A day in the life of a pizza boy

EVER SINCE I’VE HAD this article to write, I’ve been encouraged by close friends and family and coworkers to write about pizza — for the past year-and-a-half or so, I’ve worked at a small local pizza chain as a delivery driver. Every week, I dismiss this idea.

I had been (and indeed, still am) reluctant to write about this for several reasons, the first and probably most fundamental being that typically we look at people’s occupational choices as somehow an integral factor in understanding that person.

I am hesitant to write about being a delivery driver primarily because I don’t want people to understand me within the context of being a delivery driver — I’d rather they understand that it’s not really a part of my life that I identify with particularly closely.

I am a college student, majoring in music composition and English, and delivering pizzas is something I do for extra money.

Secondly, the sheer volume of things I could say about both delivering pizzas and simply just working inside the store far exceeds the scope of a single article. If I am to talk about working in the pizza business, it will require several articles spanning a variety of subtopics.

Third, I am not entirely sure of the interest that people have in hearing more “idiot customer” anecdotes — it seems that anybody who’s ever worked in any sort of retail or food service environment has a good number of their own stories to tell.

With regards to these stories I fear that any discussion of them will ultimately devolve into a petty sort of dismissal of anybody who I feel has ever slighted me, ever given me an odd look or addressed me in the wrong tone of voice.

I feel that, in a way, pizza has made me a worse person.

I am more cynical, less forgiving, more judgmental, less understanding.

Pizza makes me hate people, and I don’t like knowing that about myself — I resent it, in fact.

Nevertheless, consider this segment one in an ongoing series of articles chronicling my adventures in the pizza business and advising you on how to keep your favorite delivery boy from giving the idea of backing into your mailbox any serious consideration.

This article will explore the deceptively tricky task of ordering pizza.

When I think about the difficulty of ordering pizza, I rank it somewhere between “forming a cohesive sentence” and “pouring a bowl of cereal.”

I’m sure most people don’t think of it as a particularly difficult assignment, yet, a strange paradox arises out of this: nobody thinks of “ordering pizza” as intellectually demanding, yet, from my experience, fewer than half the people who attempt this feat are able to succeed without some sort of guidance (in the form of questions like “And what would you like on your pizza?”)

Here then, is the secret, the most fundamental and yet most violated rule of ordering pizza: know what you want before you call.

At least have a good idea, anyway. Asking if a given restaurant has a particular topping is a valid question; asking a given restaurant to name the toppings they have is not.

The response will be something like this — “Pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives, red onions, green onions, bell peppers, Canadian bacon, pineapple, ground beef, bacon pieces, jalapeños…”

and chances are, you’ll have interrupted somewhere around “red onions,” and just ordered a pepperoni-and-olive anyway.

One other important thing to remember about ordering a pizza is that you should never ever allow your children to order for you.

It’s only cute until you get your pizza with roughly half the toppings you thought you’d ordered and probably a few you’d explicitly asked your kid to leave off.

I am being honest when I say that no matter how intelligent you deem your child, he or she is still not smart enough to order pizza efficiently.

Even the brightest of youngsters freezes up when faced with demands such as: “And what are your major cross-streets?” or “I’m going need the three digit verification code on the back of the credit card.”

I feel that I can safely say that 90 percent of the time, the phone gets handed back to you anyway.

Unfortunately, even then, the same amount of confusion typically follows: “I know how to get to the house I’m at, but I don’t know the address. Is that okay?”

Actually, after all that, I feel obligated to confess that one of our best customers is a child — though he is the only one who I’ve seen regularly excel in the art of ordering food.

He is clear, succinct and well spoken. He knows what he wants, he knows how to pay, and he is somebody most customers could actually probably learn a few things from.

Also, he only orders pepperoni.

Thus concludes this first installment. Future topics I am toying with include “Having Enough Money to Pay — Do You?” and “Answering Your Door in a Timely Fashion.” Until then, try not to order too much pizza.

I’m serious about that.

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