I’ve said it before on beehaw but I work pizza delivery. You’d think it would be an easy job, just drive around and drop off pizzas and enjoy music, but holy shit the amount of pure hatred I’ve gotten from customers over the dumbest little thing is just insane. I had a guy call me, a white-male, a racial slur because we have a $5 delivery fee. I’ve had people scream swears at me because I forgot their food, or call back demanding I get fired for it.
And then I went on reddit to vent about it on my company’s subreddit. I know reddit is normally pretty toxic but there’s really no “pizza delivery” analogue that I can find on beehaw or lemmy in general, and there’s just so much hate and vitriol on that subreddit that I can’t even bother opening it. Customers telling me that I should “find a new job” or “quit working entirely” because they can’t stop being mean about food. Not only is it just pizza, it’s fast food! My company is even globally known for giving people free refunds on a whim so I just don’t understand why they would hate me so much for venting about my job?? Do people not like being reminded that people like me go through so much shit on a day-to-day basis? It’s so fucking insane to me that it’s just a commonly accepted thing to be told to “get over it” after being called a slur for something that’s not even my problem. 99% of the time when an order is fucked up it’s not even my fault? I just delivery them!
I really want to understand why people are SO rude about pizza delivery but I Just can’t! I’ve never in my life even considered cussing out a food service worker but these people are just doing it like its their job!
For anybody that says it, I’d have quit by now if I wasn’t making so much money. You try making $16/hr + upwards of $100 in tips a day (yay US tipping culture). I’ve got so much money now I don’t really have a whole lot to do with it, compared to my last jobs at least.
(I also desperately want to scream back at these people so much but I know I can’t do that. I know my manager’s got my back but if I do it in the store I’ll most likely be fired.)
I empathize bud (gender neutral bud). I really do, I have 5 years mcdonalds and 5 years retail under my belt and people. fucking. suck.
The general public are just the worst to deal with, especially if they view you as “beneath them” in the societal ladder. Boomers by far were the most hateful generation, an entire generation who has been handed everything and just throw childlike tantrums if they don’t get what they want.
Nothing humbles you like being screamed at by some 60 year old woman because you put “too few” pickles on a $1.50 burger. Or too many. Or who really cares, no one should care so much about how many pickles are on their burger enough to literally scream at an employee. But these people are so unaware, they have no idea that they look like the idiots in that situation. The managers don’t want a fight so they’ll just give them what they want so they leave.
As for what to do with money. SAVE. Save what you can. If you have a 401k put that money into it, 10% is a good measure if you can. Pay off all of your debt if you have any. Finally, invest. If everything else is done then invest. The economy is in a downturn and the way I like to think is that “stocks are on sale”. Use that money now to fund yourself in the future, you’ll thank yourself later.
A good order of operations is
- 401k/retirement, 5-10%
- If your work doesn’t offer it you can still open some at your bank, look into IRAs
- Pay off debts
- (like a lot, don’t just pay minimums, do principal only payments and get that stuff off your back. Then you’ll really have a lot of extra money)
- Save 6 months expenses for rainy day fund
- High interest savings accounts like Ally can give you some interest on this too
- Save for down payment on a home if you’re interested in home ownership
- Some people aren’t, but imagine all that money in rent going towards your own equity, not someone else’s. That’s a game changer for sure.
- Ad-hoc investing
- This comes after everything, but can be stocks, funds, or a managed account of some sort.
Also we absolutely should get a
talesfromretailgoing somewhere. I know we have !talesfromretail@lemmit.online but that’s just a clone from Reddit and it’s pretty much read-only. (and the reddit stories you can really tell are just karma farming)Solid financial advice here.
The managers don’t want a fight so they’ll just give them what they want so they leave.
Unfortunately, this contributes to the problem. It’s a reward for being an asshole. I don’t blame managers or staffers for giving in just to get rid of the asshole because it’s not worth getting screamed at. But it’s like the “customer is always right” approach devolved into “being an asshole gets you free shit”. I wish corporate culture was “treat our employees well and we’ll treat you like a king, be an asshole and you’re banned for life” or something along those lines.
Also, your money recommendations are on point and OP should definitely do some smart saving while they have the extra cash. It’ll help them out a lot later in life.
Yeah I know :( Too many bad managers who just don’t want to deal with it. The best manager I had worked retail with me and she would always say “My employee here did everything right, they were holding up the rules, and did not deserve you yelling at them for doing what they were taught to do. I am going to make a 1-time exception for you this time, but that will be it, I know you now and this will not happen again.” Which I loved. You can appease the customer to get them to go away, but at the same time you can stand up for your employee. Sometimes exceptions need to be made, but the big part was having the manager actually defend me, standing up saying I didn’t do anything wrong. Too many just swoop in and Karens act all snooty like they won somehow.
That seems like a pretty solid approach. It still rewards the asshole, but calls them out on it without being rude and commits to not letting it be repeated. I don’t think screaming at someone over a missed fast food order is ever warranted, but I think it’s reasonable to be extremely charitable and give the person a chance to recognize and learn from their behavior.
I just recently left my job as a manager at a pizza place. One thing that helped my sanity when dealing with crazy customers is to laugh at them. They get so upset, over what? Pizza? Can you imagine how shitty their life must be to get so worked up over something so minor? It got to the point that I’d have to stifle my laughter in order to not piss them off further, especially when they asked for my name. Yes, please waste your time complaining about me, nothing will come of it because you’re full of shit. I especially liked scolding customers in my kindergarten teacher voice when they cussed. Can we behave like adults today?
Also, coworkers are great for venting about customers to each other. You get a little quick validation and it goes a long way.
When I worked at McDonald’s I would “kill them with kindness” my manager would get calls from people so pissed off because I would escalate the niceness to match their enragement.
Customer: “you can’t do anything right!”
Me: “Have a wonderful day!”
Gets them mad for sure.
Yeah I work retail and the majority of customers are fine, but it’s the 5% that are assholes that make you hate everyone.
So that is why pizza delivery people are always so submissive when they fucked something up. We’re always like ‘no biggie’ and they look like I just took a huge weight off their shoulders. Sorry you have to endure this. Humans are awful.
So much of the time, people will just make up complaints to try and get free food, so you have to be constantly on guard for manipulative assholes. Getting a customer who treats you like a person even after you actually made a mistake is a total relief.
This hurt to read :( so sorry to hear! I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I’m glad to hear you’re making enough money that you can save it. Hopefully that can give you some freedom if you need to distance yourself from this job or this company in the future. Fuck, I wish people weren’t so awful to service workers
Im glad youre earning a decent amount thanks to tips, but holy shit. I worked in retail (cashiering, sales clerk) for years, but I can only imagine how much worse things are now given how entitled and fired up assholes seem to be. And you have to deal with them when they’re hungry!! Anyone serving food or customers face to face should be receiving hazard pay at the moment, honestly. Please keep venting here, I think it helps.
🫂
Sorry you are going through that. I have only been mean or rude to a service worker one time, and that’s because they were actively being an asshole to me by serving everyone else at the table besides me, and after their orders were brought, I had to make it a point to ask for food and drinks. And everyone else had refills and their food before I ever got my drinks.
And let me be clear, by mean or rude, I mean I just didn’t tip them.
One time I got a tray of drinks dumped on me by our server as they were bringing them. I paid for those drinks and the replacements and I still tipped that server.
I don’t get people that are rude to service workers. Even at McDonald’s when they forget fries or something, no need to be a dick. Just politely ask for them. They literally don’t give a shit and will usually give you a bigger size.
But OP, if you are making so much money doing this, why stress about it Just enjoy the money and don’t let it get to you.
But OP, if you are making so much money doing this, why stress about it Just enjoy the money and don’t let it get to you.
your comment was so good until I read this. “Just don’t let it get to you” is a really really annoying thing to say.
