Hell is a Box of Pizza

Somehow during the first semester of my freshman year, at the refined Arizona State University, I settled for making a quick buck delivering pizzas. The catch was I wouldn't be driving a shitty Honda to and fro the stank city of Tempe—no—I would be hustling pies as fast as a bicycle could take me.

This job lasted something like four weeks, and I never, nor ever will, add it to my resume or mention it in any sort of professional conversation.

Parked out front of the pizza shop were rows of crumbling bikes with their chains falling off, their handlebars worn from aggravated and hurried grips, and the seats loosened from rowdy butts suffocating and squeezing the crummy rubber in times of duress; but just basically, they were a pathetic sight taking up most of the courtyard walkway adjacent to the Hassayampa dorm and a blink across the POD.

During every shift, it was first-come-first-served for bike-picken’ with me and my fellow “drivers”. It was the closest thing to a motorcycle, or at least I whimsically believed. I imagined I was driving a motorcycle because it made me feel a little cooler when in retrospect I felt like a fucking loser. As you pedaled, it kicked in its electric motor, quickly allowing me to zip around skyscrapers and apartment buildings with ease. Despite biking dozens of miles a night, I never got physically tired, just mentally.

The pizza orders were organized using an IN and OUT system and the drivers' names would be listed on the TV screen in the back of the kitchen. If you were OUT you were delivering, and only when you’d return would you be thrown back into the mix of upcoming orders. Some nights I’d have maybe four deliveries total and as you can imagine, “roll the dice!” no tips on any of my orders. On slow nights we just stood around and sulked, maybe washing dishes, maybe taking extra long routes to kill the time when by chance we did get an order. Other nights nobody was available, nobody would be IN and we’d get backed up. Sometimes that wasn’t so bad because with an obscene amount of ordering, it allowed me to receive lots of potential tips—potential tips.

There was one guy, thirty-something, toothless, who drove the single company car we had. He managed all the good deliveries, leaving us broke college kids with crap orders of breadsticks and forgotten sodas. He didn’t have to bike—and he was fast in that gas-powered machine—he’d be back before any of us and he’d cop the next order lickety-split.

The small orders got tipped squat (often nothing) and you were informed by the bolded percentage sign printed on the bottom of the receipts we carried. Often I’d know whether or not I was getting tipped before I even headed out the glass doors. When dropping off pizza I had to get signatures from the customer to confirm the order was actually delivered. I had to get the customer to sign, it was policy. It was best bet that when they answered the door they had some cash for me, but in this modern day, people tipped electronically and that went to the shop’s computer and was allocated, crudely divided up at the end of the shift. If I was lucky—and I guess I never was—the customer would slip a fiver in cash.

So, it was only signed receipts that were tipped, and good, sweet God, those rare cash tips I was allowed to keep myself. An unrivaled treat for an 18-year-old college kid; but really it was pennies, pennies all the same.

Often my receipts were unsigned and I couldn't blame the customer for forgetting, even after numerous times of reminding them to “please sign” once handing them the pie box. They don't work for the company, they didn’t know that the surplus of the “unclaimed” tips went to the manager's pocket. So get those signatures! Or else pffbt!

It got to the point where I would scribble a fake swirl or group of initials, and sneakily present those to my manager when we turned in what we had. She never noticed.

This pizza company—I won’t say which one, but it’s the one named after an ancient Chinese pastime, and the same one right outside the dormitory where all my hallmates who knew I was there came and teased me—had me dolled up in embarrassing blue and red, parade a tight fitted ball cap that, no question, I wore backward, accompanied with baggy black three-quarter cargo shorts and dirty hightops. I was a tool. A tool that made eight bucks an hour versus what the sign posted out front promised: “twenty-four dollars an hour with tips”. What a dream! And just a dream because I never made twenty-four an hour. I never made more than fifteen dollars a night. Paychecks were biweekly, printed, and never did I break a hundred bucks. So, nightly I’d rake in the pocket change of the pot, the manager taking the big bucks, and me taking the piss.

My compensation was nil and my attitude, sour, like the crusts of our crummy pizza.

I don’t even remember what I spent my little money on. At the time I was dating someone, and likely it all went to dinners with her. I was working just to pay for date nights and pot I bought from a kid who lived by the tennis courts.

Tuesdays and Thursdays after class I was ordered to work for the man. Moseying back to my room, I pulled on my prisoner’s uniform and made my way across the street to clock in. Immediately there would be orders and immediately I was on the go.

Now, for one thing, one single good thing about the job, I was allowed to listen to music. An earbud in one ear for tuning out—or on better nights—I’d have my ex-girlfriend talking to me on the phone, keeping me sane. It was a little secret that made work all the more tolerable. When I think back to this time I remember being so engulfed in bands like Silverchair and MCR that to this day when I listen to those bands I can’t help but remember the job I try to forget.

This was three years ago, but the encounters and bizarre experiences I endured still feel as vivid as ever.

One time I had luck with the lottery order of names and received a large delivery, and surely one that would be tipped graciously. The toothless driver seethed. It was my turn to deliver eight pizzas to a sorority banquet. The back of my bike, with the insulated bag crammed with pizza boxes, weighed me down, but I knew I’d be tipped well—hell, maybe 20% on the order!

When I arrived at the banquet, located at an office center in the middle of campus, I’ll admit I was lost. There were plenty of other sororities and fraternities there and they were all doing the same thing—hosting meetings in identical-looking rooms. Maybe I should’ve considered who I was delivering to, but don’t blame me (well you can), but I was jaded, and I couldn’t differentiate the Greek letters and symbols. I’ve never been into that scene and didn't care to try to learn. So, I asked the first girl I saw and explained I had “an order for a sorority”. She happily accepted the food, signed off, and I left.

Turns out I delivered to the wrong sorority and they got free pizzas on top of another said-amount delivered right after I left the building. This order could have easily been for the girls right next door. I should’ve made her check the boxes. I totally messed up and my manager let me have it when we got a phone call from an empty-handed girl who spent God knows how much on the terrible food. I took responsibility and apologized over the phone. Somebody else delivered the next eight pizzas appropriately, free of charge.

“Look shit happens”, my subconscious said, but in this business, nobody cares how you feel or how you see it, nobody you pawn!

Maybe my idiocracy got the best of me so maybe I deserved the scenarios that occurred in the following weeks. Let's see:

I worked night shifts and it would get really dark. Aiding me, the city would be lit up with narrow street lights, multicolored paneled windows forging an impossible Rubix cube as they climbed vertically into the night sky, and neon liquor signs, most of the time flickering or on the brink of burning out. The neighborhoods on the outskirts of town would feel extra ‘sketch. The “boonies”, as I called them, at night were dark, deathly still, and way out of the range of our pizza shop. However, these house deliveries were easier to locate with their straight-shot side streets. At those places, I didn’t have to climb staircases, fiddle with locks, or search for a studio inside a winding hallway marked something like ‘J4-132’. Normally the apartments had marked the building numbers or letters on the stone or property signs, but at night it was always impossible to see.

The dark invited trouble. One time I was punked by a group of thugs outside an apartment complex while asking for directions to building ‘zed’; for in the same manner as the sorority, I assumed these loiterers were the ones expecting pizzas. What possessed me to assume the first people I saw were my customers, I don’t know—probably irritability and being tired. I guess it was my 18-year-old, naive self, so I assumed I found my guys easy-peasy.

I approached them, asking, “Did ‘yall order pizzas” and one replied with an edgy “yeah”. I figured it was done and done. They even signed off on the receipt and took the boxes in hand before laughing and then fessing up with a “just messin’ with ya kid”. These jokers handed back the boxes, I squished my upper lip into my nose, said “thanks” and went to properly find the right address with the lousy receipt that told the truth of my failure. I didn’t bother explaining what happened to the nice man who was excited about his food. I got my scribble anyway.

Another time I was literally hit by a car.

One night, while making my way through the city, I was crossing a parking garage at six maybe seven miles an hour, and flying out the garage exit came a screeching SUV. It was a mom and her daughter. It was a blind spot for both of us and our timing of meeting was untimely at best. With quick reflexes, I jumped off the bike right as they struck me and the car ran over the back wheel, knocking the delivery compartment off the back of the bike, and surely wrecking my cargo in the process. I did a roll and was pretty much unscathed. The lady hopped out and was freaking out probably thinking she killed me. Her daughter's face was locked in shock.

Now this is the craziest part, and this sums up my whole mental attitude of delivering fucking pizza. I felt nothing.

It was drilled into my brain so good that all that mattered during my time working for ‘Dingos’ or ‘Detriments’ or whatever you wanna call them, was to deliver the food.

Forget the terrible pay, forget being asked to work the two-am shift, forget the musty kitchen, forget the busted bikes, and forget the numerous times I had to adventure around dangerous areas at night because when the lady asked me, “Oh my God! Are you ok!” all I answered was “Yeah I’m good, but I hope the pizza is.”

Without any other words swapped, and with the frantic lady still standing outside her car door, I picked up the mangled bike, hopped on, and pedaled off without even realizing what just happened. It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that I made the delivery.

God bless our delivery boys.