First off, ways to get your pizzas (or any other food delivery) to you faster.

1-TIP!!!!Good guideline-$20 or less, $2 is a decent tip. Not great, but won't irritate us either. $21+ 10-15% minimum. Drivers talk among themselves- We KNOW which houses tip and which ones don't. And we'll fight among ourselves to get the ones that are known to tip well and consistently. If I know that a customer who regularly orders a $15 pizza is gonna hand me a $20 bill and tell me to keep the change every time, you can bet if I'm taking other deliveries out with his, his goes first. Even if it would be more efficient to take it last.

2-Make sure you have your house # posted PROMINENTLY on your house and on your mailbox. If they're not reflective, make sure they're well lit. This can cut down alot on your time at night, as the driver isn't rolling up and down the street trying to count houses. Helps make your neighborhood safer too, as we're not trying to squint and find out what house we're looking at.

3-If you can't do anything about the house #-Open your door and keep an eye out for the pizza guy. If we see someone waving at us and yelling, it at least gets our attention. Doesn't mean we'll get out of the car immediately, as that's a good setup for a robbery. We'll look at the house you're at and confirm it's the one we're looking for first.

4-If the pizza is late, give the driver a tip anyway. 9 times out of 10 he/she had nothing to do with how late your pizza is, especially on a Friday or Saturday night.

5-If you live in a rough neighborhood, tell the person on the phone to have the driver call you for directions first, and if you plan on tipping, mention it, ask them to tell the driver that as well. Rough neighborhoods are areas that don't tend to tip too well. If you DO tip, you'll stand out. I can quote individual addresses in rough neighborhoods I deliver to because of this.

Things NOT to do-

1-Don't stiff the driver. Nothing pisses us off worse. After all, this is how we make our livings, maintain our vehicles. Most of us genuinely enjoy our job, but not enough to do it for free. And the driver WILL remember it. If you genuinely have no money to be able to afford a tip, never ever tell the driver "I'll catch you next time" cause you have little chance of catching him the next time you order. But even worse, never stiff and say, "I'd tip you but times are rough." Remember, this person makes his living by your tips. So it's safe to say he doesn't want to hear "times are tough" no matter how sympathetic he may be.

2-Don't yell at or delay the driver. All he'll be able to tell you to do is call the manager. There's nothing he can do about it. And delaying him costs him money, and/or delays you getting a fresh pizza if something is wrong with yours and it needs to be replaced.

3-If you have a dog that has any aggressive tendencies-Put it inside before the driver gets there, or meet him at the gate. I had a friend literally get his scrotum torn open by a pair of German Shepherds AFTER he made the delivery on the way back to his car. They let him thru and jumped him on the way out.

4-Delivery is inherently dangerous, in fact, it's the 3rd most dangerous job in America. Which means that most drivers are paranoid. Never jump out of bushes at them, or even make jokes about robbery. We don't find it funny.

5-If you have a phone connection to the net, and only the one ground line, stay off the net from the time you order your pizza until it arrives. We take your phone # for security reasons as well as if a driver gets lost. At least in all the companies I've worked for-If I go to call your # and get a busy signal, or an answering service, and I haven't delivered to you multiple times myself-It's sitting at the store till you call back. If I get a disconnected #, it's not leaving period, and that # gets blacklisted. 90% of all robberies start as a bad order. This especially goes for college students living in dorms. Stay off the phones. If you live in a rough neighborhood, stay by your phone if you're calling after 8-9PM in some areas. Odds are you're gonna get called before that order leaves, or maybe even before it gets made. The smart ones take no chances.

6-Don't, I repeat, DON'T crowd the driver. If it only takes one person to carry the food and handle the money, only one person needs to go out there. It makes us jumpy and suspicious when a crowd greets us. Also, don't walk up to a driver's car so close that you can reach in his window. In my case, I'll bluntly tell you that you need to back away. If you don't-You're going hungry. I don't take chances.

Inside stuff- OK, in case you don't tip, or are generally a pain in the ass to the drivers, here's some things to expect.
No not spitting in your food. That's disgusting.
Just as we talk among ourselves and we know who tips, we also know who doesn't. When we get stuck via rotation to someone who is not only a known stiff, and is rude on top of it, here's some things that might happen.

1-Best case scenario is that order is gonna go dead last in a multiple run. If it's a run by itself. We'll take our time. We'll stop to get a drink, gas, some smokes. Maybe run thru a drive thru. In short, we are going to push the very edge of the time we've got to get that pizza there.

2-Forgotten side items. No dressing for the wings, no dipping sauces, etc. Also warm sodas.

3-If you've ever had a soda from a pizza place explode in your face ONCE, it was probably an accident. If it happens consistently, ask yourself if you've tipped cheaply or if you've been rude. Yes, we DO occasionally shake up, juggle, and drop sodas to people we know are going to give us a hard time and not pay us.

4-I knew one driver that would not only open up the insulated bags the pizzas were in, he'd take the boxes out of the bag, roll down the window, and turn his AC up full blast with the vent pointed at the pizzas. If you get a pizza in 30 minutes and it's stone cold, that's probably what happened.

OK, delivery times. Or more specifically, what it really means when we tell you something.

25-35 minutes-Slow business, little to no deliveries waiting, or abundant amount of drivers on the clock and waiting for runs.
35-45 minutes-Normal business.
45-55 minutes-Smart ones NEVER use the word hour. Makes people panic. But 55 minutes doesn't bother them. Ironically neither does 60-The store is either short staffed, or the rush is near its peak.
1 hour +=They're getting slammed. More business than they can handle either due to volume, or lack of staff, or a rush that comes as a surprise or is alot heavier than usual.
Now, if they quote you a delivery time not only without you asking, but before they even take your order, and they say "at least an hour or more listen to them. They're being honest. It's not that they don't want your business-But you're more likely to return as a customer after being pissed off cause delivery was gonna take forever and you don't feel like waiting, than if you were pissed off cause the pizza was cold when it got there. We don't want our customers to go away, and we do want them satisfied, otherwise we make no money.

Another word on times-If the people on the make line are any good, and delivery time is backed up, ask for the carryout time. Sometimes it will be quicker to come get it. I for one can slap out, top and load a pepperoni pizza in 40 seconds. The oven only takes 6 minutes to cook it.