Pizza gripes

I haven't had the energy to post the last couple of days, it's hot and work has been terribly busy, I am in the middle of an uninterrupted nine day stretch of work with exclusively closing shifts, it is just as fun as you might be thinking.

Either due to the weather or the season evenings have become super busy, easily doing two-thirds or more of the days sales in the last five hours of operation. It is becoming difficult to get shit done at night in a timely fashion, on the one hand that means I get more hours because we stay until the store is clean, on the other hand I am tired as hell and my staff are... mostly not terribly happy with the situation.

Outside of me and the other managers nearly all of the staff, and everybody who closes, is 21 or under, for most of them this is their first job and they aren't used to being abused by the food industry yet. They are mostly troopers, putting up with the unexpected long shifts, missed breaks, and extra work, but I can tell it is taking a toll and for many of them the job isn't really necessary and they aren't really putting the effort into it that it demands.

The exceptions are the women for the most part, I have a new hire who is seventeen, a transplant from Arizona here without her family, she hasn't said and I haven't pressed because it isn't any of my business, but I suspect that she is basically running away from someone or something back home, being in that position she works her ass off and is obviously determined to avoid the consequences of unemployment, which might include returning to her family. There is another who is I think nineteen now and her history seems to be less grim but she is no less determined to maintain independence, working two jobs over the summer in order to save money so that she can afford to go to school in the fall and still keep her apartment while cutting back to just the one job. She honestly should be in management herself but for some reason the owner is unwilling to promote at the moment.

There are a couple of flakes of course, and they drive me crazy, this weekend was particularly bad, having two of the evening staff call out two days in a row(different people each day) and on Saturday literally everyone who wasn't a manager showed up late. On the one hand I absolutely agree that work, especially minimum wage slavery, shouldn't have to be the focus of your life, particularly when you don't actually need to work yet, as is the case for several of the employees here, on the other hand doing this completely screws the people who are at work and who do need to be there, such as myself or those mentioned above. I was at work until 1AM Saturday, and if just one of my callouts had shown up then the four of us who were closing could probably have gotten out before midnight.

But hell, here I am staying up even later complaining, let's round things out with some more lighter complaints from work about customers, who I hate unrelentingly.

If you ask for everything on the pizza you basically show yourself to be a tool obsessed with image, you don't actually want to taste your pizza, you just want to say you had a lot of shit on your food, and shit is what it basically is at this point. Ima make a list:

11 different sauces, mozz, three cheese blend, parmesan, feta, blue cheese, cauliflower, broccoli, basil, spinach, lettuce, spring mix, tomato, pepperoni, salami, ham, chicken, buffalo chicken, sausage, bacon, meatballs, beef, two types of olives, red and green peppers, onions, mushrooms, pineapple, pepperoncini, jalapeno, and garlic. Oh, and anchovies.

You know what that tastes like? Basically crap, or nothing, there is no way to distinguish flavors at that point and you may as well be eating a casserole for all the resemblance to pizza it has now. The only justification might be that if you are poor and need a shitload of food and only have like ten bucks on you, because we don't charge for toppings that is a cost effective method of getting a ton of fuel into you. But no one I have sold these to has been in that position, no they did it because they could and the advice of the expert making the pizza is worth nothing to them. It's a waste of time and food because half the damn thing gets left on the table anyway when they inevitably discover it tastes like crap and they need a fork to do anything with it anyway.

Speaking of forks, if you have a cheese pizza, you do not need a fork and a knife, you are in a pizza place for gods sake, this isn't time for prissiness, pick the fucking thing up with your hands, in fact, this goes for nearly any pizza except the monstrosity mentioned above. We have napkins and a bathroom where you can wash your hands after eating, take advantage of it.

On a related note, our personal pizza comes out on a plate, which I place on the table directly in front of you, you do not need another plate for one piece at a time, I promise you it tastes absolutely the same no matter how many plates you spread it out on. Now my guys have to wash two dishes because of you.

Why the fuck are you asking for your pizza in a to go box when you eat the entire damn thing in the store? To go boxes are for to go orders, if you aren't sure if you can finish your whole thing I have an entire stand of small boxes just waiting for you to put your leftovers in them, not that you will have any, you gluttonous monstrosity, now I have to throw away a box that could have gone to someone who needed it, I have to fold another one, and we have wasted more paper and time when I could have just given you a plate, in fact, there are some absolute monsters who demand a box, and then a plate to place their slices on like the dude in the above paragraph, they are truly the worst of both worlds and I wish them to find their car full of yellowjackets when they go to leave.

I do not care why you want more pepperoni, if you want more pepperoni then tell me and I shall give you more, I don't need to know that you love pepperoni, I didn't think you hated it because I can discern things from context, I also do no need to be told three times in succession that you love pepperoni in slightly different ways, I am putting more fucking pepperoni on your pizza, it costs me nothing to do so and so I shall, but my hands, though nimble, only move so fast, I promise you I have enough pepperoni to meet your desire, insatiable and ridiculous as you seem to think it is, the meaning behind your desire is irrelevant and unwanted.

Yes, eating at the tables outside still means you are eating "for here" see, that is because the tables right outside the door are in fact part of the restaurant, you can tell by the signs on each one and also the fact that they are literally three feet from the door, no not figuratively, literally. I promise you we can bring you a pizza out there and do not need directions, my staff are generally pretty good about delivering anywhere within a five mile radius, they can manage stepping outside and turning slightly to the left or the right depending on which table you sit at. Also the windows are clear and I can see you.


Finally, anyone remember the show Rugrats? Fuck I hated that thing.