Pizza Time

Friday was our last day at the Chicago audit. There is such a large staff at this audit, we can’t take everyone out of the department at the same time to go to lunch so we usually order some pizza to be delivered for everyone right before we’re done with the audit. Friday was pizza day!

I called Papa John's on Thursday evening to place an order for eight large pizzas to be delivered at 11:45 am. That should be an easy task, but has anyone ever tried to come up with eight combinations of pizzas on a whim? I tried to do a mix of a few with meat, a few with only veggies and one plain cheese pizza for the kid from Home Alone. So, I got all of the pizzas ordered, and we start the process of where we want them delivered. I gave them my work cell number, and he rattled off the address of the audit site complete with “second floor”. Dang, I am known just about everywhere! Ok, it probably had to do with the fact that I ordered pizza from them last year, too.

I don’t know if Papa John’s doesn’t trust their employees, but they wouldn’t take my credit card number on Thursday night, I had to call them with it on Friday. I was told to ask for the manager, Jim, and give the number to him.

Unfortunately, when I called this elusive “Jim” I was told he was not there nor was any manager on site. I explained that I had called an order in the night before for eight large pizzas to be delivered and I was calling to give my credit card number. I swear, if English is not a good language for you, you probably shouldn’t be on the phone with customers. He kept asking me something that I swore was “what’s your orders?” to which I replied “eight large pizzas”! In a frustrated voice, he then said “NO! What’s your orders???” Um, ok, I again said eight large pizzas! Now in an exasperated voice, he asked again for my “ORDERS”. I said I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking. Then he yelled again “YOUR ORDERS”! You know how people do when you don’t speak their language. Because everyone knows that if you only speak more slowly and a lot more loudly, everyone will understand you no matter what the language.

Then, one more time, “WHAT IS YOUR ORDERS?” I said “my orders? Do you need to know what each and every pizza is that I ordered?” By now the guy is ready to punch me in the nose if I had been close enough and I wasn’t much better. Finally he tells me to hold on while he did whatever he did. He finally came back and said “is your ADDRESS (sorry, it kept sounding like ‘orders’ to me) 123 Any Street? Ahh. Now I get it! I confirmed he had the right address and then he yelled when he asked my what my credit card number was. After I gave him the number, I made the mistake of asking if they had two liter bottles of soda. He said yes they did, but he had already rung up my order and if I thought I was going to order sodas NOW he’d have to void the whole order and start over again.

Now he’s put me in a bitchy mood. So I said hey, I do NOT want to cause you any more work than I have to; I’ll spend my money elsewhere. He seemed happy to hear it. Oh well.

C’mon Papa John’s. You claim to have a better quality pizza, how about some better quality employees? It was easy enough to find another store to take my $15 for soda.

On the good side, out of eight large pizzas, only three pieces of pizza were left after lunch! Now that’s a hungry staff!