Don't leave the house.

Well, here's another installment in the near-random series of articles on things that will tick off your pizza delivery guy(gal).  Inspired by an incident that happened today.  An incident often repeated.


The story goes like this:  A lady (because all our customers are ladies or gentlemen) calls up, orders a pizza and wings for delivery.  The CSR taking the order reads the "quoted delivery time"  (That's a little bit of pizza biz jargon.) and quotes the lady 35 minutes.  All fine and dandy.  But the customer believes him, her, or it.  Yours truly gets the delivery out the door at 23 minutes (a little later than optimal, but within the QDT parameter.)  And since it only takes 7 minutes to get to the customer's house, I am "on time" (30 minutes, IDEAL!) Knock, knock .....    No answer.   Knock, knock.   ...   no answer  (count 30 seconds) Knock, knock, knock, knock .... no answer (another 30 seconds)   retreat to the car, dig out the cell phone, call the customer.  Timid female voice "Hello?"   Thats understandable, she's probably thinking "I don't recognize this number, which telemarketer could be calling my cell phone?"  "Hi this is Vern from zzz pizza delivery, did y'all order some pizza?"   "Don't tell me you're there already!"   "Yep, I'm there already, if there is (insert address here)."  "Yes it is, they told me it would be 35 minutes, I just got to Wal-Mart.  Can you wait?"   I am thinking "I just got here at 30 minutes, you were quoted 35, so I am here what, a whole 5 minutes early?  You couldn't have gone to Wal-Mart BEFORE you ordered dinner?  Can I wait here letting my next customer's pizza get cold while you do your shopping?  Sure, honey.  It's not like I'm doing this because I need to get paid or anything practical like that.  Would you like me to mow your lawn while I'm sitting here wasting my and other people's irreplaceable time?"  What I say is " Well I have another delivery to make so why don't I go do that, and come back by your house when I'm done, and maybe you'll be back by then."   "Oh, that would be great!"    At least she included a tip when I did come back.  They don't always do that.