The Perils of Pizza Delivery, Part 7

You know, I don't think I've spent much time complaining about this particular job. I've been delivering pizza on the side for over a year now, but it really hasn't felt like it's been that long. Odds are, it's because I only work two nights a week.

But in this post, I actually have a genuine complaint about a real customer.

My first run of the evening last night was to a little old lady in a quaint little retirement community. It's actually a pretty decent looking place, decked out to look like a real subdivision type of neighborhood. I got to the house and the lady's grandson answered the door. She had paid over the phone with her credit card, so I had the kid take the receipt to the woman so she could sign it.

And then I waited. And I waited. I had another delivery in the car, so I was getting a little impatient. But I just stood there.

Finally, the kid came back to the door and said the old lady needed to call the store because something was wrong.

The first thought that went through my head was that the order was wrong. But I knew that couldn't be the case. See, before I left the store, I checked the pizza and the wings against the receipt that printed out. What was made was what was put into the system. And then I heard her loudly complaining about the price that she was expected to pay.

Now, this sweet, little old lady may have been too weak to get out of her recliner to come and answer the door, but her voice was strong enough to shout down the walls around Jericho. I heard her shouting at the girl who initially took her order over the phone, swearing up and down that there was no possible way her order could have come out to be 26 dollars and some change. Then she asked to speak to the manager.

At this point, she complained about the price some more. And then she decided to complain about the girl she had just talked to. She started out this part of her rant by saying, "Now, I don't like to talk bad about people... but..." In my experience, people who start off a sentence like that are exactly the kind of people who like to talk bad about people. They just use that first phrase to make themselves feel a little less guilty about putting someone down behind their back. Of course, she then proceeded to call the other employee "the stupidest girl I've ever talked to!"

To sum up, the old lady complained on the phone for a good five minutes and ended up getting her food for free. Which also meant I didn't get a tip. And also made me pretty late delivering the other pizza that was sitting in my car. It was a good night.