Pickup or Delivery?

I was thinking about this recently and thought I should share. This is a reflection from when I used to work answering phones in a local pizza joint in Blacksburg, VA. I worked at the pizza shop for a good year, maybe 2 … to be quite honest; I don’t even remember exactly how long … but a decent while. I didn’t own a car nor was I able to drive, which automatically relegated me to the position of Phone-Answer-er … and sometimes cook, but I think I was pretty good on the phone (hidden talent #217), so I rarely cooked.

The format of this reflection is in the ‘Then & Now’. Then is obvious, and now is also obvious.


THEN: I was told repeatedly by my (drunken) female customers how sexy my voice was and how I should consider a career in phone sex operation. Hey, I’ll take any kind of flattery I can get. What? Are you kidding me? What is so sexy about: “Thanks for Calling, is this for pick-up or delivery”? (But then again …)

NOW: In hindsight, I think the bitches were definitely trying to score some discounts.

THEN: I had a boss, who must have been under the impression that a person would like him and like coming to work without getting paid for it – I wasn’t feeling that at all but if it wasn’t for all that free food … (I got SO much free food, which elevated me into everyone’s favorite-person-status in the design studio building … you cheap fucks).

NOW: No, people will STILL not like you even after you have paid them. Popularity’s definitely down; I have no means of providing endless supplies of free pizza, subs, wings, fries, wraps, drinks. (Also, to the credit of M.S., who is a well-meaning person, just a bad planner (?) – I did get rides home occasionally, and actually I think I got paid a couple of times when other co-workers didn’t – clearly favoritism, but hey … I spoke Arabic).

THEN: I felt there was about 3 ‘sane’ people out of an entire staff of about 20 or so. Have you ever seen that movie Con-Air? A few of the characters were definitely sampled straight out of that movie (not that they were criminals, but the shady/sketchy factor was just too much to ignore).

NOW: Sadly, I don’t think I was one of those 3 sane people.

THEN: I used to worry about riding my bike over there because … WHERE would I park it? I could take it in, but have to endure a barrage of questions and moving it around so it’s “out of the way”.

NOW: I am Bike-less because my bike got stolen back then, because I left it on the street (because I could never figure out where to park it).

THEN: I watched music videos on MTV & BET to pass the time waiting for the phone to ring. I used to work with some very good friends (A husband, his wife and son) who were Mexican and they got so upset that I would turn up the volume on “crap music … maaan”. In my defense, the nature of the music television channels was conducive to “crap music ... maaan” (I think that was the time when J-Lo was telling us how “REAL” she was … EVERY WEEK … and her next song was a definite reassurance that she was “REAL” … and so on and so on – each version had a different hip hop artist featured).

NOW: There are no more music videos on MTV & BET – Just some crazy people who throw each other’s clothes in the pool, and then prefer to be called Sluts & Whores but NOT liars.

THEN: I would stay awake until 5 a.m. on nights that I worked. I rarely had weekends off and I cannot remember the last time I made it to any of my 8 am classes. You know, I feel like it was all for a good reason, that I was “working” … and so in my opinion missing class was excusable (Kids, don’t do that at home … GO TO CLASS).

NOW: I try to go to bed before 11 pm… but I do still wake up at 5 a.m. to grab a quick drink of water and then go back to bed to sneak in an extra hour of sleep.

THEN: We had a disgruntled ex co-worker who came into the shop and went postal. (No guns involved, but it was still some crazy shit). I think this is around the time when this was a social phenomenon in the U.S., but it really wasn’t cool to watch. A drunken Mr. R (I would have initialed but I forgot his last name) coming into the shop and BREAKING the glass window and threatening to “choke” a delivery driver. Mr. R. was tackled to the ground – but we all felt bad (and probably thought he had a point), so we never called the cops, and he just sort of calmed down afterwards, ate some food, apologized and left.
Note: Mr. R’s threats were so empty, considering he could barely stand up and complete a single sentence. It actually took one person to restrain him.

NOW: I have two theories about this incident:

1) This was an elaborate/ innocent ploy by Mr. R. to get some free late night drunken food, and he was actually so drunk that he managed to break a window in the process.

2) This was all a production, carefully staged by my old boss. It started off so dramatic and great … but as soon as the window broke … it just fizzled to nothingness, shouldn’t that have made shit hit the fan?!

THEN: "The Deal" was way cool. "The Deal", with a neighboring TCBY store ...was very simple ... You give us free IceCream ... anytime, we give you free food ... anytime. BUT the TCBY girls weren't all "BAD". Only some of the girls would fox with "The Deal"... from our end, it was an ORDER, our boss (the owner) demanded that we participate in this Shenanigan.

NOW: Very glad "The Deal" was with TCBY, and not our other neighbors ... TACO BELL! I give you a Cheese-Steak, you give me ...ummm...Nachos?