon myself to call back last Friday. Surprise! My MVR had just come back that very day! All looked good, and I was asked when I'd like to report. Nice to have a choice. Since I had major things going on over the weekend, I decided that Monday was as good a starting day as any.

I left my real job at 5:00, and made the 40 minute drive to PJ's in Lee's Summit, MO. I even had time to stop on the way and scarf a couple of greasy Quik Trip tacquitos and a Diet Coke on the way. I called it "dinner" (catchy, huh?). I reported to Stacey who was ensconsced in her managerial "office" (I have a closet bigger than her office, and my closet is much better organized). Flour dust covered everything within, including the hefty knit Papa John's embroidered uniform shirt she dug out from the floor under her desk (counter, actually).

"I'm going to have to call Raleigh to get you a hat...and a nametag. I don't have any nametags," she told me.

"Hat? Eewww...I'm not a real hat person," I replied. She laughed, and made me sign another pile of paperwork. Then, my training began.

Ten minutes later, my training was unceremoniously ended when I was handed my first order and given an unreadable 99th-generation photocopy of a map to guide me to the customer's house. Oh, my. I walked out into the dark, drizzly night and headed out on my first delivery, a two-location job.

Lee's Summit, Missouri is one of the largest cities in the nation in terms of physical boundaries. After experiencing phenomenal growth through the 90's and into the New Millenium, the formerly sleepy Midwestern farm town (home to the infamous Younger brothers of Wild West fame) is a hodgepodge of retail, new housing, old housing and vacant ex-farmland, all swirled together in a Daliesque, suburban hallucinogenic fashion. First note to self: get a better map. The cutup streets quickly became a major challenge. Fifth street runs for five of the necessary seven blocks from where I turned onto it, but abruptly ends in a cul-de-sac at 2000...I needed to get to 2200. Shit. The spitting, misty rain seems to consume the available light from street lights and porch lights, making house numbers impossible to see. Second note to self: either get a 1,000,000 candlepower rechargable floodlight, or a nightvision scope.

Amazingly, I found all my deliveries last night. Six out of the seven were late; two egregiously so. There is very little margin for error. You essentially have 10 usable minutes from the time you walk out the door to get a pizza to the customer within the targeted 35 minutes (pizzas take about 18 minutes from order to completion, bagging, adding extras and getting your directions more or less straight takes about five to seven), so if you go at all astray, you are going to be late. Apparently it is a fairly common thing as PJ's is now sending out recordkeeping sheets for drivers to have the customer sign, showing when their order was placed, and when it was actually delivered. I lost mine in the dark and the rain, and had to forge it at the end of the night. And so it goes...

Part of me enjoyed the delivery thing. Driving around, listening to the radio, playing hide and go seek with buildings and streets. It was a bit like being a detective, only with the aroma of pizza wafting around you. Maybe like being an Italian detective, I guess.

Next - The bad part of the job...