Something you should know about pizza delivery

[Archbob]

Aye, but if they're little more than focaccia bread with a smear of tomato and cheese, that maybe not be a particularly good deal.

I remember they were pretty decent, not too different from Dominoes.

Even now if you live in Arkansas, you can get a pizza for $4.99

http://www.eurekapizza.com/

And its even solar-powered!

 

[Borachio]

"Better Ready Pizza". What does that mean?

They sell so many that you've just got to walk in the shop and it's there in your hand, hot, before you've said hello?

Oh no, wait. That would be America. So you drive past the window at 30 mph and they throw it onto your windscreen?

(I joke and tease, btw.)

 

[Archbob]

Its Cheetah-fast pizza. And larges are only $3.99 on Mondays. No wonder they can't pay delivery boys anything.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Spoiler :

In 2004, when I worked for a certain pizza company delivering pizzas,

The price of gasoline was a lot lower than it is now. It currently costs me about $50 to fill my tank, which empties in 2 shifts (250 miles of driving is roughly 2.1-2.4 shifts)

I earned minimum wage even while on the road. In fact, I earned slightly above it, due to raises and my employer "staying competitive" with the competition.

I got 50 cents to a dollar per delivery, depending on the cost of gasoline at the time. That meant that more deliveries meant more money, regardless of whether or not we got a tip.

The delivery charge largely went to the driver's actual, driving expenses.

I was also guaranteed a standard, livable minimum wage whether you tipped or not. And your tip had some kind of meaning- it meant there were times I earned decent money, because I served you so well. There were times I didn't earn decent money, because we were running behind and the pizzas were late. Sometimes you tipped anyway, and I appreciated that, especially because it was the driver's fault roughly 1 percent of the time, such as going to the wrong address or forgetting to bring the soda. Every other time, we were just busy.

I took home my tips and it enabled me to save, and work towards a college education. I then went and attempted to obtain that very thing.

The job was exactly what you believe it should be- a livable wage, and a path toward improving oneself. It was also a pretty rockin' job.

Let that sink in for a moment. The companies, all of them, were quite profitable, and the workers were properly compensated.

____________________​

Now.

Imagine I told you the corporate powers that be invented a way to

pay the employee absolutely nothing, and also, steal that person's tips directly out of his pocket.

You'd call that absurd, right?

Watch me prove how they did it, with actual math.


__________________


After 2004, they cut the driver's wage to $4 an hour.

Then, they raised the delivery fee higher and higher. Going from $1, to $1.25, to $1.50, to $2, and eventually.... $3.

Per delivery.

$3

Per delivery.

That means, if I take 4 or 5 deliveries an hour (I do) I am generating for the company between $12 and $15 per hour in delivery fees.

Which, of course, I still only earned $1.25 maximum in driver's compensation, per delivery.

Which means they only ended up paying out about $5-6 in compensation per hour, for the $400 a month I spend on gasoline, the 220 per month I spend on car insurance (not lying about your profession means you're covered in an accident, lying about your profession means lower premiums but no actual coverage) and of course, constant tire replacements and oil changes.

Which means I was still getting decent compensation for what I was doing, however, they had cut my guaranteed wage in half, meaning it hurt me when you tipped, and it hurt me when you didn't tip. It hurt all the time.

Then, they removed that compensation.

Now, they pay by the mile. Which means, if I take 3 deliveries all in the same general area, which still takes me way more time than 1 delivery, I only get compensated for, essentially, 1 delivery, while doing three of them.

Which means my driver compensation dropped from over 20 dollars per day to roughly 10.

Which means my wages and my driver compensation both were cut in half.

At the same time, the delivery CHARGE remained the same.

They would earn 3 dollars per delivery, 9 dollars total, for a triple-dispatch, and only end up paying me a dollar in compensation.

Now, customers are furious at the 3 dollar delivery fee, and mistakenly believe I get that money. They do not tip much, if at all.

Which means, the money they were going to tip me, is now going to the delivery charge. Which I no longer get a very big piece of. Instead of half, I basically get 1/9th of it, instead of half or a third.

I'll bring the company between 9 and 15 dollars per hour just in delivery fees alone, and I will get 4 dollars an hour in wages, and 1 dollar (not enough compensation for gas, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation) in driver's compensation, and between 10-15 dollars a night in tips.

I used to earn 50-80 dollars a night in tips.

That money was stolen from me, because of the delivery fee, and my employer kept it.

Then, they had enough money from the delivery fees alone to more than cover a 7 dollar an hour (nearly 8) dollar an hour wage, without it directly costing them ANYTHING (because of the delivery fee profit).

So, they had an employee which they provide almost no benefits for, and then the labor cost didn't just drop to zero, it became less than zero.

Because I'm bringing them more in delivery fees than they spend on me being there Way, way more.

So, my take-home wage was cut in half, my driver compensation was cut into a third, and my tips have essentially vanished because my customers do not understand how badly I am being screwed, and how much they are being screwed, by this delivery charge.

If drivers bring up the subject of tips at the door, they can be fired immediately. We cannot even explain to you what's happened to us.

We cannot unionize, or we will get fired on the spot.

What, can't legally terminate us for no reason? They can still do the next best thing: Reduce our hours to 4 per week. I've personally seen this happen. One half-shift a week. Can you pay your bills on that?

Find a better job, obvious solution. Fraid the millions of people employed by these companies cannot all find jobs elsewhere. There are millions more unemployed people trying and failing as we speak.

Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever had to take a 50% pay cut?

Have you ever had a job where the job-related expenses were once compensated for, and now, are not?

Have you ever had a job where your employer literally stole your tip money from you?

Well, I still end up getting about $7 per hour, if you factor in the tips.

Literally none of it actually comes from my employer anymore.

It all comes from the tips I earned, and the delivery charge my employer adds on to the regular price of the meal. My cost to the company is less than zero.

My pay, however, is half of what it used to be. And my cost to the company is now nothing.

Because, my employer figured out how to steal my tips, from you.

Legally.

You will keep in mind, I've been promoted, cross-trained to do everything, I am often literally in charge of the million dollars a year that my store generates in gross sales. I am entrusted with that money.

I am not a bad, disloyal, inexperienced, or ineffective worker. I am a highly valued, loyal, skilled, and trusted member of the team, and I'm often placed in charge of the team.

Yet, my wages were stolen from me, and the tips that you give me, were stolen from me.

Money is fungible. Even though my employer is not directly taking my tips out of my hands, my employer has managed, through reduction in pay, and raising of delivery fees, and restructuring of my cost compensation, to reduce their actual costs of having me on the team down to zero, and literally all of the money that I earn comes from your tips, and a portion of the delivery fee, which covers my slashed into thirds compensation, and my slashed in half wages.

And my tips are suffering, because this scheme of theirs has rendered it so that if you want to actually tip me, you've got to tip on top of a 3 dollar charge that you believe helps me in some way.

Which means, you're essentially spending 5 dollars, personally, every time I deliver to you, if you gave me a two dollar tip.

And yet, because many customers no longer tip at all, I still end up earning about 5-6 dollars an hour.

Nothing you do will change this.

I am not asking you to tip more.

I am just letting you know how extremely greedy, selfish, and unethical businesses are, and why employees need to be able to unionize without retaliation, and why employees need better legal protection against these kinds of unethical practices.

This is also why there has to be a legal minimum wage that is STRICTLY adhered to.

Those of you who argue that the minimum wage should be abolished: There are not words to describe how much I despise you.

Can I quote this on facebook? Yeah, probably no-one will share it, but IMO, doesn't hurt to try.

 

[cav scout]

Askthepizzaguy:

I delivered pizza for a national chain for several years when I was in college so I know what you are talking about. I also agree that the minimum wage should be applied equally to all jobs without exceptions for agricultural workers, servers, delivery drivers etc.

Here is the thing though- I fear you have fallen into the trap of working longterm at a pizza joint. Even if you make store manager one day you won't ever earn enough for more than a two-bedroom apartment life.

You give alot of excuses why you are still there. But the reality is that nothing will change for you unless step out of your comfort zone and make it happen.

If you need support, encouragement or a roadmap on how to get where you want to be there are posters here that can help.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But anyway, it appears you're an antagonistic anus so there was obviously no point in trying to engage with you. I wonder why you get no tips

Moderator Action: There is no call for such name calling. You should have left it at "antagonistic".
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[classical_hero]

You eat canned pizza?

This is from a chain restaurant.

 

[gozpel]

I confess I've never had a pizza delivered to me. In fact, I've only once eaten pizza from a place selling them cooked (I certainly don't like the look of those I see in supermarkets). And I ate that sitting in. It was alright. It didn't persuade me to try it again though.

But all this talk of pizza is making me wonder whether I shouldn't try one again.

Still, they're just fancy cheese on toast, aren't they? And I have made them from scratch at home. What a palaver, though!

For once in your life, you might be surprised!

Be a dare-devil and try it!

 

[Takhisis]

This is from a chain restaurant.

Wow, sarcasm has grown wings.

 

[Zelig]

Well, I've never ordered food to be delivered to my house, ever, so I'm doing my part.

I'd like to see every fast-food establishment bankrupted and executives prosecuted for their lies and harm they've done to people's health.

There's a nice pizza place about a 20 minute walk from my house, I walk over and get a pizza from them every couple months, costs about $15 for a quality 11" pizza.

*Paying by miles rather than a flat fee sounds like a royal outrage, and given the damage that will do to your car, you'd probably be better off straight up going on unemployment rather than working there, or taking *literally* any other job.

If per-mile rates are fair, it shouldn't make a ton of difference.

I don't know about food delivery in particular, but standard mileage compensation rates here are $0.50/km, which are pretty fair IMO.

What is society going to do with all of the people who will be better replaced by robots? They won't be needed and will in fact be a huge drain on society.

Plug them into the matrix.

Then your opinion isn't worth a handful of spit. Delivering pizzas was one the most difficult and stressful jobs I've ever had.

Well that doesn't mean it isn't crappy. My job is super easy, I work from home half the time and just sit at a computer during most of the work day yet I'm paid nearly an order of magnitude more than pizza delivery people.

No kidding. I promise you if there were some available, or I could afford to move, which is thousands of dollars, or my credit were good enough that I didn't feel I had to worry about being rejected for an apartment building elsewhere... etc etc. If I could get a job elsewhere and move simultaneously, and so on and so forth.

Long story short, for almost all poor people, moving is basically impossible. It costs a lot of money to move, and it requires excellent credit.

I don't think moving is nearly that expensive. I moved cross-country ~3 years ago for about $300 total (the price of a plane ticket).

Sold/tossed all my belongings that didn't fit on the plane with me.

Found a room to rent on kijiji (Canadian craigslist equivalent) within walking distance of the job I found, no credit check required.

 

[Crezth]

I don't think moving is nearly that expensive. I moved cross-country ~3 years ago for about $300 total (the price of a plane ticket).

Sold/tossed all my belongings that didn't fit on the plane with me.

Found a room to rent on kijiji (Canadian craigslist equivalent) within walking distance of the job I found, no credit check required.

I was going to question you but then I saw an anecdote and realized it was an ironclad example. Well played.

 

[Zelig]

I was going to question you but then I saw an anecdote and realized it was an ironclad example. Well played.

Well even without personal anecdotes, from what I've seen, it's mostly family that's a major impediment to moving.

If you want to add up all the costs, you can move anywhere within North America and cover your first month of expenses for about $1500 total. ($300 plane ticket, $1000 hostel, $200 food.) I'd avoid moving to anywhere with those conditions where you can't get a job within the first month to cover those expenses.

 

[Crezth]

Well even without personal anecdotes, from what I've seen, it's mostly family that's a major impediment to moving.

You're applying your personal example as the rule for everyone. Surely you should realize how absurd that is.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well even without personal anecdotes, from what I've seen, it's mostly family that's a major impediment to moving.

If you want to add up all the costs, you can move anywhere within North America and cover your first month of expenses for about $1500 total. ($300 plane ticket, $1000 hostel, $200 food.) I'd avoid moving to anywhere with those conditions where you can't get a job within the first month to cover those expenses.

Tell that to the people who moved to Alberta to work at Fort Mac. Some of them were lucky enough to find a place to live... and then the building was discovered to have been improperly built and they had to leave. The ones who never did find a place to live had perfectly good jobs but still ended up living in the bush or in a trailer because the rents went into the stratosphere and there was a shortage of housing in the first place.

I couldn't even move across town for $1500! Mind you, I do have some attachment to my stuff, my cats, and for some ridiculous reason people expect rent, damage deposit, pet deposit ($250/cat), the movers cost, and it was during winter so there were some things I could have done myself if it had been summer, but I'm not moving stuff myself while having to contend with ice and snow on the ground - been there, done that...

 

[Bugfatty300]

Well that doesn't mean it isn't crappy. My job is super easy, I work from home half the time and just sit at a computer during most of the work day yet I'm paid nearly an order of magnitude more than pizza delivery people.

That depends on the store, neighborhood, etc but what's your point?

Conversely sitting at a computer screen for most of a working day sounds absolutely miserable to me. Coming home exhausted with +$100 in cash in pocket every night actually felt pretty good for me while it lasted and I had plenty to spend after food and expenses. The official paycheck I got every week was just a bonus as far as I was concerned.

 

[downtown]

This probably doesn't mean anything, but I've had several *professional* white collar gigs, and I think delivering pizzas was probably in my top 3 favorite jobs. If it paid more, I certainly would have done it longer than 6 months.

I wouldn't say it it was a super easy job. It was difficult in a way that most of my other jobs have not been difficult.

Also, FWIW, I've spent more than 1,500 every time I've moved more than 200 miles away. I'm moving in a few weeks, and I'm budgeting about $3,000.

 

[Zelig]

Tell that to the people who moved to Alberta to work at Fort Mac. Some of them were lucky enough to find a place to live... and then the building was discovered to have been improperly built and they had to leave. The ones who never did find a place to live had perfectly good jobs but still ended up living in the bush or in a trailer because the rents went into the stratosphere and there was a shortage of housing in the first place.

I couldn't even move across town for $1500! Mind you, I do have some attachment to my stuff, my cats, and for some ridiculous reason people expect rent, damage deposit, pet deposit ($250/cat), the movers cost, and it was during winter so there were some things I could have done myself if it had been summer, but I'm not moving stuff myself while having to contend with ice and snow on the ground - been there, done that...

Okay, "anywhere within North America that has hostels with vacancies and that isn't Fort McMurray", which is still just about anywhere.

I couldn't even move across town for $1500! Mind you, I do have some attachment to my stuff, my cats, and for some ridiculous reason people expect rent, damage deposit, pet deposit ($250/cat), the movers cost, and it was during winter so there were some things I could have done myself if it had been summer, but I'm not moving stuff myself while having to contend with ice and snow on the ground - been there, done that...

I pretty much covered all of that, you can get rid of all your stuff, hostels don't ask for anything beyond a nightly cost that you can cover for $1000/month pretty easily.

That depends on the store, neighborhood, etc but what's your point?

I guess I missed your point, I assumed that a job being difficult and stressful wasn't a positive.

My point was that on the spectrum of what people generally consider to be "good" and "easy" jobs, high paying jobs tend to be easier than low paying jobs.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I pretty much covered all of that, you can get rid of all your stuff, hostels don't ask for anything beyond a nightly cost that you can cover for $1000/month pretty easily.

That's assuming you make enough to spent $1000/month on rent besides having to cover utilities, food, phone/TV/internet, transportation expenses, and a host of other things. Not everyone is that lucky.

 

[cav scout]

Instead of quibbling over the dollar amount of Zelig's post I think we should instead focus on the point he was trying to make (at least in my eyes, correct me if I'm wrong Zelig):

If you continuously make excuses for why you can't do something then nothing in your situation will ever change.

 

[Synobun]

Instead of quibbling over the dollar amount of Zelig's post I think we should instead focus on the point he was trying to make (at least in my eyes, correct me if I'm wrong Zelig):

If you continuously make excuses for why you can't do something then nothing in your situation will ever change.

I don't really see how blaming the victim is an alright act in this situation. The point was made rather clear: The goal posts of the business are shifting with no consequence in the favour of the business and the detriment of the employee. There is nothing the employee can do about it except make the situation known and, in your esteemed grace of blessed knowledge, "make excuses".

It rubs me the wrong way much like the people who just throw, "Learn programming and make thousands within weeks." into the faces of the unemployed and if the person without a job dares to say no to that idea then they're just lazy slobs who are leeching off of welfare.

As a society, the goal should be to move forward, not backwards, and putting the responsibility of that on the victims rather than the perpetrators seems rather inviting of violence and misery instead of the self-independence and sustainability you seem to be wanting. Zelig's point is meeting resistance because it's naive and assumes everyone is superior like him and can pack up their singular suitcase of belongings and move across the country off the dime of their enormous intellect and social prowess. Hanging negative situations over people's heads and then smirking at them while saying, "well, you should just be more like me," is not my idea of fantastic advice or a gem of wisdom.