Number of Deliveries: 18
Sales: $1,048
Tips: $120
Hours: 8.98
Total Wage: $21.79 per hour
I worked all day, made good money, and am about to leave with a pizza for my brother and neighbors, who are watching Monday Night Football at my house. I hear a counter girl tell the manager that a customer walked out pissed off about his salad not being ready, saying we could deliver it to him. Since I'm waiting for my pizza to cook and the man's house isn't far, I offer to take the salad. But the deliveries on the screen are getting so old, the manager asks if I want to take more, even though I'm all but clocked out. "Sure," I say. I could use the extra cash, the two orders are big ($57 & $69), and it shouldn't take too long.
I accidentally pass the entrance where the salad man lives, and turn around. I sit at a compound gate with no last name and no code. I call the Pizzeria, and after some research, the manager comes up with the gate code. I'm into the compound, but there are multiple unmarked driveways and fenced pastures. It takes passing two before I turn around and try the first steep driveway. I'm all up in these people's yard, turning around on their driveway, shining my lights in their house and on their garage, searching for a number I can't find. No one comes outside, so I figure it must be the wrong house, or they would have investigated the motor boat with the searchlights in their driveway.
I head back down to the entrance road and call the salad man, telling him I don't see any addresses. He tells me I need to keep driving on the road for about a mile (a mile!) and cross the bridge, then I'd find him on the left. I cross the bridge, but see multiple buildings––houses, stables, etc.––on the left and no numbers. I drive a little more, and a driveway on the right almost has the number I'm looking for. I call the salad man again, thinking he's going to lose it on me. He says to turn around and come up the dirt driveway to the building on the left of the main house just past the bridge, which looks to be stables connected to a house. I find him, and the salad controversy is over, but my other orders are now bordering on fossilization.
I haul ass way up El Camino Real, where the address numbers are usually hidden in bushes or adorn unlit rocks near driveways. When I finally arrive at delivery number one after stopping to read several hidden address numbers, an "Inland Empire" couple answers the door: black motocross logo clothes and crooked hat for him ("Metal Mulisha, bro"); bleached hair, black clothes, and tall rubber sandals for her. "We're really hungry," she says, which is code for you're late. Funny, they look well fed, and I assume they have cupboards and cupboards and an entire refrigerator full of food in this big ass house. She punishes me with a $2.48 tip. Expected.
I'm off, and when I arrive at the last delivery, a young girl answers the door, looking excited. Dinner time. But then Dad comes to the door, and makes an exaggerated gesture to check his watch. Translation = you're late. He decides he, too, should punish my tardiness, and writes in a $2 tip on the $69.64 order. Ouch.
By the time I get back to the Pizzeria an hour later, my pizza is coagulated and curling in on itself, I only have six more dollars in my pocket, and I'm going to miss the end of the football game (Brett Favre battling his old team!). When my neighbor calls to see where I (the pizza, actually) am, I don't even answer my phone. The impatient salad man, the I.E. couple, and the watch tapper have ruined my entire day.
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