Picture this: You take your wife and four kids to a nice restaurant. At the end of your meal, the waitress presents you with a tab of, oh, say $60. She’s been nice, joked around with the kids, and given you good service. For serving six, she deserves a tip of say conservatively 9 to 15 bucks, or more. The next night, the wife doesn’t feel like cooking; there’s a game on TV, and the kids are chanting Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!.
Do you realize that people will tip a waitress 10-20 bucks to bring your food 20-30 feet from a kitchen to your table, but only give a pizza driver a dollar for the same thing after he’s driven a few miles through rain or snow, cussed at traffic jams, and has been dealing with surly customers all day who complained about how long it took!
Having been a pizza driver for a few major chains, on and off, part and full time, to make ends meet, I’ve seen the pizza business as a customer and a driver.
There are a few things I’d like to point out.
That delivery charge.
Even if he did get all of it, (which he doesn’t) is $1.75 really a fair tip?
Let’s look at the facts.
Usually the driver only gets a dollar of it — if that, depending on the chain he works for. This covers:
A. Gas at nearly, or above, three bucks a gallon.
B. Insurance. His rates go through the roof the moment his provider finds out he’s delivering pizza.
C. Wear, tear, tires, oil changes and maintenance on a car that averaging about 100-125 miles a day (that’s on average about 500 to 750 a week).
He’s paid a lot less than you think he is.
Most places pay pizza drivers at, and sometimes below, minimum wage! Why? They consider them the same as waitresses, and can get away with it. Pizza drivers are expected to make up the difference with their tips - which they have to report at checkout at the end of the day, and pay taxes on.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jet in Columbus
I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!
2 - Nancy
15% is what I've always figured for a delivery tip. It never occurred to me to tip less. If it's a really big order & they're super fast, they get more. Why not. Pizza/food delivery sounds like a wretched job.
3 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Indeed, 15% is the bare minimum. But 20% is better, especially when you order pizzas regularly and get to know the people who bring them.
I do hope that the police have caught those thugs who assaulted you. People like that need to be behind bars (via due process, of course) so that they cannot hurt anyone else.
4 - Dave Nalle
I think this is a reasonable argument for tipping the delivery driver more than 15% when compared with what you tip a restaurant waiter or waitress. Of course, where I live no one even delivers pizza, and when I pick it up for the family they never tip me, the ungrateful wretches.
Dave
5 - Jet in Columbus
Dear Nancy,
Actually I was speaking out at and about people who don't tip at all, using the delivery charge as an excuse, which believe it or not is the majority.
I knew without you telling me that you tipped. You just seem like that kind of person.
Love
Jet
6 - Nancy
LOL, but Dave, maybe you take it out in trade...? Just out of curiousity, do your kids make you eat the leftover crusts they leave (or do you do it from a sense of 'waste')? I always thought that was part of a father's job description: dad always finished up whatever got left so there wouldn't be leftovers. But your wife's cooking is probably a LOT better than my unlamented mom's!
7 - Jet in Columbus
Dear Margaret,
The area had a lot of imported Samolians, who can't speak english, and can't find a job, so they've resorted to robbing people, and they have a tendency to beat people when they don't get their way.
It happened at 8:30PM, November 4, 2004 it was dark, and I couldn't identify them if they were standing right next to me.
I'm in therapy for that, to this day, because I become unreasonably scared when a strange young black kid comes too close, because I fear they might recognize me, and follow me home because they thought I recognized them.
By the time the cops got around to trying to get fingerprints off my car, it'd been handled by too many people and it'd rained a couple of nights.
8 - Jet in Columbus
Dave #4-Try wearing a pizza uniform, and make up a fantasy with your wife about having an affair with the pizza guy.
I'll bet she tips you then!
9 - Jet in Columbus
By the way, Dave, sorry I couldn't tie this in to Bill Clinton somehow, so you'd have to look at his face when you clicked on this, but apparently Hillary hasn't written about baking or ordering Pizza.
"It takes a village pizza?"
I'll work on it
10 - Dave Nalle
Nancy, I actually hate pizza, which makes it doubly irksome that I have to pick it up for a somewhat ungrateful clientele and then figure out something else for myself to eat.
Dave
11 - SteveS
a tip should be at least the same across the board, whether the service is in the restaurant or delivered to your door, I agree.
The delivery drivers I see around here use company cars and also the gas should be provided by the company, it should not come out of your tip. If you use your own car, you should at least be able to write off the wear and tear on it, and claim the car as a business expense.
Personally, I can't fathom paying 16 dollars for some dough and tomato sauce, so the only pizza we eat is homemade. But I agree with you on the tip.
12 - Jet in Columbus
Steve #11
The companies that make you use their company cars instead of your own, won't pay you the dollar per delivery. So if you don't get tipped you walk away completly empty handed (to quote Dave Nalle "The wretches")
For that reason, most drivers pick a company that they can use their own car, so they at least get a buck to put back in their gas tank and towards tires, or a pop at the local SevenEleven.
Also, despite the talk to the contrary, pizza drivers don't make enough for it to be worth going with various deductions, and just use 1040 EZ, and pray they don't get audited.
13 - Matthew T. Sussman
You should claim 48.5 cents per mile you drive with your own car.
14 - Jet in Columbus
Dear Matt #13, while that works in theory, most use the basic tax form with no deductions at all, either because they don't make enough to justify it, or they're afraid of using a bunch of deductions to get maybe an extra 20 or so back, and risk being audited.
Thanks for you input though
Jet
15 - SteveS
Jet, everybody has a different opinion on it, but I can't fathom using my own car, and dealing with the wear and tear on it, for someone else's business.
When the tires wear down, I have to pay for it, when the brakes go, I have to pay for it.
That, to me, is the equivalent of taking money out of my own pocket to pay for a corporations phone bill or computers, or fake plants in the conference room. I can't rationalize it to myself.
16 - Jet in Columbus
SteveS 15-Most companies don't own their own cars, especially "mom & pop" operations, and don't be fooled if you see a car with a sign on it, the sign belongs to the company, the car belongs to the driver.
The car only belongs to the company if their logo is painted all over it.
If you need money, the pizza delivery business is the place to go. You may walk into the place with an empty pocket, but even on a lousy day, you could walk back out with $20 if you've made 20 deliveries. If you have a halfway decent night in tips you could go home with $40-50.
The trick is to put enough away that when the car breaks down, or the tires need changing, you've got enough saved back for it.
It's especially attractive for man with a family, if he's stretched between paychecks, he can come home with enough at least to buy a few day's groceries.
Most people work it part-time, so they have cash in tips for groceries or gas that they can take home a few nights a week to make it between paychecks.
17 - Victor Plenty
If delivery drivers follow the advice I was given, back when I worked this gig, most are effectively driving without insurance. My boss told me not to inform my insurance company I was working in pizza delivery. This was to avoid the sky-high charges for commercial insurance and the need for a commercial driver's license with a more expensive state fee.
My instructions if I ever got into an accident were to immediately take the pizza company's sign off the top of my car, and then claim on any police reports or accident reports that I was on my way to or from work. At all costs, I was told, never admit I had ever used my own vehicle to actually deliver a pizza.
Of course, such "precautions" would never stand up in court if I'd ever had a serious accident involving injury to someone, so I'm lucky that never happened to me. I never had to face the choice of whether to falsify an accident report on my boss's advice.
To this day, whenever I'm in any group and they decide to order up a pizza delivery, I make sure the tip is at least 20%. I know the risks drivers are taking to hold that job, even if they don't.
18 - Jet in Columbus
That's absolutely true about removing the signs and keeping street clothes in the car to change into, Victor. I know that from personal experience in several companies.
Unfortunately that didn't work in my case.
I was broadsided back a few years ago by a car, that glanced off mine, and head-on colided with the car behind me. The car that caused it fled the scene, and none of us were in any shape to chase him down.
It was a police car that hit me, while trying to avoid a car that'd crossed in front of him illegally and he lost control.
The cop/driver used to come into our shop all the time, I was driving a used Thunderbird, and only had Liability insurance, and I got stuck holding the bag under a law called Eminent Domain, whereby citizens can't sue the city for damage caused by a city vehicle, under the technicality that the People, can't sue the People.
My apartment building manager lost the driverside of his car to a fire engine once, with the same results.
Thanks for your contribution to our conversation.
19 - Baronius
Odd. I had a great experience delivering pizzas. Although now that I think about it, it was a couple of decades ago, and it was a summer job. But I remember the paycheck going straight into the bank, and always having a pocketful of spending money as you note in comment #16, thanks to the tips.
Our routes were assigned; we would have delivered A-B-C. We all drove cars that were about to explode, so there really wasn't any depreciation. Good times. (I wonder if they really were good times. I remember them that way, but I'm not thinking about how hot the oven room got in the summer.)
20 - Jet in Columbus
What can I say Baronius, times change, especially over two decades.
I remember the good times too, mostly customers that treated me like visiting family, and I'd always make sure they got the impression that I was hoping all day I'd get to see them.
As for A-B-C, yeah, that's how it's supposed to be, but after getting "stiffed" a bunch of times by the same people, you grow an attitude.
If you've got 30 minutes from the time they order, and someone nicer can get their pizza first, but you can still get A there, even if it's barely under the limit, why not.
You learn to break your balls for the people who appreciate you before the ones that don't
thanks for chiming in my friend.
21 - Victor Plenty
My pizza driver experience was also nearly two decades ago now. Are any pizza places still doing the stupid 30 minute guarantee nonsense? For some reason I thought they'd all abandoned that dangerous practice as an unacceptable liability risk.
22 - Jet in Columbus
Victor, it's not advertised, but yes. the one I was working for at the time was asking drivers to deliver in 29 minutes in one-upmanship. In peak periods it'd go up to around 45.
they call it a "promise" time, and usually offer apologies, and if the customer gives you a hard time, they'll get a replacement pizza, or a credit toward their next order.
Legally they all had to stop guaranteeing the deliveries because of the lawsuits aleging reckless driving on the parts of the drivers to meet an arbitrary deadline.
It became a "wink wink" "promise" to the customer, but a competition amoung companies beyond the public's scrutiny. After all if a place consistantly gets it to you faster, who will you order from?
Thanks Victor
23 - Victor Plenty
Damn. Shades of Snow Crash here. Welcome to the libertarian paradise, I guess.
24 - Jet in Columbus
Well folks, I feel like a complete fool. Now I see why I'd been asked if I'd seen this week's. Real Time with Bill Maher.
George Bush couldn't possibly have leaked top secret information to the press for one obvious reason. Cheney has made it clear that W's not allowed to see any top secret information!
I feel so silly and kind of foolish for not realizing that sooner!
25 - Jet in Columbus
I also feel foolishly senile, because I just posted the above comment on the wrong one of my blogs...