Saturday, February 24, 2007

Days in the Life of a Pizza Delivery Boy • Chapter 5

I arrive home at 12:30 AM.

A disappointment tonight at work, it was not as busy as anticipated it was actually quite slow tonight. Fridays are usually busy due to parties and families having their "Pizza Night" on Fridays. It's the beginning of the weekend, might as well start with Pizza! Not the case tonight.

When I arrived at work there were a bunch of dishes to do, which is expected. Vegetables were needed to be chopped and orders to be made, luckily there were three of us there with 2 more people coming in at 4:30 PM. I didn't have to cut any vegetables tonight, that was all right but it was due to the constant overload of dishes. I do like to cut the green peppers once in a while though.

The weather was good all day and was clear all night. This is a huge relief being as yesterday it was a pretty bad storm all night and I figured it would’ve carried on into today. The temperature did go down to about -18 Celsius tonight, it wasn't bad though since there wasn't a wind and I didn't have that many deliveries once it did get that cold.

Overall I only had 14 deliveries, which is horrible for a Friday night. In total the delivery sales were worth about $320, on a usual Friday it is anywhere between $500 and $700.

At the end of the night between 11:00 and 12:00 (we close at 12:00) there is ALWAYS someone who will want to order, which is never fun since we start sweeping the floors around 11:00, and try to have it all mopped before 12:00, this almost never happens. When people order and if we’ve already mopped, we have to walk over what we’ve mopped then re-mop and/or sweep since we leave footprints on the wet floor and drop the occasional topping while putting it on the pizza. And of course depending on what they have ordered that means more dishes for me. Someone decided to order at 11:40 PM tonight, it takes 20 minutes to make and cook the food, we weren’t happy, and I had to walk over my nice and clean floor, then re-mop, then wait and sit around since I couldn’t mop anywhere else since the customer would be coming in and would get it dirty again anyways.

At the end of the night I’m given the total amount I owe and have to hand it over. After all the money was handed over I had $49 left to myself in tips, it's not the greatest but for a slow night it'll do. The most I have ever made in JUST tips was $98. That was on a Saturday night, which usually aren’t as busy as Fridays. There were a lot of out-of-town deliveries that night which means lots of money for me. The more out-of-town deliveries there are the better since we get to charge them a "delivery charge" of our choice, depending on the mood we're in and how far out they live. All in all I walk out with $105 for 8 hours of work, which equals to $13.125/hour, that’s not bad at all once I think about it. Then again, I’m not guaranteed that money, and it is only 2 nights a week I deliver.

Since I’m not working tomorrow I finally get to go to a party! My friend always has his parties on Saturday night; of course I’m always working, not this time though! It’s going to be fun!


To be continued…

Friday, February 23, 2007

Days in the Life of a Pizza Delivery Boy • Chapter 4

The day begins a little later than it should have. I didn't bother going to my class today since it was just a work period, and barely anyone goes to those anyways. So, I was able to sleep in a little bit. I got up and out of bed just before 12:00 PM since I had to go and pick up my girlfriend from her class, bring her to the house she stays in while at University then bring her home for our March Break. I was about 15, 20 minutes late, so she wasn't happy about that but we managed.

After getting to her place we had some lunch, egg-salad on a flak seed wrap, never had a flak seed wrap before but it was pretty good. After that she got her stuff together, had to write some emails and within and hour or so we were ready to go home.


I'm going to skip through a bunch of my day since I just got home at 3:25 PM and I have to work at 4:00 PM. I got to start getting ready! It's going to be a change working tonight, it's going to be crazy busy with tons of deliveries. Wish me luck! I will return with Chapter 4 tonight.


To be Continued...

Britney Spears, going downhill FAST

Britney Spears is now in rehab for her third time this week! I always figured she would crash and burn some day...but what she's been doing is just ridiculous. I don't want to her kids go to K-Fed, but someone needs to take them away from her fast. I should feel bad for her, but in all reality she's done most of it to herself.


Here's an article from Yahoo! explaining most of it.

Dennis Goddard - Illustration Class

This is one of my teachers talking about drawing and such last week. I didn't capture the video footage, another classmate did.

This is probably a lot funnier to me since he's my teacher and I know exactly how he acts, and he’s always like this. He just gets so excited about drawing…too excited actually. This is just a short little clip.

Notice how empty the class is though? Usually it's full but less than half the class showed up that day, their fault they missed out though I guess lol.

Days in the Life of a Pizza Delivery Boy • Chapter 2

I arrive at work at 3:50 PM. Nice and early and ready to get to work. Thursday night starts with me usually washing, drying, and putting away some dishes and various dirty items. When I arrived tonight I was informed that I already had a delivery order, it usually takes a couple of hours or so before anyone wants anything delivered since Thursdays are slow and most only order around supper time. I take a look at the bill to see who it is and to get an idea of where I’m going. This order is just up the road from the store at an old friend's house, so that's cool. I grab a slice of pizza to eat before the supper rush hits.

When the order is ready its time for me to head out. Once I get there I'm not even at the door yet and the girl inside opens it. "Sean!" She yells. I haven’t seen her in a long time since she's gone to university 2 hours away. Her March Break is a week before mine (this week) so that's why she was home. We talk a bit ask how school is going and such; it was good to see her again. Back to the store I go.

The traffic was pretty heavy at this point and of course backing out of the laneway onto the main highway is pretty tricky, you have to be quick, fast, and back out at the right time. After waiting a couple of minutes or so before I get a chance to go. I gun it backwards onto the road stick the car in first then I'm off, the traffic coming up on my ass is not doing the speed limit so I had to make sure they didn't come right up on me. I turn the corner to go around the block and head towards the store.

Since it's not busy at this point there isn't much to do. Make sure everything is clean keep washing the pans and any other stuff that needs to be washed. I keep this up the whole night when not busy.

The orders start rolling in around suppertime, which is what usually happens. With three of us only working it's gets kind of hard to keep up but we did it. I didn't have many deliveries tonight; it was about $210 worth in total, which is all right but not the greatest.

The best part of the night would have to be when a woman asked if we had delivery, I told her, "Yes, we do,”
she responded with, "Oh good! I don't want to have to drive in this horrible weather." “Thanks,” I think to myself.
I know it's my job and all but still, don't rub it in on how horrible the weather is and how no one should be driving in it, then ask for me to bring you your food.

This night was not filled with much excitement, work and work, drive and drive, that's about it. Also, being tired from getting up early and spending my day at school doesn’t help me remember everything that happened. Tomorrow (Friday) night will be a little different I presume. I haven’t worked a Friday in a long time, and Fridays actually scare me a little, it’s crazy busy and leaving with multiple orders at one time it gets a little confusing. The tips on the other hand are better due to more orders and more people being drunk.


In the end, some people tip well, the highest tonight was $5 with the lowest being 12cents. We have some pretty generous people around here, and they get more generous when the weather is bad

Goodnight.

To be continued...


Thursday, February 22, 2007

Days in the Life of a Pizza Delivery Boy • Chapter 1


February 22, 2007

The day begins off early since I have to be in class for 9:00 AM. I wake up and my bedside clock radio is shining its blue lights in my eyes, 8:10 AM it reads. I think to myself, "I have a bit of time to sleep just a little more." I then remember that in my 9:00 class I have a test! I jump out of bed and head downstairs to take a shower. After showering and getting nice and clean I take a look at the kitchen clock, 8:00 AM. I think for a bit... oh yeah, good thing I set my bedside clock 10 minutes before the actual time. So now it feels I've gained a bit of extra time and head back upstairs gradually to grab some clothes. After getting dressed, and gathering all of my school stuff together, it's time to head out.

As I go outside I notice the weather isn't as good as the last couple days have been. It's cloudy outside this morning with a slight wind; the past couple of days it has been bright, sunny, and warm. Seeing this bad weather always gets me down. I take a look at my car, must've snowed last night, my car is covered with it. That's fine though, it's not too much so I can clean it off easily. I unlock then get in my car and put my book bag down on the passenger seat. I start it up then grab my car brush/ice scrapper and start clearing off the snow. The snow was wet and heavy and covering all of my windows. It would've been perfect for having a snowball fight but, with no one around to play with and a test to write that wasn't going to happen.

The roads into school are nice and slippery due to the warm days and cold nights. This won’t be fun at all. From home it's about a 20-minute drive if the world is good to me. The roads are clear of traffic, it's good, and I’m able to set my own speed. The roads begin to clear up of the snow and slush; this is also a good thing. I'm almost there, I get into town and the traffic begins. Vehicles are coming from everywhere with each owner feeling that they are the only ones on the road. I'm calm and take my time, today I left home early and have made good time, I’ll be early for class today.

I get to class and sit at a computer then go online so I can check my emails and play a couple of games before the teacher comes. The teacher walks in the door a couple of minutes before class starts. She says we'll do review then start the test, awesome, I had forgot we were going to do review before the test. Oh look, a new game, I drift in and out between the game and what the teacher is saying. "The test will be easy, I'll be fine" I keep thinking to myself, back to the game. I lose. Test time!

After switching seats and moving away from everyone as instructed the teacher begins handing out the "Scan-Tron" papers, sheets of paper where we fill in little boxes with our answers. The test consists of ‘multiple choice’ and ‘true and false' questions, awesome, this is good. Wait, the “Scan-Tron” page has two sides with 250 answer spaces in total, this isn't good. The teacher informs us the test is only 50 questions and that those other 200 are there because that's just how the papers are printed, that's a huge relief for me. As I start looking at the questions, I realize that the majority of the questions don't ring a bell at all, damn online Flash games. Good thing for multiple choice and the process of elimination, some answers to the questions made sense and others didn't, perfect, pick the ones that sound right and I’m good to go. I continue to answer each one until I reach the end. After handing it in it's time to go for breakfast. I go out in the hall where on of my friends was waiting as he finished 2 or 3 minutes before me. We asked each other how it went, laughed because we didn't know the answers, but feel good and confident enough that we did good. Not a minute later our other friend comes out and it's off to get some food, it's now 10:15 AM.

I order pancakes for breakfast, the best part is that the three of us are their so often all we have to do is walk up and the lady knows exactly what we want and has it written down before we're at the counter. I usually change my order though, so everyday it's something new. Today was the first time I've had their pancakes, yesterday I had a waffle with strawberry sauce, it was delicious. We finish eating and my friend pulls out his laptop so we can look up some videos on YouTube.com for a good laugh.

After having a good laugh at some watching some videos I start contemplating whether or not I want to go to my next class. I know we'll just sit there and have to draw stuff, and I'm already not feeling good from all the pancakes and waking up early and that stuff. My one friend tells me that we get our projects back today, so I stay around so I can get it back. Once we get up to class and wait for the teacher to come, we get the projects back; I got an A-, nice. Then I'm off, but not towards home just yet. I drive over to my girlfriend's house for a surprise visit. She was just getting ready for class so my timing was perfect. After she gets ready and gathers her school stuff I take her and her roommate to class. Now, time to head home.

The weather is even worse than before, it's snowing and the wind has picked up greatly. Once I get out of town I have a hard time keeping my car straight, the wind is blowing into the side trying to push me and my car off the road, I won't have any of it and proceed to defeat the wind and its ways. The closer I get to home though the more the wind picks up. I get onto my road finally safe and sound and with just one kilometer to go, but it's one kilometer of wet and slushy gravel. With the combination of the wind and road conditions it was the worst kilometer I've driven in awhile, the road is now trying to pull me into the ditch with the help of the slush and wind. I get to my laneway, stop and get out of the car to check if we have mail. I can see the car tire tracks so I know the mail has come, someone has already gotten it. The red flag on the mailbox to inform of such a situation has not worked ever since I can remember. It really needs to be fixed. After parking my car and grabbing my book bag and project I run into the house to get out of the wind. Home at last. It's just after 2:00 PM.

As I write this it is now 3:33 PM and work as a Pizza Delivery Boy begins at 4:00 PM. Better start getting ready for work, the night hasn't even started.

To be continued...


British Columbia's Best Ski Resorts

Here's a link from Sympatico/MSN Travel showing a nice photo gallery of BC's top resorts. They have some really good pictures you can check out.


I've never been to BC, but would like to go sometime to do some snowboarding and/or mountain biking, depending on the season I go.

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