GROSS INCOMPETENCE

This happened a few months back, and is a series of unfortunate events (and, as the title suggests, gross incompetence) that left one customer very, very happy and one customer very, very angry.

It all starts not long after I get in: in fact, it all starts with my first drop of the day. Actually, rewind a bit on that, because it actually starts with someone else's drop. Brian's, actually, and in true Brian style he cocks it up. Only - GASP - it's not his fault. Well, not entirely his fault, anyway. It's still at least partially his fault, for two reasons:

1. It was a mistake he could have corrected if he'd bothered to look at the ticket.
2. If something goes wrong it is in some way Brian's fault.

Because, you see, when the order got bagged up our manager (not Becky) put the wrong ticket in the bag. In what would later make things more complicated than they had any right to be, it just so happens that the ticket sends Brian to the right street, only the wrong house number. So Brian had the order for 23 Briar Crescent and the ticket for 27 Briar Crescent. I'm not 100% on the exact house numbers, but rest assured they were that close. One house between them (I don't know how house numbering works elsewhere, but in the UK it's fairly standard for even numbers to go on one side of the street and odd on the other). One single house.

So Brian delivers the order to 27 Briar Crescent, and by the time he gets back to the store the phone call's come in. The people from #27 were apparently pleasantly surprised at how early their delivery was, but weren't quite so happy that the order was completely fucking wrong. Especially as one of them's a Muslim and he just got a Pepperoni Supreme.

No worries, says our manager! It was a simple mishap, no problem! Someone will be coming with the right order in a second! And that someone can just pick up the first order and drop it off two doors down the road. Wham, bam, thank you mam.

But... but what's happened? Where's the other order? Where the fuck is number 27's order?

It's a good question, and it just so happens that it's one I have the answer to. Only problem is, I'm not around to hear the question, as I'm in my car, driving towards Briar Crescent. Number 27's order is in the bag on the seat next to me, and number 23's ticket is in the front pocket.

See, I bagged up the order and took it out myself approximately thirty seconds before the irate phone call came in. The manager was off doing something not particularly productive, and I was bored, so I took things into my own hands and showed a little initiative. With my classic sense of timing things as badly as possible, it just so happened that the pizza I tried to use initiative on was one with the wrong ticket attached.

Yeah, I could have checked the ticket too. Don't fucking judge me.

I trundle over to number 23 and deposit number 27's pizza. They accept quite happily and I receive a generous tip. It's not really a tip, though, more a loose collection of notes that are bundled into my hand. It's at about this point that I notice how the guy at the door is totally fucking wasted. I mean, redshot eyes, thousand yard stare, moistness around the lips, but whatever; he just gave me close to 7 pound tip on a 23 pound order, who am I to judge a man who's arseholed by 6:30?

I get back into my car and drive back. I'd like to take a second here to stress that, while in the grand scheme of things the journey from the shop to Briar Crescent is at most 1.5 miles, in reality it's one of the most time-consuming parts of the city to drive through. 30 mph limit most of the way, 20 mph limit at the end, and traffic lights every fucking half a metre. There are worse places to drive to - one time I'll tell you about this farm that is literally in the middle of the fucking wilderness - but Briar Crescent isn't exactly on our door step.

It is for this reason that I'm not overly thrilled with the news I receive upon returning to the store.

"You're fucking joking," I say, with characteristic charm.

"I'm not fucking joking," my manager responds with feminine grace. "What do you want me to do? Ring them both up and ask them to meet out the front of number 25 for a pizza swap? Off you go."

Personally, I think her idea is a good one. Why can't they meet outside number 2 and exchange orders? Oh, sure, they paid for delivery, boo hoo. In this world, sometimes things go wrong, and if you can't handle that, maybe you shouldn't be ordering pizza, baby. Or if you do, order it from somewhere that has standards when it comes to hiring.

My first stop is number 27, because I parked closer to it. In retrospect, this was a mistake. I get the pizzas off the starving Muslim and assure him I'll be back in a minute with something a little less offensive, then I head over to 23. I didn't think it was really possible, but the dude's got even more wasted since about twenty minutes ago. Still, he's coherent enough to grasp what's going on, and we make our exchange with little fuss.

On the walk back to number 27 I open the box to do a quick check.

About a quarter of the pizza is missing.

I laugh, and it sounds like a desperate man struggling to draw his last breath. What do you really expect, after all, if you leave a pizza with a man as fabulously ratted as the guy at number 23? In that situation I'd have eaten the whole fucking thing and then tried my damnedest to pretend it had never been there. At least the guy was (semi) honest about it.

I explain the situation to the man at number 27, and he's actually surprisingly okay with it. He kind of rolls his eyes at the mention of number 23, as if he'd suspected that house and its residents were somehow behind this latest mishap in his life. Poor guy; I dread to think what else his neighbours get up to.

I promise him his pizza will be with him in 30 minutes, tops, and I assure him it'll come with a bunch of freebie vouchers. This seems to quell whatever annoyance the man had been experiencing, and I head back to the store, happy that the situation is finally close to being sorted.

It ended up being Brian who was responsible for delivering the second pizza, and, in a startling deviation from form, he managed to get everything correct. Only, unfortunately for him, Maciej hadn't really been paying attention, and the poor bloke's spicy vegetarian had ham on it.

If you recall, the reason he wasn't chuffed with his initial pizza was that it had pepperoni on. Pepperoni, as in, Muslims don't eat it. As in, they don't eat ham either.

That was probably the first time in Brian's life that he got yelled at for something that wasn't his fault. I mean, he gets yelled at literally all the time... but, you know, there's good reason (see above, point number two).

It is at this point that the boss loses it and announces that, due to the base incompetence of all of us (she neglects to mention that it was her who handed Brian the wrong ticket in the first place), there WILL BE NO STAFF MEALS TODAY.

Oh no! My employee rights!


Me and Ben steal a Vienetta and go eat it in the storage shed.


Beats the shit out of free pizza.