Almost everyone who has ever had pizza loves it, this means a lot of business for pizzerias. Eating food at your house that you don't have to make yourself feels great. As a result of this, the people working at pizzerias have some very busy days. Here are some things you'll recognize if you are working at a pizzeria or have previously worked at a pizzeria.
1. You can recite the specials backwards and forwards.
When you answer the phone, there is a 99.99% chance that the first thing the customer will ask is "What are your specials today?" If it was any other type of food industry, you could act offended. Why do they just expect a special? But at pizzerias, there is almost always a running special. Even at local pizzerias, people ask this question. You'd think they'd want to support local businesses, but it seems like they like supporting their local bank account.
2. Flour... everywhere.
Whenever you worked, there was always flour, or some flour alternative, in the air. You could actually see the particles floating in the air. During work, the flour would slowly cake onto your skin, kind of like foundation. You don't really notice it until you get off work, but once you're off, oh, do you notice. If you touch your face, little flour balls start to fall off, and if you touch your hair you aren't sure if it is possible to have that much dandruff, but then you remember you work at a pizzeria.
3. You know all the addresses. All of them.
Trying to find out where someone lives so that they can get a delivery is kind of like communicating with someone who speaks a different language than you. A small amount people get it, and these are the great customers. You ask them everything you need to know to check if you deliver to them and they actually answer your questions, not with questions of their own. The other customers, though, seem like they enjoy your pain.
"Can I you tell me your nearest intersection so I can check if we deliver to you?"
"Well, I have seen you deliver to my neighbor."
You've probably heard this one a million times. I get it, we deliver to your neighbor, but that helps us zero. Maybe it's one of our other locations that delivers there. We don't actually know who your neighbor is and even if you give us their name, we'd still have to look up their phone number to check. It'd just be easier for us if they just answered the question. I mean, we need to know so we can deliver to them. It's not like we're trying to get their address so we can rob them later. Trying to find out where the tough customers live literally feels like the picture up above, multiple locations all in a different language.
4. Everyone has a different idea of a "well-done" pizza.
(Do you think this pizza is well done?)
I don't know if I am the only one who worries about whenever a person orders a well-done pizza. Everyone has a different definition of well-done, one person has actually told me when they ask for well-done, they mean burn it a bit. With all these different definitions of well-done, I always worry that the customer will call in later and and complain that their pizza was either cooked too long or not long enough. Even my coworkers and I have a different definitions of well-done. Sometimes, we tell each other to put a pizza in longer or we question why someone left it in for so long. Pizza, unlike beef products, does not have multiple different levels for how long to cook it. We have cook it a little shorter, normal, and well-done.
5. Phone calls on phone calls.
Phone calls on a busy day are killer. By the time you get done with one phone call, there are another 7 people on hold. Most of the time, you don't have enough phone lines to put everyone on hold who is calling. Most of the times this is very stressful, especially when there is only one person on phones who also has to make sure pizzas don't burn.
6. That pizza smell.
After work, people always comment on how you smell. Everyone loves the smell of pizza, so why not comment! After all of the comments, though, you started to hate the smell of pizza yourself. After work, all you want to do is go home and shower. You don't want to see anyone until after you shower so that you don't have to hear that you smell like pizza. I mean, come on, we get it! We work at a pizzeria, of course we smell like pizza.
7. You've been burned... several times.
With how many pizzas you have to pull out of the oven every day, it's inevitable that you will end up burning yourself once or twice. These burns aren't your mother's burns, though. Kissing them won't make them feel any better at all. These burns kill. Whenever you touch the piping hot pizza oven, you cry a little on the inside. Any person who has ever worked at a pizzeria has at least one mark to show that they got a little to close with the monster more commonly known as a pizza oven.
