![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Pizza Rant
Apr. 23rd, 2001 07:34 pmThere was a time in the far distant past when it was possible to get a pizza delivered to your home within 40 minutes. I remember, in fact, where Dominoes had a guarantee that it arrived in 30 minutes or you got a huge discount.
What happened to change this? Why is it that to get a pizza delivered for dinner these days, you almost need to make a reservation a week in advance so that it is on time? Especially since there is a pizza delivery place in almost every strip center now a days. There are more of them serving the same area, yet everything is slower. I see something deeply wrong with this.
And while we're at it, what is with the hold times? Are pizza places so hard up for staff that it takes 15 minutes to answer the phone, just so that the caller can be asked to "please hold", which drops them into another 20 minute
queue hold?
Of course, their hold music touts their web ordering option, but that is no better. Yes, it does take less time, but the sites are limited in the options you get, and it seems like the webmasters are doing everything they can to make the process as arcane as possible.
So, upon ordering a pizza from the local Papa-Domina-Hut-Inn, and waiting the requisite hour and twenty minutes that it takes when they tell you it'll be there in 45 minutes, you get someone on your porch who either looks like (a) the backup drummer for The Ramones or (b) someone who speaks exactly 2 words of English in a manner that can be understood by any native speaker of the language. (Usually "bathroom" and "cash.") They mouth something that sounds vaguely like, "Four postal tongues flew by daily freight, fees" (Your total is $19.78, please) and then hand you the pizza so that you cannot manage to sign a check or fish out the bills needed. You manage to get the money out somehow, and after shoving it into his hand, you get that look-- The one that says you are the lowest tipper this person has seen in the last 15 years. (They practice that look. It's one of their most prized skills, right up there with the weird sort of offensive driving that permanently marks everyone who ever delivered a pizza.)
Now you get the pizza into the house. If you're lucky, everything is as it should be. If not, then it's the interminable wait on hold again, along with all you went through the first time to get them there. Of course, this time they'll send it out much faster -- you're on priority. (Makes you wonder if the extended delivery times are a result of them sending out a large percentage of their stuff wrong and having to make up for it?) And the delivery guy is in a quandary. He's got to be polite and do all he can to suck up for the idiot in the kitchen who doesn't know the difference between the words "onion" and "pepperoni", all the while knowing that he has less of a chance of getting a tip than Andrew Dice Clay has of getting a date with Melissa Etheridge.
Why does it have to be this way? It used to be so much better. Is this progress? If so, Devo was right.
What happened to change this? Why is it that to get a pizza delivered for dinner these days, you almost need to make a reservation a week in advance so that it is on time? Especially since there is a pizza delivery place in almost every strip center now a days. There are more of them serving the same area, yet everything is slower. I see something deeply wrong with this.
And while we're at it, what is with the hold times? Are pizza places so hard up for staff that it takes 15 minutes to answer the phone, just so that the caller can be asked to "please hold", which drops them into another 20 minute
queue hold?
Of course, their hold music touts their web ordering option, but that is no better. Yes, it does take less time, but the sites are limited in the options you get, and it seems like the webmasters are doing everything they can to make the process as arcane as possible.
So, upon ordering a pizza from the local Papa-Domina-Hut-Inn, and waiting the requisite hour and twenty minutes that it takes when they tell you it'll be there in 45 minutes, you get someone on your porch who either looks like (a) the backup drummer for The Ramones or (b) someone who speaks exactly 2 words of English in a manner that can be understood by any native speaker of the language. (Usually "bathroom" and "cash.") They mouth something that sounds vaguely like, "Four postal tongues flew by daily freight, fees" (Your total is $19.78, please) and then hand you the pizza so that you cannot manage to sign a check or fish out the bills needed. You manage to get the money out somehow, and after shoving it into his hand, you get that look-- The one that says you are the lowest tipper this person has seen in the last 15 years. (They practice that look. It's one of their most prized skills, right up there with the weird sort of offensive driving that permanently marks everyone who ever delivered a pizza.)
Now you get the pizza into the house. If you're lucky, everything is as it should be. If not, then it's the interminable wait on hold again, along with all you went through the first time to get them there. Of course, this time they'll send it out much faster -- you're on priority. (Makes you wonder if the extended delivery times are a result of them sending out a large percentage of their stuff wrong and having to make up for it?) And the delivery guy is in a quandary. He's got to be polite and do all he can to suck up for the idiot in the kitchen who doesn't know the difference between the words "onion" and "pepperoni", all the while knowing that he has less of a chance of getting a tip than Andrew Dice Clay has of getting a date with Melissa Etheridge.
Why does it have to be this way? It used to be so much better. Is this progress? If so, Devo was right.
