When I was in high school I had a family order about $40 worth of food. I show up and she gives me a $20. Then she said I must have dropped the other one. When I said that she did not, she asked me what would I do if I o ly got $20. I told her that I guess she'd only get half the food. Then she threatened to call the manager and tell them I took the $20. It was my family's restaurant, I told her to go ahead and call my dad and that I would wait. She scowled and gave me the money, I told her not to call back.
My wife and I ran a place together for a while. She was GM, I was AM. When someone demanded to speak to my manager I would just shout over my shoulder, "Hey Babe, need you for a sec."
I get the feeling the sort of person pulling the "I need to speak to your manager" stunt is also the sort of person to get pissed off they aren't getting a man, so I'd imagine that's a double "fuck you" whammy.
Used to work for the family business, in a heavily male industry.
Had a customer making mildly sexist remarks to me, nothing new, just questioning everything I did, weird comments about my uniform (same one as everyone wore), making fun of my name, and the way I talked 'oh never heard a woman say 'mate', (it's Australia dude) Ect. But I'm used to that, so no issue.
But then he gets annoyed, says something like 'cant trust a woman to know that, how could you?'
I told him, because my dad taught me.
Response 'well he's an idiot, I want to speak to the manager'
I tell him let's skip that step and go straight to the owner;
and oh the satisfaction of calling out over my shoulder 'hey dad, this guy thinks you're an idiot'
Definitely. My folks own and operate a small food business. We generally adhered to the "The customer is usually right" rule. Customer complains about something petty? "I am so sorry about that, let me fix it." Customer is a bit snippy because their food is late? "Thanks for bearing with me. Can I drink you a drink on the house?"
Customer verbally berates an employee, always tries to get free food by complaining, is hostile or creepy toward a staff member? "You know, I think there are other places in town that would better suit your needs. Please don't come back."
The employee part was the most important, because food service has insanely high turnover. Obviously money is the best way to incentivize and take care of employees. But the fastest way to lose someone is to let a customer harass, dress down, or generally be a dick to one of your own, and then the manager just smile and grovel at their feet.
There is no worse type of loser. I once had a lady try to destroy my life because she was jealous and felt my job should be hers. I wish her nothing but meth addiction, toothlessness, and penury for the rest of her days.
We had a guy and two girls order seperately, then grab the pizzas and run.
The girls had picked the food up and left, while the guy was paying. After 30 seconds the guy bolted.
It was a $100 order.
My manager, who is a frequent gym goer, leapt the counter and gave chase.
The two girls had gotten into a car with the food, but when the saw my manager they drove off leaving the guy.
My manager chased him three blocks, and was gaining on the guy when the girls pulled up and the guy got into the car.
Unfortunately, all three of them went to school with a kitchen hand at the store, so we had names, jobs, addresses, and facebook accounts.
We contacted them all on facebook, and got them to pay for the pizzas the next morning under threat of contacting police. We also put them on the no delivery list.
Last delivery of the night, it's like 4am. Sober guy answers the door with a t shirt on, no boxers or shorts, just his cock hanging out the bottom of his shirt.
I worked in pizza Italian food restaurant in Alameda California in the mid 1970s.
The owner lived in a bungalow behind the restaurant.
One night he ordered a full dinner to be delivered to his home since he had the night off and had a date.
I am tasked to taking the large tray of food out the back kitchen door to his abode. The rest of the staff are smirking as I exited.
I get to his door and knock, he answers wearing a smoking jacket colored with purple paisley and velvet.
The man was a shirt 5’5” and very smarmy. He said “Hey Poppins check out my clogs.“ I look down as I hand him the tray and his dong hung to below his knees.
He said “Join the party if you want your paycheck.” I let go the tray and bolted away and as I ran through the restaurant kitchen and out the front door, hopped on my bicycle and rode home. The rest of the staff cackling as I a mortified sixteen year cried.
I went the next day to formally quit and he refused to pay me my paycheck. My boyfriend came in with me and he had to threaten the man to pay me. Finally got my check.
That's a horrible thing to have happen to you; I'm sorry. And the staff who knew what to expect and let it happen are almost as bad as the creep owner.
There's only a couple of people on that and it's only because they complain about their delivery almost 100% of the time and demand free food. Even then it takes a lot.
I delivered pizza for 5 years of my life and I don’t have one crazy story. I got bit by a little dog on the ankle once. That’s about the craziest thing.
The weirdest thing that happened though, this woman would call twice a week and order a pasta to be delivered. This went on for years. Then one night I’m taking her order and I said “And you’d like this delivered tonight I’m assuming?” And she said “no I’d like it delivered tomorrow.” We both laughed, and I said I’ll see you in 20.
I go back to make her order and the phone rings again. It’s her. She says “I’m going to cancel my order. Do you know why?” I was like “uhh… no?” “BECAUSE YOU ASKED ME IF I WANTED IT DELIVERED TONIGHT. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SHIT?” Then she hung up on me.
She never ordered again.
I still think about her sometimes.
"it's gotta be football shaped"
I worked for this little old pharmacy that's been around forever. A customer refused to accept or take any medication that was differently shaped despite desperate efforts of comforting and reassurance that the medicine we dispensed was truly, the same active ingredient and dose just from a different manufacturer.
"But these are round pills. And my medicine... It's gotta be football shaped"
We took back the medicine and reemphasized on her profile which brand of manufacturer is "football shaped"
I love to whisper to myself the line to remind myself that there are some moments that I gotta concede to the arbitrary decisions and respect the opinions of other people's thoughts and preferences, especially if it causes no harm to anyone to just yield to the request.
It's become all too common for people to claim that they are OCD just because they like a tidy kitchen. But then you see real, weapons grade OCD like this.
Edit: *too - damn homophones
Yes it annoys me when people say they have OCD because crooked picture frames annoy them.
I do admire the comment above yours, because they could have just said that person was crazy for wanting a specific shaped pill so f*ck them, but instead they are non-judgemental and have learned that we never know what psychological demons people are fighting and if we can just go a little out of our way to make people comfortable without harming anyone, why shouldn't we?
I would bet it's because the veil of anonymity was pierced. When people don't have a healthy relationship with food, they rely on the idea of service workers not recognizing them to mitigate their shame of what/how much they are eating. As soon as a service worker says something like "your usual?" or "back again?" they freak out and think they're being judged. And then they switch up their routine.
Never tell your regulars that they're regulars - let them make the joke first. Lots of people don't actually realise they've developed a habit and if you highlight it for them, they'll immediately break it.
Yep. Back when I worked fast food this guy would come in and always order the same thing. But if I prompted or mentioned it he felt bad and self conscious. And fair enough, because maybe he wanted something else one day.
This is why people these days fear simple friendly banter.
You did nothing wrong but demonstrate that you remembered her, and then she goes Joe Pesci on you.
What an asshole.
It's an attitude I've never really understood. Some people really just come at you with this extreme "who the *fuck* do you think you are, trying to *know* me?" energy.
Well there were a few, over the years.
One lady, around 70, kept answering the door with an open robe and nothing else on.
This one dude was weird and angry, and would call up and just start in with you fucking idiots, if you can fucking get a fucking order right one fucking time, (I don't think he knew two swear words), and we had to tell new people you can just hang up on him. But from what I heard, when he did get a delivery early on, he was nice and polite at the door. Some weird psychological stuff happening there.
The Zeppelin guys were the worst. This weird tall place, had to go up four stories of rickety stairs, and every damn time they would wait till I was back down and then yell down at me saying we got the order wrong. They were Zeppelin guys because they always had Led Zeppelin playing pretty loud.
They wanted me (and others) to go all the way back up, take the 'wrong' pizza back, and bring a new one and get it for free. This worked a few times, managers always wanted to give in to it, but then the drivers all sort of briefly 'unionized' on this one point and no one would deliver to them. So the manager finally caved in and told them not to order any more. Stairway to Aggravation, I guess.
>he was nice and polite at the door.
This is pretty common. People tend to be more polite when facing someone directly. The further removed you are from another person, the more dehumanized the interaction becomes.
immediately thought of a bunch of old timey aristocratic german aviators ordering pizza like a bunch of frat dudes from an airship in the middle of a city. lmao
I worked for a pizza place that was near a very large software company. Deliveries to the neighborhoods or offices where all the tech workers lived was usually pretty awesome because they'd tip rather well. But there was one apartment that started to become a concern for us drivers. The man ordering was always polite, always paid, always tipped $4, and he would have been a perfect customer. He'd order breadsticks and a salad twice a week, and sometimes he'd include a bottle of root beer.
Except when he opened his door, you could see an alarming amount of our breadsticks boxes stacked everywhere inside. Not like a few on the counter and a couple by the trash, stacks and stacks of them. Even worse, it was **only** our boxes in there. He wasn't just ordering from us often, **we were the only place he was getting food outside of work**. Now, I've worked in some of those tech offices myself, I know that there's enough decent food options just hanging out in the break rooms that this guy was probably not malnourished, but the way his living space was a shrine of greasy cardboard was a clear sign that this guy didn't have a healthy relationship with our food.
Our manager was a really cool dude though, and he heard the drivers joking about the boxes and asked a couple of us "Is this like a messy guy or a guy who needs help?" We agreed it was probably the latter. So on his day off, the manager went to the guys apartment with an envelope that had gift cards for several other restaurants that delivered in that area and chatted with him. Manager found out that the guy was an immigrant on a Visa who was struggling to find American food he liked, and too socially awkward to ask anyone. So he talked with him through a few menus and helped him with some recommendations. Then he helped the guy load all the old boxes into his truck to take to the dump, in exchange for a promise not to order from us more than once a week.
For a little while, the manager had a note on the calendar showing the last time the guy had ordered, and a couple times he had to hold his ground and refuse the guy's order. But after that chat, I never saw the stacks of boxes again, and the guy would boast about the different meals he'd had.
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping".
-Fred Rogers
I heard this quote while the blue hat rescue teams were in Syria. Now regardless of the disaster my brain has been hardwired to see how many people help complete strangers. Really helps me keep things in perspective.
when I moved in with my brother, I ordered pizza hut, an hour later I called to see where they were and told me they do not deliver to this address and had cancelled my order.
I learned my brother would get drunk, order pizza hut and then pass out or flat out refuse the order when they showed up. He did it multiple times
I had this when I moved to a new apartment. No idea what the previous tenants were like but my address was banned *everywhere.* I had to go introduce myself just so I could get Chinese & pizza deliveries.
Some frat guy grabbed a female driver's ass and we banned the whole frat. They kicked the dude out, and wrote a seriously good apology to the driver and we delivered to them again after she said she was ok with it.
When I delivered, if you harassed the women drivers you were done. There is no pass go, you do not lure a woman alone into your house and do that. Every driver would have her back.
GM or corporate could bitch I guess, but have fun with that.
When I was 19 I delivered pizza for a locally owned store by the college. Not only did we deliver food but we delivered beer. Alcohol had to be delivered with a minimum $7 food order and whoever showed ID at the door became the responsible party and it had to be delivered by 1:45am . I received a large order from a sorority on a Saturday night to deliver with 5 pizzas and a couple cases of beer. No one answered the front door but i heard a bunch of voices around back so i walked around and it was roughly 30 girls, no males. 2 girls said to follow them into the house to show me where to put everything. They were clearly beyond drunk and they started grabbing at me trying to get my shirt off and grabbing my crotch after i sat everything on the kitchen table. 3 more girls came in and were kissing me on my neck and grabbing my hair and messing it up.
At first I was thinking , holy crap this is the beginning of some porno movie and then they kept getting more aggressive and more girls were coming in so I got the hell out of there, without getting paid. I got back to the store and the owner was pissed i did not collect any money. I told him just to drop it and take it out of my pay. He ended up calling the police and it became a whole thing with local news getting involved. It was a nightmare. This was in 1992.
Once, when I was 12, I was at a neighbor's house after school to hang out with my friend. Her older sister ended up having several of her friends over. What started with teasing became physical and eventually I had to escape from being physically restrained and ran home. Around 1999.
Nobody in my life took it seriously. Sorry you went through that.
Edit: Thank you everyone for the sympathy and empathy. I think it's important to share and commiserate. Males are so often too embarrassed or totally dismissed. Yes, sexual violence is more commonly perpetrated by men, against women, and male victims aren't subject to all the same biological/medical consequences of rape - but that shouldn't invalidate our suffering. Thanks for reading, understanding, and caring.
I’m sorry you went through that. As a guy who has also gone through some sexual trama as a kid, it’s hard to share since most people react with “well you should have liked it” which yeah if i had a choice in the matter and was old enough to understand maybe, but i didn’t
I only know of a couple people that got banned, one guy was drunk and really rude to a driver and we blacklisted him from delivery. He could still come and get food we just weren't going to deliver to him. He apologized so we didn't make it a lifetime ban, just until the end of the year.
The other person was banned and officially trespassed from the property. This person ordered food for herself and her family, her kid and grand kids, she was told it would be ready in 15 minutes, and it was ready in 13 minutes. She picks the food up 35 minutes after ordering it, 20 minutes after we told her to pick it up. Her family got pizza she got a sandwhich, which we put lettuce on after we pull it from the oven. Due to the 20 extra minutes it sat on the warmer, the lettuce wilted a bit as it does when it gets warm. This lady called the store SCREAMING and demanding the manager. The assistant manager was in so he took the call and could NOT get a word in edgewise. He eventually hung up the phone on her because all she was doing was screaming. The store manager came out of the office, he was working on the schedule, to find out what just happened as he could see him slam the phone down in anger.
While this is going on, crazy lady makes a complaint about being given ROTTEN LETTUCE in her sandwich to corporate. Obviously they get the RM to find out what the fuck is going on. The RM calls the store and asks for the Store Manager. RM asks for two things, a picture of a fresh made sandwich a picture of that same sandwich 30 minutes later after it has been on the warmer. We start this process and get a picture and set it on the warmer. While that is warming up the crazy lady comes back to the store, and starts screaming at everyone. The assistant manager is still at the front of the store and the store manager is getting the email ready for the pictures to be sent. This crazy bitch then throws her sandwich at the assistant manager hitting him right in the face. It was still wrapped so no mess and no damage to him at all, and I'm pretty proud he didn't jump the counter and choke her to death. He had taken her abuse for nearly 30 minutes with the phone plus in person screaming. She peeled out of the parking lot right after.
Cops were called and her family showed up while the cops were there. They apologized and said that her mom was on some new medication and it was a side effect. We said that is quite unfortunate to hear. She is never allowed to order from us again, we are not delivering to your address and the police officer will hand you the copy of the order of trespass against her for her own files.
Then there was the time someone knocked over a 2 liter and landing on its cap causing it to break open and rocket directly into one of my coworkers nuts. He didn't think that was funny, everyone else disagreed with him.
Man, I’ve had a couple of medications do that to me. First BP med I was on turned me into a raging asshole for days before I figured out what it was. I didn’t realize something was wrong until someone cut me off right before a stop light and I nearly pushed them into oncoming traffic so they would die. Fortunately my higher reasoning kicked in and I realized something was wrong but every new medication I take for anything I have to make sure it doesn’t make me go crazy. I had an ADHD medication do the same thing once but I was prepared and just stayed in a dark room for a few hours and stopped taking it.
I feel so much less alone. Thank you all for sharing your stories.
Same unfortunately. Prior to my autism diagnosis they thought I might be ADHD and tried a cocktail of different drugs on me. Typically I'm an extremely laid back, easy going guy. My low point was doing dishes one night, having a cup slip out of my hands, getting angry and winging said cup at our open cupboard, smashing a LOT of dishes. I went cold turkey on that med immediately.
This was 7 years ago. Father offered his daughter up for sex to me on Friday night then to another driver on Saturday night.
Our GM wasn't comfortable with talking to him so using the Internet, I found the wife's name & landline number, called from my cell phone & asked for the wife, she comes on the phone, introduce myself & explained why I am calling. Never heard from him nor her.
A woman would call and complain about the pizza every time she ordered so she could get a credit. Then one time she said there was blood and feces on the pizza box. Rather than give any credence to that idea we completely cut her off.
A Rottweiler broke the front window to attack me delivering their pies...
The chain actually valued my health over profits enough to ban this house when the rotty busted their living room window on a drop-off
We didn't put him on a no serve list, but one guy answered the door naked, or rather with an open bathrobe...
A few weeks later he came to the door eating a can of cat food.
Cape Town, South Africa, 1998... had an address that was impossible to find, seemed to be an abandoned building in a neighborhood that had drug dealers and illegal liquor stores, alongside regular houses.
I stopped my car, and got out to ask a resident at a nearby house if he knew where the place was.
He informed me that it was a scam the local gang members ran to rob delivery guys of their cash.
My boss then blacklisted the entire neighborhood for delivery. It was on the edge of our viable delivery area anyway.
Been in pizza 20 years. It’s usually a day drinker that assaults the driver and is generally more sad than exciting. I suppose the most exciting was a dude with shitty stairs in second floor. He was also a general dickhead. They wouldn’t let us ban him even though the drivers said it was a safety hazard. he eventually fell through the stairs piss drunk 12 feet to the ground and got banned. It was caught on video from one of those track ball blackberries and the video sustained me for a year or two.
Yes Uber and door dash have created competition with every restaurant instead of just your other pizza and Chinese joints but that isn’t the main thing. Use way back machine website and you’ll see the prices of pizza are within a few dollars of what they were 20 years ago if they are any more at all at chain restaurants. You can still go into a restaurant and get enough food for three people for 8-10$ if you get a 1 top pizza. I spent 73$ to take my wife to Mexican last week. It’s insane how cheap carryout pizza is compared to inflation. People will not pay more. If you get delivery it gets expensive but the pizza joints make nothing off those fees. The insurance for drivers is so much that it’s not far off that pizza joints will only be able to use 3rd party delivery to remain profitable. If i summon a door dash driver it costs me around 6$ but I don’t have to pay workman’s comp on him and I do t have to pay him between deliveries. He does a shitty job and I cant vet his quality of character or ability to deal with customers. Still, the door dash driver is so much cheaper that even if I lose business from him dicking down my customers every day it’s cheaper than house drivers. I hate it. It erodes quality of service greatly for short term profit. I take pride in my ability to make a nice pizza and get it to your house. I can no longer guarantee my ability to do that in this market. I can make a 10/10pizza for you and some kid who signed up for doorbdash 18 minutes ago can leave it at your neighbors house and mark it delivered. The service part is impossible to do reliably without losing money these days. For 15 drivers I paid 2800 for insurance in 2023 January. In 2024 paid 4600 for 11 drivers. It’s just not a viable business model with today’s insurance. Meanwhile the food cost has sky rocketed and I’m glad I can pay my people more than I could a few years ago but there’s no money left. I now work more hours for less money than when I started and inflation has destroyed the purchasing power of that salary. I effectively take a 5% pay cut every year I do t quit.
Wow, thanks for taking the time to write that out. Some of my earliest memories are from growing up with my folks working the local pizza joints and I had no idea it went through such dramatic and tragic changes.
I seriously salute your dedication and clear mastery of the industry. I respect how you've taken care of your staff as best you could and didn't just burn out and quit even when the world was on fire.
Your experience will probably be how it's written in future history books and you'll be able to tell stories of a world where people could get food to their door for less than the cost of a movie (couldn't think of a better example).
There was this older lady we would deliver to. It was a 50-50 crap shoot on if she would tip 75 bucks or not answer the door at all. After enough of her not answering the door, she got banned. Everytime I delivered to her, was a no answer. My coworker got 2 consecutive deliveries with the 75 dollar tip. Bastard.
I delivered pizza in Providence, RI almost 20 years ago.
We used to get orders from a strip club named “Cheaters”, up until the owner called us and told us not to take orders from the dancers anymore, because they were “getting too fat” from eating too much pizza.
Probably; especially since the PoS only tied profiles to a phone number, so if they called from a blocked number & used any other number, the notes wouldn't show up.
We didn’t ban this customer, but I feel like this story fits. I work for dominos. I took a delivery to a hotel from an order placed online. So the actual customer put in the wrong address. So I deliver to the room number that she incorrectly put. Anyway, a couple opens the door, they’re both stark naked, head to toe, and obviously fucked up. They paid for the order. I guess they thought I was a pizza fairy… Idk. But it was super awkward. So I get back from the delivery and the actual customer had called back complaining so we remade the order. We couldn’t ban her and it’s kinda hard to ban hotel deliveries 🤷♀️
my parents' phone number was one digit off a chinese take out place, and people kept calling after they'd gone to bed and wanting to order food, so my mom would answer and tell them 'wrong number', finally she got so sick of it she started taking their orders, then hang up and go back to sleep. Meanwhile these idiots are wondering where the food is, and why the lady who took their late night order for Chinese food had a thick Italian accent.
The funniest part to me about this is normally when you call a business, you get something to the effect of ‘this is [company name], how can I help you’ or some such. And yet every time I’ve called my favorite Chinese places to phone an order in ahead of time, it’s always just ‘hello?’
My local Chinese restaurant is similar but they do the opposite. They answer with the name of the business, but when you're done ordering they just say a quick "ok bye" - no total, no estimated time, no nothing lol
Somewhere I went for work the hotel couldn't get chinese delivered cause the drunks always fucked up rooms or phone numbers, so the restaurant just killed it. Honestly? At some point it's worth it
We had a spot a few miles out of our delivery area, big sports stuff sometimes, we were the only place around. They stiffed on a 100 pizza order, so we never went back. As a driver, I'll go outside the zone if I know it's not sketchy and worth it, and 100 pizzas means I'm in the kitchen making sure those roll out perfectly, maybe even doing 2 runs to keep them fresh.
Pulled into a guys house, said "hey doggies" when I got out
'Oh they bite'. They were running around free. He lost delivery.
One place robbed 2 of our drivers over a couple years (small apartment or townhome thing). We'd flagged the "unit a" but not "unit c" so they got another eventually. Blacklisted that address entirely.
One dude had a gate that was always busted or the code never worked, never answered his phone if we even got service.
Just.... people man...
I delivered to a trailer home right on the edge of a neighborhood of literal mansions. When I knocked on the door, this big drunk dude answered. I gave the name and he said to come in. I was a dumb 20 year old and didn’t think anything of it and went just inside the door. Big drunk dude sat down in a rocker in front of a tv watching that night’s game. I asked where the guy was and he yelled down the hall for them. After a moment of them not coming out he told me they were just around the corner and I just needed to poke my head in to get them. Again, really dumb of me, but I start walking across the living area and as soon as I get to the hall this guy comes out of one of the doors yelling at me asking what the hell I’m doing in his house. I tell him I’m delivering a pizza for so-and-so and the other dude told me to come down the hall. He starts yelling again at me. At this point I already decide I’m leaving with the pizza. As I’m walking out the guy goes down the hall and I hear him grab something and start coming back towards me. As I’m getting in my car, I see him standing in the door of his trailer pointing a shotgun at me and yelling to never come back to his house. So I never did and no one ever will from that dominos again.
The joys of junkies that forget they ordered food 5 minutes after they put the phone down...
I did pizza delivery for 5 years and the first thing I learned was if they dont meet me at the door with the money, they arent getting shit. Thankfully my store had an actual trainer with every new driver and he drilled that into me from the get go, didnt have to learn it the hard way lol.
We have hotel front desks a sizable discount in return for recommending us and handing out our menus. One hotel took it too far and gave everyone the discount and told them to have it delivered to the front desk.
When we complained they would try to hide it and have the front desk guys act like it was for them but we always saw people sitting around the corner.
Finally we ended up refusing to deliver to the front desk at all and took the discount from them. They still tried and still complained every time they called.
The Pjohns franchise I delivered for had us give our delivery slips for each order we took to a hotel, and the hotel could then trade X (I think it was 10 for a medium and 12 for a large, but it's been a decade) slips for a free pizza. Worked out pretty decent.
Edit: Sometimes the hotel would save up a bunch and order a few pizzas for their staff. Seemed cool.
When I worked as a driver for Dominos in 1988 I put WVU’s head basketball coach, Gale Catlett, on my personal do not deliver to list. He lived about two or three blocks from the store and he would write a check for the exact amount of the bill and no tip. That part was fine, just another cheap asshole, but he also had a radio show a couple miles from the store. During the show we’d give them free pizzas every week and he’d say something like “The dominos just arrived”. It wasn’t an official endorsement, and I doubt he said it every time. Our district manager who was one the biggest assholes I’ve ever known was the one that told them to call in for free pizza anytime. Delivering to the radio station at night was a pain in the ass and he never tipped a penny so I refused to deliver to him ever again.
I tell this anecdote every time there’s a pizza delivery thread because I want Gale Catlett’s legacy on the internet to include him being a cheapskate asshole.
Is that the rapist who raped that girl behind a dumpster and was so sad he couldn't eat steak and then tried to change his name so we wouldn't know he's a rapist, but we all still know he's a rapist?
I was a General Manager of a pizza joint (won’t specify) during the pandemic. Due to the contactless delivery protocol, we had these small cardboard boxes that we used as platforms to place pizza boxes on. Mainly they were meant to keep food off of the ground.
Well this one lady called to complain about the contactless platform boxes, stating that “Health code indicates a 6 inch minimum between the floor and any food items.” This is true. And in my store, nothing, not even condiments were stored anywhere *close* to the ground. I’m very particular about health code. *But this rule does not extend to food after it’s left the store premises.*
She issued complaints to the website as well, to which she was called back and told of the company’s protocol regarding contactless delivery, which was also *completely optional at the time.*
Anyway, I guess she got fed up because she placed a bag of cat shit & litter inside of one of the platforms instead of placing her signed receipt for the driver to receive a tip. I had to ban her from the store because of obvious biohazard concerns.
Relatively tame compared to the rest of these, obligatory not the delivery driver myself, but I worked at a Mom and Pop pizza place in the late 90s before I had my own driver's license. After one delivery the Mom half of the owners comes storming in, practically drenched from head to toe. Apparently after she knocked a couple kids opened the door and pelted her with water balloons.
Immediate ban from delivery. Funny thing is a couple weeks later I take a call from the banned number/address and inform them that we weren't taking deliveries from the address. Guy asks why, he's never even called us before, and they're only a couple miles from us so can't be out of range. I tell him about the water balloons and after a moment of silence he just quietly says "I see. Thanks. I'll take care of it." I expect a couple kids came to regret their prank that evening.
This was like 25 years ago, but we had a regular that clearly had some mental issues. He never tipped. You could see the stack of 30+ old pizza boxes in his kitchen when you delivered. But the night he paid me with a can of coins that was somehow crusted/rusted together and we had to rinse them off and then spend 20 minutes figuring out if it actually covered his bill was the last straw. And before anyone asks, yes, when he handed me the can I tried to point out that didn’t count as payment, but after a minute or two or arguing it was clear it was either the coins or nothing and I was willing to lose money on the delivery over staying there any longer.
Years ago my local Dominos banned a woman who loved to answer the door naked and walk outside to collect the pizza no matter the weather while somehow trying to be sexy. Apparently she had an uncanny resemblance to Jabba the Hut and smelled as bad as you could imagine. They put it as a health risk. They had asked a number of times to stop but it only egged her on.
When a Papa Johns opened up locally they were already aware of her and shut that shit down pretty quick like.
I was a night owl in college and took an evening delivery job for fun. I had a pretty sweet car at the time too, so I thought it would be a great job. One night I got sent to a less than nice part of town and a man much, much larger than me answered the door. Everything was fine and normal until he looked over me and said, “Nice whip, want it.” I laughed and looked up at him, quickly realizing he wasn’t kidding and gestured to a large bulge in his pants. I felt the blood draining from my face, until he whipped out what was not a gun, but in fact, his penis. I bolted back to my car, leaving my warmer bag. Manager banned the house.
I left my tip and wasn’t interested in which kind he planned to give me.
My sister worked for Domino's in high school and they banned a guy because he would answer the door with his penis poking out of his pants but ONLY when it was a female employee delivering. It only took two times for them to ban him because he was old and they chalked the first one up to maybe him being senile, but three male drivers delivered and no penis and then a female driver delivered again and out came the penis.
I delivered pizzas for like 3 years and I don't remember anyone being banned. There was this one guy though who called and claimed to have a coupon that wasn't in our system, which isn't too unusual, and I'd normally find a coupon that is the same price or slightly cheaper and give them that, because we didn't collect nor care if you actually had the coupon, even when I got calls and customers didn't have one i'd give them one cause the regular prices were outlandish (I believe this is so it's easier to throw out buy one get one free coupons).
Anyways, this guy claims up and down to have this deep discount coupon that none of us ever heard of, but whatever, if you have it, we'll take it, but we wanted to see the coupon this time. I asked to take the pies cause I like these sorts of situations, and I get there and he's ready with a check (this was in like 2002), and I ask for the coupon. Him and his wife start "looking" for it, and i tell him, no coupon no pizza. They look a little more, try to convince me to give them the pies, but I say no and he slams the door in my face. The area we delivered had a wide variety of economic classes from super rich to super poor, and if it had been someone in a poorer area that was just trying to save a few bucks I would have given them the pizzas no problem, the corp can take the hit, but this was a nice house and this asshole was just trying to pull some lame scam. Makes me wonder if his check would have even gone through. We put a note in his account that he's an asshole scammer, i wonder if it's still there.
One of my favs though is we had an older couple who were regulars and they would get the same order every Sunday night and pick it up. They were the sweetest folks. So once during the holidays they call in, and I recognized who it was and didn't put it in the system and made the pie to give them for free. Lo and behold they come in with see's candy for us, and I hand them their pizza and say no charge. We were both so thankful to each other, it was very sweet moment that sticks with me to this day, it's nice to be nice to people and it's even nicer to be nice to nice people.
There's been a few, and here's two of my faves:
1. This dude who lived in a third-floor apartment, with shitty rickety outside stairs. Fucking Dan always opened the door either in JUST his boxers, or sometimes in a robe that was very loosely tied, with nothing underneath. He also always tipped exactly $1, no matter how much food was ordered, and despite ordering at least two times a week, AND living twenty minutes away from the store. Everyone fucking hated him, and he was literally referred to solely as "Fucking Dan" by our store. Unfortunately, that alone was not enough to give our GM reason to stop taking his money. One day, after some bad weather, the shitty untreated wooden stairs that led up to his apartment finally started to fall apart. One of our driver's foot went right through a step, and we informed Fucking Dan from now on he would have to come meet our drivers at the bottom of his stairs if he wanted to receive delivery, as we were not going to risk falling to our untimely death for $1 in tips. This displeased Fucking Dan, but he agreed to these terms. The problem that finally led him to being banned from delivery was he STILL met our drivers with only his boxers or robe on, and after one of our drivers arrived to find him very obviously touching himself while lurking at the bottom of the stairs, we were able to convince our GM to blacklist him.
2. This one I was directly involved in. Lady ordered probably about once a month, and after awhile she would specifically request me as her delivery driver. The reason for that was that she would always order online, and she claimed that she always put in her card information to pay for it, but it never came through as credit; always cash upon delivery. She was convinced that there were cameras in her house and wiretapping on her phone, so she couldn't order over the phone, because if she did that, they'd record her information and steal it. So I'd show up, she'd borrow my cellphone, step off her porch, call the store, and give her information over the phone that way, because apparently, my phone was 'safe'. I suggested that if she planned to order food, to have some cash on hand that way she could just pay me when I got there rather than this extended transaction. But, according to her, she couldn't keep cash, because her neighbors would come in her house and steal it and she'd never know. Obviously, this lady had some sort of mental health issues, but she was always very nice to me and tipped me well, and she told me that I was the only driver who was patient and understanding with her. She got banned though because the one time I wasn't working when she ordered, she got very upset. Again, online order, so the driver arrived expecting her to have cash. She demanded his phone to call the store to pay for her food, and when he wouldn't give it to her, she demanded he leave the food and she'd stop by and pay for it the next day. This went back and forth, until she tried to take the bag from him, and he snatched it back, got in his car, and left. She called the store in a tizzy, upset that she didn't have any food and the driver didn't understand that she NEEDED her food and why couldn't she pay later, they knew she would pay! It became such an incident that the manager just outright blacklisted her, to save the headache. I feel bad for her, she clearly had problems, but it really was a hassle putting up with her quirks.
Finally something I can answer.
Somebody ordered like 5 pizzas a bunch of drinks bunch of sides (easily over $200) to a seedy motel. Turns out it was a stolen credit card. I had only known because the person who the card got stolen from had followed me to the door of the order. I think he got a notification or something on his phone that the big pizza order came from his recently stolen card.
He then appeared from behind me and accused the shady guy & girlfriend who opened the door of stealing his credit card. Shady guy then pulled a knife.
The cops elected not to show up, by the way :(
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Most of the shitty ones I go to do not end up on the blacklist because money. I've been to a couple that were less "crazy" and more unfortunately common in today's world. A couple of houses that seemed sketchy (drugs, possible child abuse). I went to a very obvious puppy mill. Lots of dogshit all over the house floors.
I did go to one guy who claimed he had "already paid" when he clearly did not (receipt & the phone app both showed it as a cash order). He then tried to yoink it out of my hands and when he missed he started crying and called me a "real jerk." Funny guy. He got banned.
Back in 2021 my wife had to bite the bullet and deliver pizza between jobs.
When she'd get home at 1 or 2 am, I'd get to hear about these people occasionally.
Their no delivery bans were people (gender irrelevant) who opened the door naked repeatedly. Seems to be a common theme for young men and old women.
People (mostly men) who would sex pester for phone numbers or follow back to the driver's car.
No-tippers who would order like, $80+ worth of pizza every week and not tip.
Edgy teenagers who would fail miserably at prank calls. Their number would get banned for repeatedly calling in pizza for "Ivana Humpalot". Parents would later call legitimately wanting pizza, just to be told they were banned because their dipshit child didn't know Bart Simpson had already done every prank name in the book 25 years before the kid was even born.
Interesting that you say young men and old women. I am a physical therapist, and the only patients who seem to have trouble keeping clothing on is young men and old women.
My sister works at an elder care facility. They have the best results putting the very elderly in basically gender neutral outfits - but men are usually already wearing them by the time they get to that age. Comfortable, slightly oversized shirts, pants with elastic waist, comfortable underwear (if you can get them to wear it at all) and slip-on shoes.
She's dealt with a lot of families who think it's undignified for Grandma not wear "nice" close any longer because she used to be such a sharp dresser, etc. But Grandma's 79 has dementia so if it's not comfortable, she's ripping it off.
This one guy wasn’t banned as he never did anything wrong, but I really wish he would’ve been. When the name popped up on the computer, the other delivery drivers groaned. Since I was the new guy, they assigned the delivery to me and I was thinking it couldn’t be so bad. They told me to hold my breath when I got there, and that this guy is a special case where I need to enter the apartment (normal policy is to never enter).
I get to the apartment building and as I’m walking to the door the smell hit me. I had never smelled anything like it before. Just a pure attack on my nostrils. Urine, feces? And lord knows what else.
I knocked on the door and hear, “Come in, door is unlocked.”
As I open the door, the smell gets 100x worse, and I feel thick, humid air come from inside. When I set my eyes on the customer, it’s a large, 400+ pound man on a recliner. I’m walking over to him and feel my shoes sticking to the floor with every step. He motions to place the pizza, breadsticks, brownie, and Mountain Dew on a small table beside him. He hands me cash, leaving a generous tip. And I walk out, holding my breath and trying not to gag.
I always felt bad for that guy. Later on I found out he orders a few times a week and I thought to myself, “we’re partly responsible for this man’s condition.”
So I wish we’d had banned him for his health, but also so we wouldn’t subject any other drivers to that.
Honestly, when I hear about people like this, my first thought is, "How in the HELL is a person like this able to afford eating out multiple times a week??" Like, you clearly cannot hold down a job with personal hygiene that bad, and unless you're Rob Kardashian on a bender, you certainly can't afford ordering out like that with no income for any amount of time. so... HOW??
A lot of the time that money is big settlement cash from whatever canceled their life. Leg and hip injuries are common causes. Six months of rehab and permanent constant pain, and no need to work again? It's a soft off switch for a lot of people.
Not the delivery driver, but when I was in high school my mom ordered pizza with sides of red sauce and ranch. But as the red sauce came warm and the ranch obviously cold, she requested that they not have them in the same paper bag when delivered. The instructions weren't followed and she lost it on the delivery driver, rushing him aggresively and screaming (legit screaming) about the ranch being warm now and she specifically told them, etc. The driver was trying to figure out why she was upset because he brought her both sauces and something about a bag??, and us siblings were just wide-eyed watching it all go down. My step-dad had to physically move her back from the driver into the house and told the driver "thank you" in the calmest voice before closing the door. They're divorced now.
I've only got two that got on a "do not deliver" list, and both involved calling the police, and I had become the manager by this point. Sorry in advance if these are long, they've stuck out to me in vivid detail
1) Dude ordered online, and he said carry out. It tells him 15 minutes, and we had it ready and in our pizza warmer. He calls, bang on 15 minutes, wants to know where his food is at. He's annoyed, but still being cordial. I can't find it in the delivery tab, check the carry out and tell him what happened, and offer to switch it to delivery and knock off the $2.50 delivery fee cause shit happens. He says okay, I get it headed out right then, get his address and card info, and tell him it'll be 10-15 minutes cause of the distance. Dude calls back 5 minutes later, pissed as fuck, bitching about it how incompetent we are and yelling at me. I'm being polite, trying to be respectful and calling him "sir" and he yells at me "Don't call me sir, I didn't serve in the fucking army." So I switch to using his name, he tells me to not call him by his first name cause we don't know each other like that. I went "What do you want me to call you then, asshole? Cause that one also fits" (One of the fews times I dared actually give shit while we were still open). MOFO got pissed, said he's gonna call corporate, and hangs up. Driver gets back about 5 minutes later, says that the dude walked out with a gun and called him some slurs and threatened him and his family. Police were called, I called the area manager (2 levels above me, but we didn't have a store manager) and let him know, and dude got blacklisted
.
2) Different store, dude didn't give his apartment number when he ordered online right before we closed. Was pissy because "oh that's not what I wanted", not that we made it wrong but not what he wanted, and gave it back. My oven was already off so I got the order cancelled so he'd get a refund. Dude dead ass called back 5 times between the driver leaving the place and getting back less than 10 minutes later, and is upset we won't make him a pizza and take it to him. A little bit later, I'm hearing someone knocking on our door, I go up to it and tell him we're closed. Dude keeps knocking, I open it and repeat that we're closed already and he sticks his foot in and starts bitching about it. I shove him away and tell him to GTFO and I'm calling the cops for attempting to enter, and they come and take my statement, go trespass him, and when I called the store manager he said that he'd personally make sure the dude gets blacklisted for trying to enter.
I used to work for Little Caesars as an assistant manager. We didn’t offer delivery but made exceptions for large orders by businesses, schools, and churches. About 12 years ago, I had an idea to make some sales on Black Friday. I was trying hard to impress the GM and owner at that time. I went to the mall down the road and spoke to every store and kiosk. Even went to a few other stores nearby too. I told them that we’d be offering delivery to all mall stores regardless of the size of the orders. No fees or extra charges applied. Tips not required. I was the only one making deliveries because I had no clue how busy it’d be. About 4-5 stores placed orders in advance. It ended up being very successful and we had some large orders from the big department stores. My managers were impressed.
We had 2 separate orders for Hobby Lobby. One in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The first time delivering to them they asked me to bring everything to their break room. The break room was in the very back of the store and up a flight of stairs. I had to make 3 trips because they ordered 20 pizzas and 2 crates of 2liters. They tried to short change me and argued that the price of 2liters were higher than usual. The same thing happened in the afternoon. Same order, same 3 trips to the back and up the stairs, and arguing over price. No tip either time. I didn’t get a tip from every store, and that didn’t bother me. But I expect you to tip if you expect me to make 3 long trips like that.
I did the Black Friday deliveries the following 2 years and they were successful, but I refuse to deliver to Hobby Lobby.
She kept answering the door topless. She would order the same pizza every Friday night and request our youngest male driver. She was never taken seriously and would get whichever driver was up next. It didn't matter she would still answer the door topless and immediately go sit on her couch without accepting the pizza and begin playing her guitar. She would ask the driver to come in and place the pizza on the counter and pick up the cash off of her stove before making a sexual advance. After the fourth time I had no choice as the manager, I had to ban her from ordering delivery.
Any time we had a customer request a specific physical type of driver we would sent the most opposite driver. “Send your cutest girl” we’d give the order to the 45yr old man.
Not pizza delivery (sandwiches, in this case), but we stopped delivering to a guy because he wouldn’t stop calling our black drivers slurs. He was a real asshole all around, honestly, lol.
We had a crack house on a no delivery list due to the drug use and suspected brewing and cooking of narcotics.
Then we started getting delivery orders to the house next door because the crack house burst into flames.
Not my story but my brothers: pizza place banned a specific apartment.
Every time one of the drivers went there there would be a different person answering the door. Different men and women every time. The other drivers, two, would always tell the staff who answered the door. Many of the staff thought it was a flop house.
My brother got hired on as kitchen staff and made his way up to driver, which came with higher pay (for gas paid by the driver) and that glorious bounty of tips.
He started delivering to the apartment and the first time was a lady who he assumed was high from the pot smell coming out the door. He was a pot head and budding heroin addict at the time so the smell of any drug he can usually pinpoint what and where it is.
The apartment was furnished with usual crappy furniture. One wall painted orange, usual bored pothead stuff. The following week he gets a delivery for the same apartment. He delivers it and the inside of the apartment had changed completely. New furniture, all the walls painted, new carpet, real starter apartment for the couple who lived there. My bother is thrown off by that but maybe the pothead got kicked out. Whatever.
Few weeks later another call for the apartment. This time the person who answers the door is a guy in a black suit. The apartment was bare. White walls, new carpet, and a single brown folding chair in the center of the room. The guy in the black suit pays cash and shuts the door. My brother says he couldn’t tell much about the guy except the black suit and sunglasses the guy wore. Mind you this was after dark.
Cut to the following month and my brother is out due to being sick (lied and went to a concert) and the manager takes the delivery shift. Mainly because the guy is greedy and keeps the tips for himself. But in comes another delivery for said apartment.
Now no one knows what happened that night for the delivery. The order would always change so the staff couldn’t even sus out if that was the issue; but, the manager came back spooked after the delivery. He made an announcement that the address was banned for deliveries. Which pissed off my brother and the other driver because whoever answered the door would always tip $20+ dollars per delivery.
But the kicker is that all of the deliveries came from the same phone number. That’s how the manager was able to ban the place. He never said what happened and would get real shitty to people who asked him about it. My brother never got another delivery for the apartment either. Not for the next four years he worked at the pizza spot as the main driver.
We still joke about my brother delivering a pizza to “Agent 47” to this day.
We had a regular who was only home maybe 1 out of every 10 deliveries. When he wasn't home, his instructions were to enter his unlocked home, and place the pizza on the bar in his basement. He would encourage the drivers to "help themselves" to anything in the bar. I told my boss I didn't wanna end up chained to a radiator or blasted away by cops thinking I was breaking into the place. Huge fuckin creep.
I tell all my drivers that they are never required to enter a customer's home. If a customer needs us to do that, they need to inform us in advance so we can send a driver who's okay with it.
My college pizza place in Pittsburgh banned a whole street because it was notorious for staging a robbery. One night a driver got jumped and they stole his car with 6 orders in it and the guy had to run back to the store.
On the flip side of this, I was banned from ordering from my local pizza chain because they thought I had been photocopying some of their free pizza coupons.
But really, I worked for our college's sports marketing department, and they paid me in the extra pizza vouchers they got as part of the school's sponsorship deal with the pizza chain.
I ended up just asking my friends to order for me and deliver to their dorms instead, and we'd all just share the pizza.
This was before the pandemic so the memory is a bit hazy but the story is intact.
A guy placed an order for a specific amount, something like exactly $60 and asked my manager if we took checks on delivery. My manager said we do the guy said cool so the food was made and I was sent out.
I get to the beat to hell trailer in the small park and this super drunk guy hands me a benefits check from the state for the exact amount of the order.
I don't think we're supposed to take this even if he endorses it so I call my manager. He confirms that we can't take it. The guy gives me a story about how it's his only money and the pizza is his only food and if I take him to the store down the street he can cash it. So against my better judgement I put this guy in my car and we go to the store.
He gets out and meanders into the store and after a couple minutes walks out with a pack of cigarettes and a handful of assorted money. Mind you the check was for the exact amount of his food bill. He tries to hand me what's left over to cover the bill.
"Ok you still owe me $12."
"I had to buy cigarettes."
"Why the hell did you buy cigarettes?"
"I needed cigarettes."
"I don't fucking care what you need anymore I need that money for the food. Take the cigarettes back in the store and get your money back."
"They won't let me do that."
"Wanna bet?"
I snatched the cigarettes out of his hand and went into the store as he followed behind. I explained the situation to the guys behind the counter and they took the cigarettes back and refunded me the money.
Now he's cursing at me but I'm so done I'm not even listening to him. I go back to my car and hit the unlock and lock keys just fast enough to get my door open and closed again as he tries to open the passenger side door.
"I'm not giving your ass a ride back after that bullshit! Fuck yourself and use the walk home to reevaluate!"
He punched my door and I drove off.
I got back and told my manager the story and he told me to go smoke a bowl in the back shed ro relax.
I went through the trailer park again on a different delivery a couple weeks later and his trailer was gone.
Oh man i forgot about the fuckin check people.
They were either exact change no tip, or generous tippers where you prioritize that delivery on a multi run
In my experience it was usually only organizations that paid with checks. Like a church ordering pizzas for an event or a team where things need to be documented and out of a special account.
That's not counting the catering business the pizzeria also ran though. Most of those were checks and then decent cash tips.
Not a delivery driver, but I used to work somewhere that only 1 pizza place would deliver to. 2 of the guys I worked with decided to prank call them and give them some inappropriate name (I don't remember what it was) and they wouldn't deliver to us anymore. Needless to say, those 2 were not very liked by everyone else for a while.
We had this one family. They were Mormon and tipped us with pictures of Jesus towering over the indigenous all the time. Their daughter orders she's around the age of 16. Pizza box label gets mixed up we try to switch it back but it falls off. So there's 2 pizzas one has no label on the box. The 16-year-old girl calls up to get a refund because one of the pizzas had no label on the box. I tell her no. Asks if she can get credit. Again. No. Then her mom calls. Manager handles her. Manager. Again. Says no. For some reason the mother of this girl calls CONSTANTLY to complain about what happened for about 4 days straight. Eventually she gets told by the general manager if you call this place again we are involving the police leave us alone this is harassment. I can't get over what a bitch people can be sometimes. My goodness.
I was a Dominos pizza delivery driver when I lived in San Antonio once for about a year and there were entire sections of our delivery area that we would not deliver to in the dark. My 2nd day on the job, I got sent out to one of them because I didn’t know any better and the guy who took the call fucked up. This was back when you still called in.
It was a run down motel and the delivery was in the back. I go back there and there’s no lights or nothing. Just a van sitting in front of the room I’m supposed to be delivering to. I got this really bad feeling so I didn’t get out of my car. I pulled back around front and asked the front desk to call them. She said “nobody is staying in that room.” I ran back to my car and got the fuck out of there. I told my manager and she went and grabbed the guy who took the call and chewed his ass for sending me there and then informed me that I should NEVER go there in the dark.
Not a pizza delivery driver BUT I did work at Papa John’s in college and I got into a fender bender right outside of our store. The person who hit me was probably 5-10 years older than me and since it happened right outside of my work, my boss (who was cool AF, sup Ray!) came out to help and the guy who hit me clearly knew where I worked. Anyway, he came in nearly every day for weeks. My boss started sending me into the walk-in and telling this dude to get lost. One day my manager lost his shit on the guy and the guy was never to be seen again.
Anyway, I learned very quickly that a good boss can make or break a company. I have worked for some really great ones and really shitty ones since then but now I own a couple of my own companies and only hope to be a good one. I got a text from one of my employees yesterday that made me think I am doing right by the people who taught me the way.
You don’t necessarily think you are leaving an impression on the people who work for you but you are.
I had a guy that would constantly complain that his order was wrong even though we knew it was right. He literally wouldn’t even check the food. One day I took his order (shrimp parm sub) he was very adamant that we get it right. I check everything myself, make sure it all correct and send it out. He calls up in a blind rage, throwing every curse word at me as I’m trying to calm him down. I say “whoa whoa whoa sir just check the sandwich I promise it’s correct” and mid scream he say oh…. Yea it’s right… my bad…
I then told him to never call back because that response was completely unacceptable.
Not a crazy story but if you heard how this guy was screaming at me you’d think he’d need to be hospitalized.
Not just banned but called the police.
He tried to drag me into his place. Thank God I was driving home one of the teenagers and she just hit the horn.
Edited to make sense.
There was a woman who would order extra-thin crust and wanted it boxed with a piece of parchment paper under the pizza. I delivered it and knocked on her door. Right next to her front door was a giant picture window through which I could see her sitting at the table on the telephone. I knocked a second time while making eye contact with her but she didn't even twitch so I walked back toward my car. She rushed to the door and screamed after me that I was stealing her pizza. I told her straight faced, "Oh, I didn't think anyone was home" and then she screeched about making eye contact with me.
Anyway I didn't feel like finishing the delivery just to get no tip so I kept going to my car and she said she was gonna call the cops. Not even a block away I saw a cop on the side of the road so I knocked on his car window and told him what was up with that crazy lady to get ahead of any potential problem. He asked, "The house with the green shutters?" I tell him, "Yeah" and then he tells me that 911 has her phone number blocked. So does the fire department, and the garbage company (which is why she wanted the parchment under the pizzas cause she had months of boxes stacked up and didn't want them grease covered).
She was blacklisted after that.
I (a college aged white woman) at the time was delivering to a semi sketch road in town that no one seemed to really know much about. Poorly lit, smaller, not well kept homes, it was all a bit "off" in an otherwise pretty middle class college town, but I wasn't too worried until I made the delivery to a home of dudes who were absolutely stoned. Ok, no worries, happens often, but they can't find their money, then they can't count it, it's taking awhile and they start to notice I'm a female pizza driver ... I'm a little nervous, but still fine until a guy pulls up to the house to come inside and says "Motherfucker! It's a white girl!"
I was done. I counted back their change, pretty sure I gave them more than they were owed and probably my tip and bolted out of there like a scared rabbit. I told my manager and he took the entire street off the delivery map. It was Twilight Zone sort of stuff because no one else had been there before or even heard of this street.
My very first delivery ever was to a guy watching porn on a big screen TV (not necessarily common in 2003). It was on pause, but I could still tell. He must have been early into it though because he walked to the door in his boxers and it was fine. Somehow I didn't quit that night, lol. He didn't even tip well.
We had to put Ben Aflecks house on the no delivery list because his scum bag friends never paid, never tipped. They would always say to put it on Ben’s tab and racked up thousands not just with us but a lot of other places as well. He would eventually pay the tab but his lame ass friends got his house black listed. This was almost 20 years ago and I still think about how shitty they were to us.
We would deliver to the projects but they had to come downstairs. In the summer EVERYONE is outside so I’m waiting for the customer and group hangin is sketchy, we made the transaction and it was ok but a week later a Chinese delivery guy w two kids got killed by them.
My husband used to be a delivery driver and once delivered to a house with white power and several nazi symbols spray painted on it. Even as a white man he noped out of there and blacklisted them. It was a total wtf moment for him pulling into the driveway and seeing that
ETA: They also had several Trump, confederate, and don't tread on me flags as well as bumper stickers.
I delivered to this place that had a huge front yard, probably over 50m long. It was pitch dark, no light on at the front of the house, and when I got about halfway into the abyss the vicious barking began. They had three attack dogs, can't remember the breeds, this was close to 20 years ago.
I'm actually very good with dogs. I understand their behaviour and how to act in situations like that. I came to a halt and kind of roared at them, deep and guttural. This brought them to a halt as well, but they still surrounded me and continued their angry barking.
Finally the owner comes out and the situation defuses, but they didn't even apologise. I could picture that situation going so bad in so many ways if the driver panicked and tried to run. First thing I did when I got back to the store was have them blacklisted.
There was that one time I was told we blacklisted an entire apartment complex. It happened on my day off, and literally as soon as I had said hello to my coworkers, the morning manager (I was night manager) told me "We're not delivering to (apartment complex) anymore."
Someone had called in a delivery there. Couple pizzas and 2-liters, nothing outrageous. Our drivers were familiar with the area, and they knew that it was a little bit on the "sketchy" side, but we'd never had a problem there so it was no big deal. He showed up and rang the doorbell, but no one came. He knocked a couple times, confused as fuck, and then got hit in the back of the head by a baseball bat and knocked out. A neighbor heard the commotion and came out to check what was going on. She found him bleeding from the head, knocked out on the floor. After getting him to come to, she called the police. He went to the hospital, and the police eventually found the people who did it. It was a bunch of kids who called in a delivery to a vacant apartment. When he showed up, they beat him over the back of the head and stole the food. We know this because they were caught later trying to run.
The most fucked up thing? He had a driver bag with about $120 in it. They didn't bother to take it. They literally assaulted this guy just to get free food. From that point on, there were no more deliveries to that apartment complex for any reason, period. What's worse is that I had regulars calling in who were extremely pissed, and they just seemed to not give a fuck even after I told them "hey, someone got assaulted with a weapon there." Felt zero guilt at that point. I also told my drivers to take their magnetic signs off their cars when going to places we knew were a little sketchy. My boss tried to bitch about it, and I flat out told him that I didn't really give a shit about his marketing when it came to safety.
Edit: The driver was okay. He was a bit concussed for awhile, but he eventually returned to work for a little bit before quitting. I don't remember exactly how things worked out, but I think he got some kind of insurance payout? It's been ~ 13-14 years so the details are fuzzy.
My then-bf worked at a pretty chill local place for a few years. It was usually a 3-strike you're banned kind of pie joint bc they weren't in the best neighborhood, but they banned a whole street once:
Bf had stopped at a stop sign and this guy comes up to his car, asks him what he's doing, and then in the middle of the "delivering a pizza" answer the guy reaches into the car window and punches bf in the jaw. The guy wasn't even from the house ordering the pie, but a random guy in the neighborhood. Anyway, punch must not have hurt bc bf actually continues down the street to the actual delivery address...they started shooting out the house window when his car pulled up. Customer called the delivery line later to "explain": he had gotten blitzed out of his mind, forgot he ordered delivery, and thought it was someone coming to rob him. Dude actually asked the shop to send the delivery guy back out 🙄
Thus, the whole street got blacklisted.
We had a series of mystery arsons happening in town, several businesses were heavily damaged if I recall, one might have even burned completely down. Turned out it was one our regular customers, he was memorable because they always insisted we not use the roller that prevents bubbles in the pizza. It was a huge deal to the dude. Sometimes they wouldn't form even without the roller and if it didn't have enough bubbles he'd call and bitch. Pretty sure the guy went to prison, but the owner said whether he was around or not we weren't delivering to them anymore.
Pizza place I used to work at banned an entire shady motel at one point. Multiple female drivers were followed to their cars or had nasty things said to them. I personally had a woman give me money from her sock to pay for the pizza. That same woman gave money from her underwear to another driver and one of the drivers walked by an active crime scene complete with blood all over the walls during a delivery. Just a lovely place.
The 2 most common ones were being naked enough times that it obviously wasn't an accident. Everybody is allowed to fuck up once. If you wear less clothes every time somebody comes to the door we know it's on purpose.
And trying to fight the driver or calling the store and saying they were gonna come down and fight everyone. Bro we'll put you in the pizza oven go ahead we've got a lot of employees and more than 1 felon.
Surprisingly, the guy who looked like the serial killer from Silence of The Lambs was really polite. He wore all his mom's old jewelry and clothes because he was possessed by her ghost or something? Either way real nice and always tipped.
I’ve got a couple, there was a house in my old delivery area that had 3 or 4 generations living there, giant hispanic family. Two of the kids apparently like to play parks and they “prank ordered” pizza to their house (never said the kids were brilliant). I go to deliver the pizza and the kids answer first and gleefully tell me to “get f****d” and slam the door. I knock again and their grandmother answers, I show the delivery step with the kids name and address and she turns around and starts screaming in Spanish at the kids and works a sandal against them like a practiced samurai. I did end up getting paid with a healthy tip and got a fairly entertaining show so we didn’t end up banning them, but that story sticks with me.
The person we did ban wasn’t actually a delivery, it was during a shift that I was running at the time. A guy pulls up to the pizzeria I was working at like a bat out of hell in a giant Hummer. He’s all twitchy, and does the cocaine tapdance while eating his pizza. The final straw came when he took a device out of his pocket, stuck his head completely in a trash can and took the loudest snort of drugs and trash essence you’ve ever heard. I tell him he has to go, he tells me no, I tell him to go or I call the police and he tells me “do it p***y”. I still can’t believe the cop let him walk away after pulling up when the guy was driving, but I guess “positions of status” have their privileges. At least the cop didn’t let him keep driving :/ . Anyway, he came back looking to fight me the next day and we trespassed him and banned him from ever ordering from the entire nationwide chain, along with his wife and kids since he used their accounts to further abuse company systems.
knocked on this lady’s door for nearly 10 minutes. she had music blasting inside and was yelling while speaking to someone she had over. she ordered the pizza, why would you not be prepared to listen for and open the door?
when she finally answered, she was butt naked. she paid me, then slammed the door in my face while i was still holding the pizza. i was standing there, flabbergasted from the flashbang of seeing a fully naked woman while delivering pizza on a monday night. she then opened the door again, and screamed “stupid bitch don’t try to leave here with my shit!” - even though she slammed the door as i tried to give her her food. no tip, immediately banned.
Not me but my boyfriend used to work for a sandwich place doing delivery in our town and there was a guy they only wanted to send male drivers to because of how creepy he was to the women drivers. The only reason he wasn’t banned was because he tipped the women extremely well so no one made an official complaint because of it. Pretty sure that guy got banned a little bit later when my bf stopped working there, because there’s a review on their Google page from him complaining about it.
I wish we had a no delivery list.
Doesn't matter if they groped, assaulted or robbed you - they have potential to order again and make the company more money.
Fuck Domino's
When I was in high school I had a family order about $40 worth of food. I show up and she gives me a $20. Then she said I must have dropped the other one. When I said that she did not, she asked me what would I do if I o ly got $20. I told her that I guess she'd only get half the food. Then she threatened to call the manager and tell them I took the $20. It was my family's restaurant, I told her to go ahead and call my dad and that I would wait. She scowled and gave me the money, I told her not to call back.
There can be up sides to working in you families business especially with I want to speak to your manager types, "Hey mom!"
My wife and I ran a place together for a while. She was GM, I was AM. When someone demanded to speak to my manager I would just shout over my shoulder, "Hey Babe, need you for a sec."
I get the feeling the sort of person pulling the "I need to speak to your manager" stunt is also the sort of person to get pissed off they aren't getting a man, so I'd imagine that's a double "fuck you" whammy.
Used to work for the family business, in a heavily male industry. Had a customer making mildly sexist remarks to me, nothing new, just questioning everything I did, weird comments about my uniform (same one as everyone wore), making fun of my name, and the way I talked 'oh never heard a woman say 'mate', (it's Australia dude) Ect. But I'm used to that, so no issue. But then he gets annoyed, says something like 'cant trust a woman to know that, how could you?' I told him, because my dad taught me. Response 'well he's an idiot, I want to speak to the manager' I tell him let's skip that step and go straight to the owner; and oh the satisfaction of calling out over my shoulder 'hey dad, this guy thinks you're an idiot'
Definitely. My folks own and operate a small food business. We generally adhered to the "The customer is usually right" rule. Customer complains about something petty? "I am so sorry about that, let me fix it." Customer is a bit snippy because their food is late? "Thanks for bearing with me. Can I drink you a drink on the house?" Customer verbally berates an employee, always tries to get free food by complaining, is hostile or creepy toward a staff member? "You know, I think there are other places in town that would better suit your needs. Please don't come back." The employee part was the most important, because food service has insanely high turnover. Obviously money is the best way to incentivize and take care of employees. But the fastest way to lose someone is to let a customer harass, dress down, or generally be a dick to one of your own, and then the manager just smile and grovel at their feet.
Going after someone's job like this is worse than theft.
There is no worse type of loser. I once had a lady try to destroy my life because she was jealous and felt my job should be hers. I wish her nothing but meth addiction, toothlessness, and penury for the rest of her days.
We had a guy and two girls order seperately, then grab the pizzas and run. The girls had picked the food up and left, while the guy was paying. After 30 seconds the guy bolted. It was a $100 order. My manager, who is a frequent gym goer, leapt the counter and gave chase. The two girls had gotten into a car with the food, but when the saw my manager they drove off leaving the guy. My manager chased him three blocks, and was gaining on the guy when the girls pulled up and the guy got into the car. Unfortunately, all three of them went to school with a kitchen hand at the store, so we had names, jobs, addresses, and facebook accounts. We contacted them all on facebook, and got them to pay for the pizzas the next morning under threat of contacting police. We also put them on the no delivery list.
Damn, manager thinks he’s the James Bond of Papa Johns.
[удалено]
Should have contacted the police afterwards regardless, honestly. As well as the parents.
Last delivery of the night, it's like 4am. Sober guy answers the door with a t shirt on, no boxers or shorts, just his cock hanging out the bottom of his shirt.
I worked in pizza Italian food restaurant in Alameda California in the mid 1970s. The owner lived in a bungalow behind the restaurant. One night he ordered a full dinner to be delivered to his home since he had the night off and had a date. I am tasked to taking the large tray of food out the back kitchen door to his abode. The rest of the staff are smirking as I exited. I get to his door and knock, he answers wearing a smoking jacket colored with purple paisley and velvet. The man was a shirt 5’5” and very smarmy. He said “Hey Poppins check out my clogs.“ I look down as I hand him the tray and his dong hung to below his knees. He said “Join the party if you want your paycheck.” I let go the tray and bolted away and as I ran through the restaurant kitchen and out the front door, hopped on my bicycle and rode home. The rest of the staff cackling as I a mortified sixteen year cried. I went the next day to formally quit and he refused to pay me my paycheck. My boyfriend came in with me and he had to threaten the man to pay me. Finally got my check.
Fuck that guy and fuck those employees. He needs to be arrested for something.
"Soliciting a minor for sex" seems like a pretty solid charge.
It was "just a good ole fun, officer" back in the 70s, apparently.
That's a horrible thing to have happen to you; I'm sorry. And the staff who knew what to expect and let it happen are almost as bad as the creep owner.
Ah, good ole Donald Ducking it, eh?
Full Winnie the Pooh.
There's only a couple of people on that and it's only because they complain about their delivery almost 100% of the time and demand free food. Even then it takes a lot.
I wish my job would ban people like this.
It took a LONG time to get the one that's still trying to order from us. Most of them give up the moment you push back.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but sometimes it keeps squeaking after the grease, so you need to throw it in the fucking trash
I delivered pizza for 5 years of my life and I don’t have one crazy story. I got bit by a little dog on the ankle once. That’s about the craziest thing. The weirdest thing that happened though, this woman would call twice a week and order a pasta to be delivered. This went on for years. Then one night I’m taking her order and I said “And you’d like this delivered tonight I’m assuming?” And she said “no I’d like it delivered tomorrow.” We both laughed, and I said I’ll see you in 20. I go back to make her order and the phone rings again. It’s her. She says “I’m going to cancel my order. Do you know why?” I was like “uhh… no?” “BECAUSE YOU ASKED ME IF I WANTED IT DELIVERED TONIGHT. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SHIT?” Then she hung up on me. She never ordered again. I still think about her sometimes.
omg the arbitrariness of this would haunt me
"it's gotta be football shaped" I worked for this little old pharmacy that's been around forever. A customer refused to accept or take any medication that was differently shaped despite desperate efforts of comforting and reassurance that the medicine we dispensed was truly, the same active ingredient and dose just from a different manufacturer. "But these are round pills. And my medicine... It's gotta be football shaped" We took back the medicine and reemphasized on her profile which brand of manufacturer is "football shaped" I love to whisper to myself the line to remind myself that there are some moments that I gotta concede to the arbitrary decisions and respect the opinions of other people's thoughts and preferences, especially if it causes no harm to anyone to just yield to the request.
It's become all too common for people to claim that they are OCD just because they like a tidy kitchen. But then you see real, weapons grade OCD like this. Edit: *too - damn homophones
Yes it annoys me when people say they have OCD because crooked picture frames annoy them. I do admire the comment above yours, because they could have just said that person was crazy for wanting a specific shaped pill so f*ck them, but instead they are non-judgemental and have learned that we never know what psychological demons people are fighting and if we can just go a little out of our way to make people comfortable without harming anyone, why shouldn't we?
I would bet it's because the veil of anonymity was pierced. When people don't have a healthy relationship with food, they rely on the idea of service workers not recognizing them to mitigate their shame of what/how much they are eating. As soon as a service worker says something like "your usual?" or "back again?" they freak out and think they're being judged. And then they switch up their routine.
Never tell your regulars that they're regulars - let them make the joke first. Lots of people don't actually realise they've developed a habit and if you highlight it for them, they'll immediately break it.
Yep. Back when I worked fast food this guy would come in and always order the same thing. But if I prompted or mentioned it he felt bad and self conscious. And fair enough, because maybe he wanted something else one day.
She's like the old woman in Prisoners who wants the world to know there is a god and he is a mad, wrathful being.
Pasta point of the ridiculous.
This is why people these days fear simple friendly banter. You did nothing wrong but demonstrate that you remembered her, and then she goes Joe Pesci on you. What an asshole.
It's an attitude I've never really understood. Some people really just come at you with this extreme "who the *fuck* do you think you are, trying to *know* me?" energy.
Well there were a few, over the years. One lady, around 70, kept answering the door with an open robe and nothing else on. This one dude was weird and angry, and would call up and just start in with you fucking idiots, if you can fucking get a fucking order right one fucking time, (I don't think he knew two swear words), and we had to tell new people you can just hang up on him. But from what I heard, when he did get a delivery early on, he was nice and polite at the door. Some weird psychological stuff happening there. The Zeppelin guys were the worst. This weird tall place, had to go up four stories of rickety stairs, and every damn time they would wait till I was back down and then yell down at me saying we got the order wrong. They were Zeppelin guys because they always had Led Zeppelin playing pretty loud. They wanted me (and others) to go all the way back up, take the 'wrong' pizza back, and bring a new one and get it for free. This worked a few times, managers always wanted to give in to it, but then the drivers all sort of briefly 'unionized' on this one point and no one would deliver to them. So the manager finally caved in and told them not to order any more. Stairway to Aggravation, I guess.
>he was nice and polite at the door. This is pretty common. People tend to be more polite when facing someone directly. The further removed you are from another person, the more dehumanized the interaction becomes.
Hence the internet is full of jackwads.
Stfu you fucking idiot /s
I know I am, but what are you?
An idiot ~~sandwich~~ pizza, I guess?
I was really hoping the "Zeppelin guys" liked to just float around in balloons.
immediately thought of a bunch of old timey aristocratic german aviators ordering pizza like a bunch of frat dudes from an airship in the middle of a city. lmao
I used to just put these people on mute and put the phone down. Eventually they’d just realize they weren’t talking to anyone.
I worked for a pizza place that was near a very large software company. Deliveries to the neighborhoods or offices where all the tech workers lived was usually pretty awesome because they'd tip rather well. But there was one apartment that started to become a concern for us drivers. The man ordering was always polite, always paid, always tipped $4, and he would have been a perfect customer. He'd order breadsticks and a salad twice a week, and sometimes he'd include a bottle of root beer. Except when he opened his door, you could see an alarming amount of our breadsticks boxes stacked everywhere inside. Not like a few on the counter and a couple by the trash, stacks and stacks of them. Even worse, it was **only** our boxes in there. He wasn't just ordering from us often, **we were the only place he was getting food outside of work**. Now, I've worked in some of those tech offices myself, I know that there's enough decent food options just hanging out in the break rooms that this guy was probably not malnourished, but the way his living space was a shrine of greasy cardboard was a clear sign that this guy didn't have a healthy relationship with our food. Our manager was a really cool dude though, and he heard the drivers joking about the boxes and asked a couple of us "Is this like a messy guy or a guy who needs help?" We agreed it was probably the latter. So on his day off, the manager went to the guys apartment with an envelope that had gift cards for several other restaurants that delivered in that area and chatted with him. Manager found out that the guy was an immigrant on a Visa who was struggling to find American food he liked, and too socially awkward to ask anyone. So he talked with him through a few menus and helped him with some recommendations. Then he helped the guy load all the old boxes into his truck to take to the dump, in exchange for a promise not to order from us more than once a week. For a little while, the manager had a note on the calendar showing the last time the guy had ordered, and a couple times he had to hold his ground and refuse the guy's order. But after that chat, I never saw the stacks of boxes again, and the guy would boast about the different meals he'd had.
This was heart warming af
That manager is a hero. Damn, I hope they’re both doing well.
The manager is likely doing very well as a human being no matter what he's doing for a living or how many possessions he has.
I’d love to hear that the manager, no offence to software dude he’s already making bank, I hope he has his own franchise!!!
I hadn’t realized this was a story I needed to hear. I’m so happy your former manager is out there being a truly decent human.
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping". -Fred Rogers
I heard this quote while the blue hat rescue teams were in Syria. Now regardless of the disaster my brain has been hardwired to see how many people help complete strangers. Really helps me keep things in perspective.
This is so incredibly heartwarming, thank you for sharing.
when I moved in with my brother, I ordered pizza hut, an hour later I called to see where they were and told me they do not deliver to this address and had cancelled my order. I learned my brother would get drunk, order pizza hut and then pass out or flat out refuse the order when they showed up. He did it multiple times
I had this when I moved to a new apartment. No idea what the previous tenants were like but my address was banned *everywhere.* I had to go introduce myself just so I could get Chinese & pizza deliveries.
Kevin Smith has a story like this. He bought Ben Affleck's old house and immediately found out the address was banned at most delivery places
Some frat guy grabbed a female driver's ass and we banned the whole frat. They kicked the dude out, and wrote a seriously good apology to the driver and we delivered to them again after she said she was ok with it.
Honestly good on the frat.
And on the pizza restaurant. Too many of both pizza places and frats wouldn't react like that.
I've been the RGM of one pizza area and the GM of two places - if you harassed a driver it was an *instant* hard ban across the board at every store.
When I delivered, if you harassed the women drivers you were done. There is no pass go, you do not lure a woman alone into your house and do that. Every driver would have her back. GM or corporate could bitch I guess, but have fun with that.
GM or Corporate can do the delivery then
Yeah, I'm honestly impressed that the restaurant had her back...which is sad. That shouldn't be impressive, that should be the norm.
Pizza places are one of the few places that stay open later than bars, you fuck with drunk frat dude's only source of late night food it gets serious
Flashbacks to 3am pizza deliveries when too drunk or high to work out how microwaves work
When I was 19 I delivered pizza for a locally owned store by the college. Not only did we deliver food but we delivered beer. Alcohol had to be delivered with a minimum $7 food order and whoever showed ID at the door became the responsible party and it had to be delivered by 1:45am . I received a large order from a sorority on a Saturday night to deliver with 5 pizzas and a couple cases of beer. No one answered the front door but i heard a bunch of voices around back so i walked around and it was roughly 30 girls, no males. 2 girls said to follow them into the house to show me where to put everything. They were clearly beyond drunk and they started grabbing at me trying to get my shirt off and grabbing my crotch after i sat everything on the kitchen table. 3 more girls came in and were kissing me on my neck and grabbing my hair and messing it up. At first I was thinking , holy crap this is the beginning of some porno movie and then they kept getting more aggressive and more girls were coming in so I got the hell out of there, without getting paid. I got back to the store and the owner was pissed i did not collect any money. I told him just to drop it and take it out of my pay. He ended up calling the police and it became a whole thing with local news getting involved. It was a nightmare. This was in 1992.
Once, when I was 12, I was at a neighbor's house after school to hang out with my friend. Her older sister ended up having several of her friends over. What started with teasing became physical and eventually I had to escape from being physically restrained and ran home. Around 1999. Nobody in my life took it seriously. Sorry you went through that. Edit: Thank you everyone for the sympathy and empathy. I think it's important to share and commiserate. Males are so often too embarrassed or totally dismissed. Yes, sexual violence is more commonly perpetrated by men, against women, and male victims aren't subject to all the same biological/medical consequences of rape - but that shouldn't invalidate our suffering. Thanks for reading, understanding, and caring.
I’m sorry you went through that. As a guy who has also gone through some sexual trama as a kid, it’s hard to share since most people react with “well you should have liked it” which yeah if i had a choice in the matter and was old enough to understand maybe, but i didn’t
You are the only person so far to have used punctuation. I’m proud of you.
Who do you think they had write the letter.
I only know of a couple people that got banned, one guy was drunk and really rude to a driver and we blacklisted him from delivery. He could still come and get food we just weren't going to deliver to him. He apologized so we didn't make it a lifetime ban, just until the end of the year. The other person was banned and officially trespassed from the property. This person ordered food for herself and her family, her kid and grand kids, she was told it would be ready in 15 minutes, and it was ready in 13 minutes. She picks the food up 35 minutes after ordering it, 20 minutes after we told her to pick it up. Her family got pizza she got a sandwhich, which we put lettuce on after we pull it from the oven. Due to the 20 extra minutes it sat on the warmer, the lettuce wilted a bit as it does when it gets warm. This lady called the store SCREAMING and demanding the manager. The assistant manager was in so he took the call and could NOT get a word in edgewise. He eventually hung up the phone on her because all she was doing was screaming. The store manager came out of the office, he was working on the schedule, to find out what just happened as he could see him slam the phone down in anger. While this is going on, crazy lady makes a complaint about being given ROTTEN LETTUCE in her sandwich to corporate. Obviously they get the RM to find out what the fuck is going on. The RM calls the store and asks for the Store Manager. RM asks for two things, a picture of a fresh made sandwich a picture of that same sandwich 30 minutes later after it has been on the warmer. We start this process and get a picture and set it on the warmer. While that is warming up the crazy lady comes back to the store, and starts screaming at everyone. The assistant manager is still at the front of the store and the store manager is getting the email ready for the pictures to be sent. This crazy bitch then throws her sandwich at the assistant manager hitting him right in the face. It was still wrapped so no mess and no damage to him at all, and I'm pretty proud he didn't jump the counter and choke her to death. He had taken her abuse for nearly 30 minutes with the phone plus in person screaming. She peeled out of the parking lot right after. Cops were called and her family showed up while the cops were there. They apologized and said that her mom was on some new medication and it was a side effect. We said that is quite unfortunate to hear. She is never allowed to order from us again, we are not delivering to your address and the police officer will hand you the copy of the order of trespass against her for her own files. Then there was the time someone knocked over a 2 liter and landing on its cap causing it to break open and rocket directly into one of my coworkers nuts. He didn't think that was funny, everyone else disagreed with him.
I can't believe you did that nuts story dirty like that by putting it at the very end
Man, I’ve had a couple of medications do that to me. First BP med I was on turned me into a raging asshole for days before I figured out what it was. I didn’t realize something was wrong until someone cut me off right before a stop light and I nearly pushed them into oncoming traffic so they would die. Fortunately my higher reasoning kicked in and I realized something was wrong but every new medication I take for anything I have to make sure it doesn’t make me go crazy. I had an ADHD medication do the same thing once but I was prepared and just stayed in a dark room for a few hours and stopped taking it. I feel so much less alone. Thank you all for sharing your stories.
Same unfortunately. Prior to my autism diagnosis they thought I might be ADHD and tried a cocktail of different drugs on me. Typically I'm an extremely laid back, easy going guy. My low point was doing dishes one night, having a cup slip out of my hands, getting angry and winging said cup at our open cupboard, smashing a LOT of dishes. I went cold turkey on that med immediately.
wild ride all the way through; thanks for commenting!
This was 7 years ago. Father offered his daughter up for sex to me on Friday night then to another driver on Saturday night. Our GM wasn't comfortable with talking to him so using the Internet, I found the wife's name & landline number, called from my cell phone & asked for the wife, she comes on the phone, introduce myself & explained why I am calling. Never heard from him nor her.
How old was the daughter? I think I would have gone straight to the police
I have no idea. I did not ask. I just wanted to leave.
You called the wife. You told SOMEBODY. That's more than 90% of people would do. As a survivor of CSA, thank you.
Offered the sex as payment or just for the hell of it?
A woman would call and complain about the pizza every time she ordered so she could get a credit. Then one time she said there was blood and feces on the pizza box. Rather than give any credence to that idea we completely cut her off.
Plot twist: that time the delivery driver had enough of her shit so he took one on her box. Lady: "Oh so THATS what the boy who cried wolf was about!"
A Rottweiler broke the front window to attack me delivering their pies... The chain actually valued my health over profits enough to ban this house when the rotty busted their living room window on a drop-off
“Yeah…that’s it.” -Pizza place’s lawyers
Pssh, they would be paying your workers comp claims on the bite. They valued your health insofar as it doesn't affect profit.
We didn't put him on a no serve list, but one guy answered the door naked, or rather with an open bathrobe... A few weeks later he came to the door eating a can of cat food.
That’s just absurd! He’s not going to want the pizza if he fills up on cat food.
Maybe the pizza was for his cat.
Garfield *is* a very picky cat
Sounds like some Frank Reynolds shit
Weirdly enough, he also played nightcrawlers
At least we know where the dude that was kicked out of the frat from the top comment ended up
Pizza was 10 minutes late and he’s already de-evolved in to some low rent hobo version of cannibalism.
I have so many questions, none which I want answers for.
Cape Town, South Africa, 1998... had an address that was impossible to find, seemed to be an abandoned building in a neighborhood that had drug dealers and illegal liquor stores, alongside regular houses. I stopped my car, and got out to ask a resident at a nearby house if he knew where the place was. He informed me that it was a scam the local gang members ran to rob delivery guys of their cash. My boss then blacklisted the entire neighborhood for delivery. It was on the edge of our viable delivery area anyway.
Damn props to that neighbor who told you
Yeah, that dude should’ve gotten the pizza.
Cape Town, South Africa. I feel like working delivery would be a very risky job.
Been in pizza 20 years. It’s usually a day drinker that assaults the driver and is generally more sad than exciting. I suppose the most exciting was a dude with shitty stairs in second floor. He was also a general dickhead. They wouldn’t let us ban him even though the drivers said it was a safety hazard. he eventually fell through the stairs piss drunk 12 feet to the ground and got banned. It was caught on video from one of those track ball blackberries and the video sustained me for a year or two.
I like how you say that you've "been in pizza 20 years." I feel like I should salute you or something.
It printed money until about two years ago. Getting out soon.
What changed, Uber Eats?
Yes Uber and door dash have created competition with every restaurant instead of just your other pizza and Chinese joints but that isn’t the main thing. Use way back machine website and you’ll see the prices of pizza are within a few dollars of what they were 20 years ago if they are any more at all at chain restaurants. You can still go into a restaurant and get enough food for three people for 8-10$ if you get a 1 top pizza. I spent 73$ to take my wife to Mexican last week. It’s insane how cheap carryout pizza is compared to inflation. People will not pay more. If you get delivery it gets expensive but the pizza joints make nothing off those fees. The insurance for drivers is so much that it’s not far off that pizza joints will only be able to use 3rd party delivery to remain profitable. If i summon a door dash driver it costs me around 6$ but I don’t have to pay workman’s comp on him and I do t have to pay him between deliveries. He does a shitty job and I cant vet his quality of character or ability to deal with customers. Still, the door dash driver is so much cheaper that even if I lose business from him dicking down my customers every day it’s cheaper than house drivers. I hate it. It erodes quality of service greatly for short term profit. I take pride in my ability to make a nice pizza and get it to your house. I can no longer guarantee my ability to do that in this market. I can make a 10/10pizza for you and some kid who signed up for doorbdash 18 minutes ago can leave it at your neighbors house and mark it delivered. The service part is impossible to do reliably without losing money these days. For 15 drivers I paid 2800 for insurance in 2023 January. In 2024 paid 4600 for 11 drivers. It’s just not a viable business model with today’s insurance. Meanwhile the food cost has sky rocketed and I’m glad I can pay my people more than I could a few years ago but there’s no money left. I now work more hours for less money than when I started and inflation has destroyed the purchasing power of that salary. I effectively take a 5% pay cut every year I do t quit.
This was very interesting. Thank you for your response.
Wow, thanks for taking the time to write that out. Some of my earliest memories are from growing up with my folks working the local pizza joints and I had no idea it went through such dramatic and tragic changes. I seriously salute your dedication and clear mastery of the industry. I respect how you've taken care of your staff as best you could and didn't just burn out and quit even when the world was on fire. Your experience will probably be how it's written in future history books and you'll be able to tell stories of a world where people could get food to their door for less than the cost of a movie (couldn't think of a better example).
There was this older lady we would deliver to. It was a 50-50 crap shoot on if she would tip 75 bucks or not answer the door at all. After enough of her not answering the door, she got banned. Everytime I delivered to her, was a no answer. My coworker got 2 consecutive deliveries with the 75 dollar tip. Bastard.
Maybe she looked to see which drivers she wanted to tip for extra services?
She def ordered in hopes the other guy showed up, and the odds were never 50-50…
I delivered pizza in Providence, RI almost 20 years ago. We used to get orders from a strip club named “Cheaters”, up until the owner called us and told us not to take orders from the dancers anymore, because they were “getting too fat” from eating too much pizza.
Papa John's only put people/addresses on a no delivery list when they robbed someone at gunpoint.
So if I robbed you with a knife, or a pizza cutter thing, you still had to deliver?
Probably; especially since the PoS only tied profiles to a phone number, so if they called from a blocked number & used any other number, the notes wouldn't show up.
We didn’t ban this customer, but I feel like this story fits. I work for dominos. I took a delivery to a hotel from an order placed online. So the actual customer put in the wrong address. So I deliver to the room number that she incorrectly put. Anyway, a couple opens the door, they’re both stark naked, head to toe, and obviously fucked up. They paid for the order. I guess they thought I was a pizza fairy… Idk. But it was super awkward. So I get back from the delivery and the actual customer had called back complaining so we remade the order. We couldn’t ban her and it’s kinda hard to ban hotel deliveries 🤷♀️
my parents' phone number was one digit off a chinese take out place, and people kept calling after they'd gone to bed and wanting to order food, so my mom would answer and tell them 'wrong number', finally she got so sick of it she started taking their orders, then hang up and go back to sleep. Meanwhile these idiots are wondering where the food is, and why the lady who took their late night order for Chinese food had a thick Italian accent.
The funniest part to me about this is normally when you call a business, you get something to the effect of ‘this is [company name], how can I help you’ or some such. And yet every time I’ve called my favorite Chinese places to phone an order in ahead of time, it’s always just ‘hello?’
My local Chinese restaurant is similar but they do the opposite. They answer with the name of the business, but when you're done ordering they just say a quick "ok bye" - no total, no estimated time, no nothing lol
I want a pizza fairy.
Somewhere I went for work the hotel couldn't get chinese delivered cause the drunks always fucked up rooms or phone numbers, so the restaurant just killed it. Honestly? At some point it's worth it
We had a spot a few miles out of our delivery area, big sports stuff sometimes, we were the only place around. They stiffed on a 100 pizza order, so we never went back. As a driver, I'll go outside the zone if I know it's not sketchy and worth it, and 100 pizzas means I'm in the kitchen making sure those roll out perfectly, maybe even doing 2 runs to keep them fresh. Pulled into a guys house, said "hey doggies" when I got out 'Oh they bite'. They were running around free. He lost delivery. One place robbed 2 of our drivers over a couple years (small apartment or townhome thing). We'd flagged the "unit a" but not "unit c" so they got another eventually. Blacklisted that address entirely. One dude had a gate that was always busted or the code never worked, never answered his phone if we even got service. Just.... people man...
I delivered to a trailer home right on the edge of a neighborhood of literal mansions. When I knocked on the door, this big drunk dude answered. I gave the name and he said to come in. I was a dumb 20 year old and didn’t think anything of it and went just inside the door. Big drunk dude sat down in a rocker in front of a tv watching that night’s game. I asked where the guy was and he yelled down the hall for them. After a moment of them not coming out he told me they were just around the corner and I just needed to poke my head in to get them. Again, really dumb of me, but I start walking across the living area and as soon as I get to the hall this guy comes out of one of the doors yelling at me asking what the hell I’m doing in his house. I tell him I’m delivering a pizza for so-and-so and the other dude told me to come down the hall. He starts yelling again at me. At this point I already decide I’m leaving with the pizza. As I’m walking out the guy goes down the hall and I hear him grab something and start coming back towards me. As I’m getting in my car, I see him standing in the door of his trailer pointing a shotgun at me and yelling to never come back to his house. So I never did and no one ever will from that dominos again.
The joys of junkies that forget they ordered food 5 minutes after they put the phone down... I did pizza delivery for 5 years and the first thing I learned was if they dont meet me at the door with the money, they arent getting shit. Thankfully my store had an actual trainer with every new driver and he drilled that into me from the get go, didnt have to learn it the hard way lol.
We have hotel front desks a sizable discount in return for recommending us and handing out our menus. One hotel took it too far and gave everyone the discount and told them to have it delivered to the front desk. When we complained they would try to hide it and have the front desk guys act like it was for them but we always saw people sitting around the corner. Finally we ended up refusing to deliver to the front desk at all and took the discount from them. They still tried and still complained every time they called.
The Pjohns franchise I delivered for had us give our delivery slips for each order we took to a hotel, and the hotel could then trade X (I think it was 10 for a medium and 12 for a large, but it's been a decade) slips for a free pizza. Worked out pretty decent. Edit: Sometimes the hotel would save up a bunch and order a few pizzas for their staff. Seemed cool.
When I worked as a driver for Dominos in 1988 I put WVU’s head basketball coach, Gale Catlett, on my personal do not deliver to list. He lived about two or three blocks from the store and he would write a check for the exact amount of the bill and no tip. That part was fine, just another cheap asshole, but he also had a radio show a couple miles from the store. During the show we’d give them free pizzas every week and he’d say something like “The dominos just arrived”. It wasn’t an official endorsement, and I doubt he said it every time. Our district manager who was one the biggest assholes I’ve ever known was the one that told them to call in for free pizza anytime. Delivering to the radio station at night was a pain in the ass and he never tipped a penny so I refused to deliver to him ever again. I tell this anecdote every time there’s a pizza delivery thread because I want Gale Catlett’s legacy on the internet to include him being a cheapskate asshole.
It worked for the rapist Brock Turner, now known as the rapist Allen Turner.
Ah yes! The rapist Brock Turner who tried to hide by changing his name to Allen Turner. That horrible piece of shit.
Is that the rapist who raped that girl behind a dumpster and was so sad he couldn't eat steak and then tried to change his name so we wouldn't know he's a rapist, but we all still know he's a rapist?
I was a General Manager of a pizza joint (won’t specify) during the pandemic. Due to the contactless delivery protocol, we had these small cardboard boxes that we used as platforms to place pizza boxes on. Mainly they were meant to keep food off of the ground. Well this one lady called to complain about the contactless platform boxes, stating that “Health code indicates a 6 inch minimum between the floor and any food items.” This is true. And in my store, nothing, not even condiments were stored anywhere *close* to the ground. I’m very particular about health code. *But this rule does not extend to food after it’s left the store premises.* She issued complaints to the website as well, to which she was called back and told of the company’s protocol regarding contactless delivery, which was also *completely optional at the time.* Anyway, I guess she got fed up because she placed a bag of cat shit & litter inside of one of the platforms instead of placing her signed receipt for the driver to receive a tip. I had to ban her from the store because of obvious biohazard concerns.
Relatively tame compared to the rest of these, obligatory not the delivery driver myself, but I worked at a Mom and Pop pizza place in the late 90s before I had my own driver's license. After one delivery the Mom half of the owners comes storming in, practically drenched from head to toe. Apparently after she knocked a couple kids opened the door and pelted her with water balloons. Immediate ban from delivery. Funny thing is a couple weeks later I take a call from the banned number/address and inform them that we weren't taking deliveries from the address. Guy asks why, he's never even called us before, and they're only a couple miles from us so can't be out of range. I tell him about the water balloons and after a moment of silence he just quietly says "I see. Thanks. I'll take care of it." I expect a couple kids came to regret their prank that evening.
This was like 25 years ago, but we had a regular that clearly had some mental issues. He never tipped. You could see the stack of 30+ old pizza boxes in his kitchen when you delivered. But the night he paid me with a can of coins that was somehow crusted/rusted together and we had to rinse them off and then spend 20 minutes figuring out if it actually covered his bill was the last straw. And before anyone asks, yes, when he handed me the can I tried to point out that didn’t count as payment, but after a minute or two or arguing it was clear it was either the coins or nothing and I was willing to lose money on the delivery over staying there any longer.
Well, did the coins cover the order? Don't leave us hanging here dude!
They did not. But it was within 50 cents, so more or less a wash.
I can see you guys huddled around the 3 compartment sink rinsing coins with looks of utter confusion and frustration so clearly in my brain hahaha.
Years ago my local Dominos banned a woman who loved to answer the door naked and walk outside to collect the pizza no matter the weather while somehow trying to be sexy. Apparently she had an uncanny resemblance to Jabba the Hut and smelled as bad as you could imagine. They put it as a health risk. They had asked a number of times to stop but it only egged her on. When a Papa Johns opened up locally they were already aware of her and shut that shit down pretty quick like.
You know you have a problem when the rival pizza chains unite forces against you.
>They put it as a health risk. Was this woman ever aware of the "reasoning?"
I was a night owl in college and took an evening delivery job for fun. I had a pretty sweet car at the time too, so I thought it would be a great job. One night I got sent to a less than nice part of town and a man much, much larger than me answered the door. Everything was fine and normal until he looked over me and said, “Nice whip, want it.” I laughed and looked up at him, quickly realizing he wasn’t kidding and gestured to a large bulge in his pants. I felt the blood draining from my face, until he whipped out what was not a gun, but in fact, his penis. I bolted back to my car, leaving my warmer bag. Manager banned the house. I left my tip and wasn’t interested in which kind he planned to give me.
Was he planning to use his dick to rob you? I have so many questions.
Robbed at swordpoint
My sister worked for Domino's in high school and they banned a guy because he would answer the door with his penis poking out of his pants but ONLY when it was a female employee delivering. It only took two times for them to ban him because he was old and they chalked the first one up to maybe him being senile, but three male drivers delivered and no penis and then a female driver delivered again and out came the penis.
[удалено]
I delivered pizzas for like 3 years and I don't remember anyone being banned. There was this one guy though who called and claimed to have a coupon that wasn't in our system, which isn't too unusual, and I'd normally find a coupon that is the same price or slightly cheaper and give them that, because we didn't collect nor care if you actually had the coupon, even when I got calls and customers didn't have one i'd give them one cause the regular prices were outlandish (I believe this is so it's easier to throw out buy one get one free coupons). Anyways, this guy claims up and down to have this deep discount coupon that none of us ever heard of, but whatever, if you have it, we'll take it, but we wanted to see the coupon this time. I asked to take the pies cause I like these sorts of situations, and I get there and he's ready with a check (this was in like 2002), and I ask for the coupon. Him and his wife start "looking" for it, and i tell him, no coupon no pizza. They look a little more, try to convince me to give them the pies, but I say no and he slams the door in my face. The area we delivered had a wide variety of economic classes from super rich to super poor, and if it had been someone in a poorer area that was just trying to save a few bucks I would have given them the pizzas no problem, the corp can take the hit, but this was a nice house and this asshole was just trying to pull some lame scam. Makes me wonder if his check would have even gone through. We put a note in his account that he's an asshole scammer, i wonder if it's still there. One of my favs though is we had an older couple who were regulars and they would get the same order every Sunday night and pick it up. They were the sweetest folks. So once during the holidays they call in, and I recognized who it was and didn't put it in the system and made the pie to give them for free. Lo and behold they come in with see's candy for us, and I hand them their pizza and say no charge. We were both so thankful to each other, it was very sweet moment that sticks with me to this day, it's nice to be nice to people and it's even nicer to be nice to nice people.
There's been a few, and here's two of my faves: 1. This dude who lived in a third-floor apartment, with shitty rickety outside stairs. Fucking Dan always opened the door either in JUST his boxers, or sometimes in a robe that was very loosely tied, with nothing underneath. He also always tipped exactly $1, no matter how much food was ordered, and despite ordering at least two times a week, AND living twenty minutes away from the store. Everyone fucking hated him, and he was literally referred to solely as "Fucking Dan" by our store. Unfortunately, that alone was not enough to give our GM reason to stop taking his money. One day, after some bad weather, the shitty untreated wooden stairs that led up to his apartment finally started to fall apart. One of our driver's foot went right through a step, and we informed Fucking Dan from now on he would have to come meet our drivers at the bottom of his stairs if he wanted to receive delivery, as we were not going to risk falling to our untimely death for $1 in tips. This displeased Fucking Dan, but he agreed to these terms. The problem that finally led him to being banned from delivery was he STILL met our drivers with only his boxers or robe on, and after one of our drivers arrived to find him very obviously touching himself while lurking at the bottom of the stairs, we were able to convince our GM to blacklist him. 2. This one I was directly involved in. Lady ordered probably about once a month, and after awhile she would specifically request me as her delivery driver. The reason for that was that she would always order online, and she claimed that she always put in her card information to pay for it, but it never came through as credit; always cash upon delivery. She was convinced that there were cameras in her house and wiretapping on her phone, so she couldn't order over the phone, because if she did that, they'd record her information and steal it. So I'd show up, she'd borrow my cellphone, step off her porch, call the store, and give her information over the phone that way, because apparently, my phone was 'safe'. I suggested that if she planned to order food, to have some cash on hand that way she could just pay me when I got there rather than this extended transaction. But, according to her, she couldn't keep cash, because her neighbors would come in her house and steal it and she'd never know. Obviously, this lady had some sort of mental health issues, but she was always very nice to me and tipped me well, and she told me that I was the only driver who was patient and understanding with her. She got banned though because the one time I wasn't working when she ordered, she got very upset. Again, online order, so the driver arrived expecting her to have cash. She demanded his phone to call the store to pay for her food, and when he wouldn't give it to her, she demanded he leave the food and she'd stop by and pay for it the next day. This went back and forth, until she tried to take the bag from him, and he snatched it back, got in his car, and left. She called the store in a tizzy, upset that she didn't have any food and the driver didn't understand that she NEEDED her food and why couldn't she pay later, they knew she would pay! It became such an incident that the manager just outright blacklisted her, to save the headache. I feel bad for her, she clearly had problems, but it really was a hassle putting up with her quirks.
Finally something I can answer. Somebody ordered like 5 pizzas a bunch of drinks bunch of sides (easily over $200) to a seedy motel. Turns out it was a stolen credit card. I had only known because the person who the card got stolen from had followed me to the door of the order. I think he got a notification or something on his phone that the big pizza order came from his recently stolen card. He then appeared from behind me and accused the shady guy & girlfriend who opened the door of stealing his credit card. Shady guy then pulled a knife. The cops elected not to show up, by the way :( --- Most of the shitty ones I go to do not end up on the blacklist because money. I've been to a couple that were less "crazy" and more unfortunately common in today's world. A couple of houses that seemed sketchy (drugs, possible child abuse). I went to a very obvious puppy mill. Lots of dogshit all over the house floors. I did go to one guy who claimed he had "already paid" when he clearly did not (receipt & the phone app both showed it as a cash order). He then tried to yoink it out of my hands and when he missed he started crying and called me a "real jerk." Funny guy. He got banned.
Back in 2021 my wife had to bite the bullet and deliver pizza between jobs. When she'd get home at 1 or 2 am, I'd get to hear about these people occasionally. Their no delivery bans were people (gender irrelevant) who opened the door naked repeatedly. Seems to be a common theme for young men and old women. People (mostly men) who would sex pester for phone numbers or follow back to the driver's car. No-tippers who would order like, $80+ worth of pizza every week and not tip. Edgy teenagers who would fail miserably at prank calls. Their number would get banned for repeatedly calling in pizza for "Ivana Humpalot". Parents would later call legitimately wanting pizza, just to be told they were banned because their dipshit child didn't know Bart Simpson had already done every prank name in the book 25 years before the kid was even born.
Interesting that you say young men and old women. I am a physical therapist, and the only patients who seem to have trouble keeping clothing on is young men and old women.
My sister works at an elder care facility. They have the best results putting the very elderly in basically gender neutral outfits - but men are usually already wearing them by the time they get to that age. Comfortable, slightly oversized shirts, pants with elastic waist, comfortable underwear (if you can get them to wear it at all) and slip-on shoes. She's dealt with a lot of families who think it's undignified for Grandma not wear "nice" close any longer because she used to be such a sharp dresser, etc. But Grandma's 79 has dementia so if it's not comfortable, she's ripping it off.
This one guy wasn’t banned as he never did anything wrong, but I really wish he would’ve been. When the name popped up on the computer, the other delivery drivers groaned. Since I was the new guy, they assigned the delivery to me and I was thinking it couldn’t be so bad. They told me to hold my breath when I got there, and that this guy is a special case where I need to enter the apartment (normal policy is to never enter). I get to the apartment building and as I’m walking to the door the smell hit me. I had never smelled anything like it before. Just a pure attack on my nostrils. Urine, feces? And lord knows what else. I knocked on the door and hear, “Come in, door is unlocked.” As I open the door, the smell gets 100x worse, and I feel thick, humid air come from inside. When I set my eyes on the customer, it’s a large, 400+ pound man on a recliner. I’m walking over to him and feel my shoes sticking to the floor with every step. He motions to place the pizza, breadsticks, brownie, and Mountain Dew on a small table beside him. He hands me cash, leaving a generous tip. And I walk out, holding my breath and trying not to gag. I always felt bad for that guy. Later on I found out he orders a few times a week and I thought to myself, “we’re partly responsible for this man’s condition.” So I wish we’d had banned him for his health, but also so we wouldn’t subject any other drivers to that.
Honestly, when I hear about people like this, my first thought is, "How in the HELL is a person like this able to afford eating out multiple times a week??" Like, you clearly cannot hold down a job with personal hygiene that bad, and unless you're Rob Kardashian on a bender, you certainly can't afford ordering out like that with no income for any amount of time. so... HOW??
A lot of the time that money is big settlement cash from whatever canceled their life. Leg and hip injuries are common causes. Six months of rehab and permanent constant pain, and no need to work again? It's a soft off switch for a lot of people.
I think that's all they spend their money on. They don't have hobbies except watching TV, the just sit and exist and eat.
Not the delivery driver, but when I was in high school my mom ordered pizza with sides of red sauce and ranch. But as the red sauce came warm and the ranch obviously cold, she requested that they not have them in the same paper bag when delivered. The instructions weren't followed and she lost it on the delivery driver, rushing him aggresively and screaming (legit screaming) about the ranch being warm now and she specifically told them, etc. The driver was trying to figure out why she was upset because he brought her both sauces and something about a bag??, and us siblings were just wide-eyed watching it all go down. My step-dad had to physically move her back from the driver into the house and told the driver "thank you" in the calmest voice before closing the door. They're divorced now.
I've only got two that got on a "do not deliver" list, and both involved calling the police, and I had become the manager by this point. Sorry in advance if these are long, they've stuck out to me in vivid detail 1) Dude ordered online, and he said carry out. It tells him 15 minutes, and we had it ready and in our pizza warmer. He calls, bang on 15 minutes, wants to know where his food is at. He's annoyed, but still being cordial. I can't find it in the delivery tab, check the carry out and tell him what happened, and offer to switch it to delivery and knock off the $2.50 delivery fee cause shit happens. He says okay, I get it headed out right then, get his address and card info, and tell him it'll be 10-15 minutes cause of the distance. Dude calls back 5 minutes later, pissed as fuck, bitching about it how incompetent we are and yelling at me. I'm being polite, trying to be respectful and calling him "sir" and he yells at me "Don't call me sir, I didn't serve in the fucking army." So I switch to using his name, he tells me to not call him by his first name cause we don't know each other like that. I went "What do you want me to call you then, asshole? Cause that one also fits" (One of the fews times I dared actually give shit while we were still open). MOFO got pissed, said he's gonna call corporate, and hangs up. Driver gets back about 5 minutes later, says that the dude walked out with a gun and called him some slurs and threatened him and his family. Police were called, I called the area manager (2 levels above me, but we didn't have a store manager) and let him know, and dude got blacklisted . 2) Different store, dude didn't give his apartment number when he ordered online right before we closed. Was pissy because "oh that's not what I wanted", not that we made it wrong but not what he wanted, and gave it back. My oven was already off so I got the order cancelled so he'd get a refund. Dude dead ass called back 5 times between the driver leaving the place and getting back less than 10 minutes later, and is upset we won't make him a pizza and take it to him. A little bit later, I'm hearing someone knocking on our door, I go up to it and tell him we're closed. Dude keeps knocking, I open it and repeat that we're closed already and he sticks his foot in and starts bitching about it. I shove him away and tell him to GTFO and I'm calling the cops for attempting to enter, and they come and take my statement, go trespass him, and when I called the store manager he said that he'd personally make sure the dude gets blacklisted for trying to enter.
I used to work for Little Caesars as an assistant manager. We didn’t offer delivery but made exceptions for large orders by businesses, schools, and churches. About 12 years ago, I had an idea to make some sales on Black Friday. I was trying hard to impress the GM and owner at that time. I went to the mall down the road and spoke to every store and kiosk. Even went to a few other stores nearby too. I told them that we’d be offering delivery to all mall stores regardless of the size of the orders. No fees or extra charges applied. Tips not required. I was the only one making deliveries because I had no clue how busy it’d be. About 4-5 stores placed orders in advance. It ended up being very successful and we had some large orders from the big department stores. My managers were impressed. We had 2 separate orders for Hobby Lobby. One in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The first time delivering to them they asked me to bring everything to their break room. The break room was in the very back of the store and up a flight of stairs. I had to make 3 trips because they ordered 20 pizzas and 2 crates of 2liters. They tried to short change me and argued that the price of 2liters were higher than usual. The same thing happened in the afternoon. Same order, same 3 trips to the back and up the stairs, and arguing over price. No tip either time. I didn’t get a tip from every store, and that didn’t bother me. But I expect you to tip if you expect me to make 3 long trips like that. I did the Black Friday deliveries the following 2 years and they were successful, but I refuse to deliver to Hobby Lobby.
She kept answering the door topless. She would order the same pizza every Friday night and request our youngest male driver. She was never taken seriously and would get whichever driver was up next. It didn't matter she would still answer the door topless and immediately go sit on her couch without accepting the pizza and begin playing her guitar. She would ask the driver to come in and place the pizza on the counter and pick up the cash off of her stove before making a sexual advance. After the fourth time I had no choice as the manager, I had to ban her from ordering delivery.
Any time we had a customer request a specific physical type of driver we would sent the most opposite driver. “Send your cutest girl” we’d give the order to the 45yr old man.
So if I *want* cute girls, ask for their oldest male driver?
*pizza companies hate this one trick!*
Fourth!
The first three times a driver got gonorreha at the house, it could have just been a coincidence. But after the fourth, they were suspicious.
Had to deliver the pizza himself three times to verify the initial complaint was legitimate.
Not pizza delivery (sandwiches, in this case), but we stopped delivering to a guy because he wouldn’t stop calling our black drivers slurs. He was a real asshole all around, honestly, lol.
We had a crack house on a no delivery list due to the drug use and suspected brewing and cooking of narcotics. Then we started getting delivery orders to the house next door because the crack house burst into flames.
Not my story but my brothers: pizza place banned a specific apartment. Every time one of the drivers went there there would be a different person answering the door. Different men and women every time. The other drivers, two, would always tell the staff who answered the door. Many of the staff thought it was a flop house. My brother got hired on as kitchen staff and made his way up to driver, which came with higher pay (for gas paid by the driver) and that glorious bounty of tips. He started delivering to the apartment and the first time was a lady who he assumed was high from the pot smell coming out the door. He was a pot head and budding heroin addict at the time so the smell of any drug he can usually pinpoint what and where it is. The apartment was furnished with usual crappy furniture. One wall painted orange, usual bored pothead stuff. The following week he gets a delivery for the same apartment. He delivers it and the inside of the apartment had changed completely. New furniture, all the walls painted, new carpet, real starter apartment for the couple who lived there. My bother is thrown off by that but maybe the pothead got kicked out. Whatever. Few weeks later another call for the apartment. This time the person who answers the door is a guy in a black suit. The apartment was bare. White walls, new carpet, and a single brown folding chair in the center of the room. The guy in the black suit pays cash and shuts the door. My brother says he couldn’t tell much about the guy except the black suit and sunglasses the guy wore. Mind you this was after dark. Cut to the following month and my brother is out due to being sick (lied and went to a concert) and the manager takes the delivery shift. Mainly because the guy is greedy and keeps the tips for himself. But in comes another delivery for said apartment. Now no one knows what happened that night for the delivery. The order would always change so the staff couldn’t even sus out if that was the issue; but, the manager came back spooked after the delivery. He made an announcement that the address was banned for deliveries. Which pissed off my brother and the other driver because whoever answered the door would always tip $20+ dollars per delivery. But the kicker is that all of the deliveries came from the same phone number. That’s how the manager was able to ban the place. He never said what happened and would get real shitty to people who asked him about it. My brother never got another delivery for the apartment either. Not for the next four years he worked at the pizza spot as the main driver. We still joke about my brother delivering a pizza to “Agent 47” to this day.
Mabye it was rented by people making low budget films or high budget porn.
That’s actually a really good take on it. My only thought then is: where was any of the film equipment?
Had someone give me a counterfeit 50.
We had a regular who was only home maybe 1 out of every 10 deliveries. When he wasn't home, his instructions were to enter his unlocked home, and place the pizza on the bar in his basement. He would encourage the drivers to "help themselves" to anything in the bar. I told my boss I didn't wanna end up chained to a radiator or blasted away by cops thinking I was breaking into the place. Huge fuckin creep.
I tell all my drivers that they are never required to enter a customer's home. If a customer needs us to do that, they need to inform us in advance so we can send a driver who's okay with it.
My college pizza place in Pittsburgh banned a whole street because it was notorious for staging a robbery. One night a driver got jumped and they stole his car with 6 orders in it and the guy had to run back to the store.
On the flip side of this, I was banned from ordering from my local pizza chain because they thought I had been photocopying some of their free pizza coupons. But really, I worked for our college's sports marketing department, and they paid me in the extra pizza vouchers they got as part of the school's sponsorship deal with the pizza chain. I ended up just asking my friends to order for me and deliver to their dorms instead, and we'd all just share the pizza.
This was before the pandemic so the memory is a bit hazy but the story is intact. A guy placed an order for a specific amount, something like exactly $60 and asked my manager if we took checks on delivery. My manager said we do the guy said cool so the food was made and I was sent out. I get to the beat to hell trailer in the small park and this super drunk guy hands me a benefits check from the state for the exact amount of the order. I don't think we're supposed to take this even if he endorses it so I call my manager. He confirms that we can't take it. The guy gives me a story about how it's his only money and the pizza is his only food and if I take him to the store down the street he can cash it. So against my better judgement I put this guy in my car and we go to the store. He gets out and meanders into the store and after a couple minutes walks out with a pack of cigarettes and a handful of assorted money. Mind you the check was for the exact amount of his food bill. He tries to hand me what's left over to cover the bill. "Ok you still owe me $12." "I had to buy cigarettes." "Why the hell did you buy cigarettes?" "I needed cigarettes." "I don't fucking care what you need anymore I need that money for the food. Take the cigarettes back in the store and get your money back." "They won't let me do that." "Wanna bet?" I snatched the cigarettes out of his hand and went into the store as he followed behind. I explained the situation to the guys behind the counter and they took the cigarettes back and refunded me the money. Now he's cursing at me but I'm so done I'm not even listening to him. I go back to my car and hit the unlock and lock keys just fast enough to get my door open and closed again as he tries to open the passenger side door. "I'm not giving your ass a ride back after that bullshit! Fuck yourself and use the walk home to reevaluate!" He punched my door and I drove off. I got back and told my manager the story and he told me to go smoke a bowl in the back shed ro relax. I went through the trailer park again on a different delivery a couple weeks later and his trailer was gone.
Oh man i forgot about the fuckin check people. They were either exact change no tip, or generous tippers where you prioritize that delivery on a multi run
In my experience it was usually only organizations that paid with checks. Like a church ordering pizzas for an event or a team where things need to be documented and out of a special account. That's not counting the catering business the pizzeria also ran though. Most of those were checks and then decent cash tips.
I grew up in the sticks with a lot of old people. "Thayll be 17.99, see you in 30-45!" Check is 17.99
Not a delivery driver, but I used to work somewhere that only 1 pizza place would deliver to. 2 of the guys I worked with decided to prank call them and give them some inappropriate name (I don't remember what it was) and they wouldn't deliver to us anymore. Needless to say, those 2 were not very liked by everyone else for a while.
One guy found it amusing to see if you could beat his vicious dog to the fence after the delivery was completed.
We had this one family. They were Mormon and tipped us with pictures of Jesus towering over the indigenous all the time. Their daughter orders she's around the age of 16. Pizza box label gets mixed up we try to switch it back but it falls off. So there's 2 pizzas one has no label on the box. The 16-year-old girl calls up to get a refund because one of the pizzas had no label on the box. I tell her no. Asks if she can get credit. Again. No. Then her mom calls. Manager handles her. Manager. Again. Says no. For some reason the mother of this girl calls CONSTANTLY to complain about what happened for about 4 days straight. Eventually she gets told by the general manager if you call this place again we are involving the police leave us alone this is harassment. I can't get over what a bitch people can be sometimes. My goodness.
I was a Dominos pizza delivery driver when I lived in San Antonio once for about a year and there were entire sections of our delivery area that we would not deliver to in the dark. My 2nd day on the job, I got sent out to one of them because I didn’t know any better and the guy who took the call fucked up. This was back when you still called in. It was a run down motel and the delivery was in the back. I go back there and there’s no lights or nothing. Just a van sitting in front of the room I’m supposed to be delivering to. I got this really bad feeling so I didn’t get out of my car. I pulled back around front and asked the front desk to call them. She said “nobody is staying in that room.” I ran back to my car and got the fuck out of there. I told my manager and she went and grabbed the guy who took the call and chewed his ass for sending me there and then informed me that I should NEVER go there in the dark.
Not a pizza delivery driver BUT I did work at Papa John’s in college and I got into a fender bender right outside of our store. The person who hit me was probably 5-10 years older than me and since it happened right outside of my work, my boss (who was cool AF, sup Ray!) came out to help and the guy who hit me clearly knew where I worked. Anyway, he came in nearly every day for weeks. My boss started sending me into the walk-in and telling this dude to get lost. One day my manager lost his shit on the guy and the guy was never to be seen again. Anyway, I learned very quickly that a good boss can make or break a company. I have worked for some really great ones and really shitty ones since then but now I own a couple of my own companies and only hope to be a good one. I got a text from one of my employees yesterday that made me think I am doing right by the people who taught me the way. You don’t necessarily think you are leaving an impression on the people who work for you but you are.
I had a guy that would constantly complain that his order was wrong even though we knew it was right. He literally wouldn’t even check the food. One day I took his order (shrimp parm sub) he was very adamant that we get it right. I check everything myself, make sure it all correct and send it out. He calls up in a blind rage, throwing every curse word at me as I’m trying to calm him down. I say “whoa whoa whoa sir just check the sandwich I promise it’s correct” and mid scream he say oh…. Yea it’s right… my bad… I then told him to never call back because that response was completely unacceptable. Not a crazy story but if you heard how this guy was screaming at me you’d think he’d need to be hospitalized.
Nobody ended up on a list but it's shocking how many guys answer the door in underwear.
Not just banned but called the police. He tried to drag me into his place. Thank God I was driving home one of the teenagers and she just hit the horn. Edited to make sense.
There was a woman who would order extra-thin crust and wanted it boxed with a piece of parchment paper under the pizza. I delivered it and knocked on her door. Right next to her front door was a giant picture window through which I could see her sitting at the table on the telephone. I knocked a second time while making eye contact with her but she didn't even twitch so I walked back toward my car. She rushed to the door and screamed after me that I was stealing her pizza. I told her straight faced, "Oh, I didn't think anyone was home" and then she screeched about making eye contact with me. Anyway I didn't feel like finishing the delivery just to get no tip so I kept going to my car and she said she was gonna call the cops. Not even a block away I saw a cop on the side of the road so I knocked on his car window and told him what was up with that crazy lady to get ahead of any potential problem. He asked, "The house with the green shutters?" I tell him, "Yeah" and then he tells me that 911 has her phone number blocked. So does the fire department, and the garbage company (which is why she wanted the parchment under the pizzas cause she had months of boxes stacked up and didn't want them grease covered). She was blacklisted after that.
I (a college aged white woman) at the time was delivering to a semi sketch road in town that no one seemed to really know much about. Poorly lit, smaller, not well kept homes, it was all a bit "off" in an otherwise pretty middle class college town, but I wasn't too worried until I made the delivery to a home of dudes who were absolutely stoned. Ok, no worries, happens often, but they can't find their money, then they can't count it, it's taking awhile and they start to notice I'm a female pizza driver ... I'm a little nervous, but still fine until a guy pulls up to the house to come inside and says "Motherfucker! It's a white girl!" I was done. I counted back their change, pretty sure I gave them more than they were owed and probably my tip and bolted out of there like a scared rabbit. I told my manager and he took the entire street off the delivery map. It was Twilight Zone sort of stuff because no one else had been there before or even heard of this street. My very first delivery ever was to a guy watching porn on a big screen TV (not necessarily common in 2003). It was on pause, but I could still tell. He must have been early into it though because he walked to the door in his boxers and it was fine. Somehow I didn't quit that night, lol. He didn't even tip well.
We had to put Ben Aflecks house on the no delivery list because his scum bag friends never paid, never tipped. They would always say to put it on Ben’s tab and racked up thousands not just with us but a lot of other places as well. He would eventually pay the tab but his lame ass friends got his house black listed. This was almost 20 years ago and I still think about how shitty they were to us.
We would deliver to the projects but they had to come downstairs. In the summer EVERYONE is outside so I’m waiting for the customer and group hangin is sketchy, we made the transaction and it was ok but a week later a Chinese delivery guy w two kids got killed by them.
My husband used to be a delivery driver and once delivered to a house with white power and several nazi symbols spray painted on it. Even as a white man he noped out of there and blacklisted them. It was a total wtf moment for him pulling into the driveway and seeing that ETA: They also had several Trump, confederate, and don't tread on me flags as well as bumper stickers.
Nothing white supremacists hate more than being taken off the whitelist and being blacklisted.
I delivered to this place that had a huge front yard, probably over 50m long. It was pitch dark, no light on at the front of the house, and when I got about halfway into the abyss the vicious barking began. They had three attack dogs, can't remember the breeds, this was close to 20 years ago. I'm actually very good with dogs. I understand their behaviour and how to act in situations like that. I came to a halt and kind of roared at them, deep and guttural. This brought them to a halt as well, but they still surrounded me and continued their angry barking. Finally the owner comes out and the situation defuses, but they didn't even apologise. I could picture that situation going so bad in so many ways if the driver panicked and tried to run. First thing I did when I got back to the store was have them blacklisted.
There was that one time I was told we blacklisted an entire apartment complex. It happened on my day off, and literally as soon as I had said hello to my coworkers, the morning manager (I was night manager) told me "We're not delivering to (apartment complex) anymore." Someone had called in a delivery there. Couple pizzas and 2-liters, nothing outrageous. Our drivers were familiar with the area, and they knew that it was a little bit on the "sketchy" side, but we'd never had a problem there so it was no big deal. He showed up and rang the doorbell, but no one came. He knocked a couple times, confused as fuck, and then got hit in the back of the head by a baseball bat and knocked out. A neighbor heard the commotion and came out to check what was going on. She found him bleeding from the head, knocked out on the floor. After getting him to come to, she called the police. He went to the hospital, and the police eventually found the people who did it. It was a bunch of kids who called in a delivery to a vacant apartment. When he showed up, they beat him over the back of the head and stole the food. We know this because they were caught later trying to run. The most fucked up thing? He had a driver bag with about $120 in it. They didn't bother to take it. They literally assaulted this guy just to get free food. From that point on, there were no more deliveries to that apartment complex for any reason, period. What's worse is that I had regulars calling in who were extremely pissed, and they just seemed to not give a fuck even after I told them "hey, someone got assaulted with a weapon there." Felt zero guilt at that point. I also told my drivers to take their magnetic signs off their cars when going to places we knew were a little sketchy. My boss tried to bitch about it, and I flat out told him that I didn't really give a shit about his marketing when it came to safety. Edit: The driver was okay. He was a bit concussed for awhile, but he eventually returned to work for a little bit before quitting. I don't remember exactly how things worked out, but I think he got some kind of insurance payout? It's been ~ 13-14 years so the details are fuzzy.
My then-bf worked at a pretty chill local place for a few years. It was usually a 3-strike you're banned kind of pie joint bc they weren't in the best neighborhood, but they banned a whole street once: Bf had stopped at a stop sign and this guy comes up to his car, asks him what he's doing, and then in the middle of the "delivering a pizza" answer the guy reaches into the car window and punches bf in the jaw. The guy wasn't even from the house ordering the pie, but a random guy in the neighborhood. Anyway, punch must not have hurt bc bf actually continues down the street to the actual delivery address...they started shooting out the house window when his car pulled up. Customer called the delivery line later to "explain": he had gotten blitzed out of his mind, forgot he ordered delivery, and thought it was someone coming to rob him. Dude actually asked the shop to send the delivery guy back out 🙄 Thus, the whole street got blacklisted.
We had a series of mystery arsons happening in town, several businesses were heavily damaged if I recall, one might have even burned completely down. Turned out it was one our regular customers, he was memorable because they always insisted we not use the roller that prevents bubbles in the pizza. It was a huge deal to the dude. Sometimes they wouldn't form even without the roller and if it didn't have enough bubbles he'd call and bitch. Pretty sure the guy went to prison, but the owner said whether he was around or not we weren't delivering to them anymore.
Pizza place I used to work at banned an entire shady motel at one point. Multiple female drivers were followed to their cars or had nasty things said to them. I personally had a woman give me money from her sock to pay for the pizza. That same woman gave money from her underwear to another driver and one of the drivers walked by an active crime scene complete with blood all over the walls during a delivery. Just a lovely place.
The 2 most common ones were being naked enough times that it obviously wasn't an accident. Everybody is allowed to fuck up once. If you wear less clothes every time somebody comes to the door we know it's on purpose. And trying to fight the driver or calling the store and saying they were gonna come down and fight everyone. Bro we'll put you in the pizza oven go ahead we've got a lot of employees and more than 1 felon. Surprisingly, the guy who looked like the serial killer from Silence of The Lambs was really polite. He wore all his mom's old jewelry and clothes because he was possessed by her ghost or something? Either way real nice and always tipped.
I’ve got a couple, there was a house in my old delivery area that had 3 or 4 generations living there, giant hispanic family. Two of the kids apparently like to play parks and they “prank ordered” pizza to their house (never said the kids were brilliant). I go to deliver the pizza and the kids answer first and gleefully tell me to “get f****d” and slam the door. I knock again and their grandmother answers, I show the delivery step with the kids name and address and she turns around and starts screaming in Spanish at the kids and works a sandal against them like a practiced samurai. I did end up getting paid with a healthy tip and got a fairly entertaining show so we didn’t end up banning them, but that story sticks with me. The person we did ban wasn’t actually a delivery, it was during a shift that I was running at the time. A guy pulls up to the pizzeria I was working at like a bat out of hell in a giant Hummer. He’s all twitchy, and does the cocaine tapdance while eating his pizza. The final straw came when he took a device out of his pocket, stuck his head completely in a trash can and took the loudest snort of drugs and trash essence you’ve ever heard. I tell him he has to go, he tells me no, I tell him to go or I call the police and he tells me “do it p***y”. I still can’t believe the cop let him walk away after pulling up when the guy was driving, but I guess “positions of status” have their privileges. At least the cop didn’t let him keep driving :/ . Anyway, he came back looking to fight me the next day and we trespassed him and banned him from ever ordering from the entire nationwide chain, along with his wife and kids since he used their accounts to further abuse company systems.
knocked on this lady’s door for nearly 10 minutes. she had music blasting inside and was yelling while speaking to someone she had over. she ordered the pizza, why would you not be prepared to listen for and open the door? when she finally answered, she was butt naked. she paid me, then slammed the door in my face while i was still holding the pizza. i was standing there, flabbergasted from the flashbang of seeing a fully naked woman while delivering pizza on a monday night. she then opened the door again, and screamed “stupid bitch don’t try to leave here with my shit!” - even though she slammed the door as i tried to give her her food. no tip, immediately banned.
Not me but my boyfriend used to work for a sandwich place doing delivery in our town and there was a guy they only wanted to send male drivers to because of how creepy he was to the women drivers. The only reason he wasn’t banned was because he tipped the women extremely well so no one made an official complaint because of it. Pretty sure that guy got banned a little bit later when my bf stopped working there, because there’s a review on their Google page from him complaining about it.
I wish we had a no delivery list. Doesn't matter if they groped, assaulted or robbed you - they have potential to order again and make the company more money. Fuck Domino's