Tuesday, April 10, 2007
"30 minutes or less"
Snow Crash begins with a dialogue about "life or death" pizza delivery. It seems reminiscent of the old marketing campaigns of Dominoe's vs. Pizza Hut (pizza wars) of that time (the early nineties) that this book had been published. I remember that they would guarantee your pizza in 30 minutes or less, or it would be free. However, many delivery drivers had accidents and received citations in the process, or that had been just what I had been informed when I accepted a delivery position at Dominoe's years ago. Obviously unlike the book, the mafia, honor, and the family name had not been at stake, but the "life or death" analogy seems to correlate. Because of this history of an inability to deliver, I find it unlikely that any delivery service would guarantee such a small time-frame for their services anymore. That is unless there had been some major advances in transit that eliminates congestion and accidents. At any rate, it amused me, and now I'm hungry for pizza.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Speaking from personal experience, it is rather crazy to be a delivery driver with that sort of timeframe to work in. I was a driver for Figaro's Pizza in Howard, and I know in my short time working there I had at least two people comment on my horrible driving (which isn't so horrible, mind you). A motorcycle driver came in and screamed about me because I cut out in front of him, complaining that he almost had to lay his bike down to dodge me as I peeled out. I was given assignments such as delivering pizza to a location 15 miles away in the timeframe of 10 minutes. Talk about nerve-racking. If you didn't keep up with the flow of deliveries, you felt the pressure of the management on you almost instantaneously. They would breathe down your neck and ask you why you were falling behind, and you'd sit there in utter dismay, ranting about the lousy directions you were given and the fact that the auto-heating bags kept blowing the fuse on your dashboard because the plug was of a different power voltage than your cigarette lighter's power outlet.
It's rough. ^.^
Stephenson's flawless descriptions make it seem more of an epic battle though. I don't think it was quite as epic as it was stressful and nerve-racking.
WOW! That sounds like a BAD experience to say the least. During my brief stint at Domino's on the eastside of GB, I didn't have any real issue other than nearly everyone I worked with were lazy stoners. As a result, it left me the opportunity to be their "star employee" which in turn irritated all of the slow drivers that would get lost ;) With exception to long drives to Bellevue, I would have to say that "city" delivery adds an advantage. Also, it was during the summer, so I never had to use those plug-things (I doubt they even worked). Actually, I think that ours wouldn't plug into our car anyway (old school, I guess).
It's unfortunate that Figaro's had such management issues. If you are willing to have a go at delivering again, try Domino's on Abrams. I made great tips, but gas was also affordable then. I've considered going back, but I've heard stories about drivers getting "jumped" and robbed-terrible (although, I think it was a Papa Johns driver). I guess that reinforces the "life or death" theme as well.
Cheers to delivery drivers!
You are so right!! The 1980's-1990's seemed to be the begining of the attitude and mentality of "I want it and I want it NOW!!!" Maybe that's what makes us human..our inabiity to wait.
HAHA lazy stoners....actually wait, I might know some of them! I realize it's HARD and people are annoying. You'd think technoogy would be helpful in this case of getting your crap faster, yet it's all done by cars. Ordering pizza online isn't going to get it into your foodhole any faster, despite the marketing tools leading people to think this.
Post a Comment