Many of you have seen me cruising around Myrtle Beach in my little black convertible, usually late at night, making deliveries for Pizza Shak. While many people may think that pizza delivery is an easy or low-stress way to make a living, nothing can be further from the truth. The actual delivery transaction at the door is the easy part of the job. Looking at a 2-dimensional map of Myrtle Beach can be very deceptive. We often have to fight our way through very heavy traffic, especially during the Summer Tourist Season, to get to your house, apartment, or hotel room. We usually take several deliveries on a single run, especially to the hotels on Ocean Boulevard. Once we arrive at a hotel, we have to search for a safe, if not necessarily legal, place to park where our cars won't be towed away or broken into while we make the delivery to the room. By the way, there are several properties where we are not allowed in the building.
It often goes without saying that we depend on the generous tips of our customers to survive. At many pizza places, drivers are paid in the same manner as are waitpersons at dine-in restaurants, at less than the Federal Minimum Wage of $7.25/hour. This is an unfair practice because delivery drivers usually use their own personal vehicles. Therefore, we incur many expenses and risks to our personal safety that waitpersons do not. Our tips pay for gasoline, maintainance, registration, and insurance for our vehicles...as well as for our basic living expenses, such as rent, groceries, utilities, and other bills. Some of us have loans to pay on our vehicles as well. Based on standard maintainence intervals, we would have our oil changed every 4 to 6 weeks and our brake pads replaced every 4 to 6 months, for example. Based on my own experience, a full-time driver will drive an average of 4,000 km (2,500 miles) per month on the job.
We incur risks to our personal safety every time we take a delivery run. We deliver to all types of areas in all types of weather and traffic conditions...often very late at night. Did you know that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pizza delivery drivers are the third most likely profession to be murdered on the job, behind police officers and taxi drivers, because we are expected to carry large amounts of cash on us? If we follow established security policies correctly, we will not leave the store with more than enough cash to make change for a $20 bill. If you have only a $50 or $100 bill to pay us, then please let us know in advance so that we may have the proper change. The driver's safety must always take precedence over a customer's convenience. We can always remake a pizza but we cannot remake a driver.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
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