Tip your driver

I know we've touched on this before as it relates to wait staff, but a friend recently lost her day job and is now using her second job (delivering pizza) as her main source of income.

We talked about the appropriate amount for a tip a few months ago (before she lost her job.)

In my head I'm still 18. So 98 was only a couple years ago, and $1.50 is still an okay tip, $2 and change is a "good" tip, and $3 and up is awesome.

My friend reminded me that gas is $3 and 70 berkeleying cents a gallon.

Just food for thought. If you don't want to pick your pizza up, make your driver's day and buy 'em a freakin gallon of gas ferchrissake.

I usually round up to the nearest $5 or $x0 amount.

I live like 3 blocks from my pizza joint of choice. I tip them $3. If it costs them a gallon of gas to go 3 blocks, they need to drill for their own oil.

Totally. I'm just pointing out my own ignorance. I thought $3 was a killer tip. I've been pissed that my driver hasn't been all "Wow, thanks man!" I am retarded.

I'm glad when I delivered pizzas it was 2000 and gas was cheap. I can't imagine paying for that E36 M3 now

I'm usually too broke to get delivery. My tip is typically 2.50 or 3 dollars, and occasionally a beer. I actually got into an online argument with a guy over this, he said I was a cheap shiny happy person. He was too dumb to listen to the argument, or else just didn't want to listen. Someone wanna explain the flaw in my logic here?

I live about a mile from the pizza place I order from. 2 miles round trip. We'll figure that it costs about $0.55 a mile (that is WAY high, but it is the government figure. They should be writing this off anyways). So I'm at $1.10.

It is about a 10 minute round trip. Truth of the matter is, this is a minimum wage job. Minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25. 1/6 of an hour works out to $1.38. This gets me to $2.48.

So tell me, how is that not an acceptable tip?

On top of this, I pay a 75 cent delivery charge. Whether or not this goes to the driver is not my problem.

federally, it is NOT a minimum wage job.. Food servers and others who work for tips can be paid LESS than minimum wage as long as their take in tips equals out to minimum wage or more.

When I delivered for Dominos.. Minimum was 5.25 an hour.. I was making 3.15 plus tips

mad_machine wrote: federally, it is NOT a minimum wage job.. Food servers and others who work for tips can be paid LESS than minimum wage as long as their take in tips equals out to minimum wage or more. When I delivered for Dominos.. Minimum was 5.25 an hour.. I was making 3.15 plus tips

I realize that he is not payed by the pizza company minimum wage. What I'm saying is that the job is a minimum wage caliber job; it is not skilled labor or manually intensive labor. I'm paying my tip based on minimum wage. It takes him 1/6 of an hour (10 minutes) total to drive there and back, including getting out and handing me my pizza. 8.25/6=1.38.

I'd love to live somewhere that had pizza joints with anything less than a $3 delivery fee.

Meh, I usually tip $4 or $5 on a $23ish order. I order from a dominos about 5 blocks away. It's a tad expensive, but after doing it consistently a few times I get pizza faster than anyone else in my dorm (even if we order at the same time), and the driver is really nice.

My reasoning is this: what would I charge to walk to my car, drive to the pizza store, park, get out, get my pizza, get in my car, un-park, drive back with pizza everywhere, try to find a parking spot again, and carry all my pizza to my dorm?

Yes, I overpay. Yes, I think it's worth it. That extra few dollars every few weeks probably means a lot more to the guy in the Geo Metro who does this daily than it does to me.

Tom Suddard wrote: Yes, I overpay. Yes, I think it's worth it. That extra few dollars every few weeks probably means a lot more to the guy in the Geo Metro who does this daily than it does to me.

I'd agree with you if my regular driver didn't always smell like weed. I don't have money for weed.

mad_machine wrote: federally, it is NOT a minimum wage job.. Food servers and others who work for tips can be paid LESS than minimum wage as long as their take in tips equals out to minimum wage or more. When I delivered for Dominos.. Minimum was 5.25 an hour.. I was making 3.15 plus tips

I made $5.50 plus tips, plus $1 per order commission at Pizza Hut. I miss having such an easy job

mad_machine wrote: federally, it is NOT a minimum wage job.. Food servers and others who work for tips can be paid LESS than minimum wage as long as their take in tips equals out to minimum wage or more. When I delivered for Dominos.. Minimum was 5.25 an hour.. I was making 3.15 plus tips

Your franchisee was a shiny happy person. I made 5.75 plus tips. That was 2000-2002 time frame. Gas at that point was creeping towards 2 bucks. We had no delivery fees. Average tip for me was 3-5 dollars.

I guess I have to up my ante a little. I usually tip a buck a pie, but never less than $2. I'm about 1.5 miles from the pizza place, but it's a college town, so I'm sure they are never making a 1-stop run.

Duke wrote: I guess I have to up my ante a little. I usually tip a buck a pie, but never less than $2. I'm about 1.5 miles from the pizza place, but it's a college town, so I'm sure they are *never* making a 1-stop run.

I'm not a pizza delivery dude, although I did play one on TV...

I also live in a college town, and know several people who deliver pies for their income.

In a college town, sometimes it works in their favor when they have several orders in their car at the same time... But usually, out of six deliveries, one will tip well, another will round-up to the nearest dollar for the tip, and the rest will stiff the driver.

Someone mentioned the price of fuel, but where I live, most drivers deliver in their personal vehicle... That's alot of wear on a car that they are not reimbursed for.

moparman76_69 wrote:

mad_machine wrote: federally, it is NOT a minimum wage job.. Food servers and others who work for tips can be paid LESS than minimum wage as long as their take in tips equals out to minimum wage or more. When I delivered for Dominos.. Minimum was 5.25 an hour.. I was making 3.15 plus tips

Your franchisee was a shiny happy person. I made 5.75 plus tips. That was 2000-2002 time frame. Gas at that point was creeping towards 2 bucks. We had no delivery fees. Average tip for me was 3-5 dollars.

Same time frame too.. and on a decent night.. I could bring up 150 in tips.. so you know he was making a LOT of money off of all those pies

mtn wrote: I realize that he is not payed by the pizza company minimum wage. What I'm saying is that the job is a minimum wage caliber job; it is not skilled labor or manually intensive labor. I'm paying my tip based on minimum wage. It takes him 1/6 of an hour (10 minutes) total to drive there and back, including getting out and handing me my pizza. 8.25/6=1.38.

I'd suggest that delivering pizza is also in a way like a consulting/contracting gig. It needs to pay enough per job to make sense in the face of unsteady work. He's probably not doing 6 ten-minute deliveries an hour. On a Friday night he may well do better than that. But he may also spend a lot of time making jack squat.

Just an observation. I usually tip $4; my local pizzerias don't have a delivery charge (or just roll it into the price of the pie). I'm thinking to stay with promises I made myself when I was working these sorts of jobs that I need to bump that to $5. I didn't even know about rising gas prices when I had those talks with my future self

I made crap tips and had to wear a pastel yellow golf shirt and white jeans AND take out my one (just-pierced) earring every day for work...

I honestly can't remember the last time I've ordered out, but I have about 5 option within a 5 minute drive. Also: I can pick up a six-pack along the way. Although, one time when I was staying at a hotel on a business trip, I was able to convince the driver to pick up a six-pack for me. That was pretty great, and deserved a nice tip.

I consistently made more delivering Chinese food in a college town than I do in my "adult job" (not in the porn industry...).

That said, I used to deliver to about 60 customers in a day on a 12 hour shift.

I happily pay $5+ to allow me to keep my lazy hind quarters on the couch. That usually gets me my pizza in about half of their normal 60 min delivery time, and that's to a rural address as well.

I generally tip ~20%. That's because I delivered pizzas in college and the ex was a waitress when we were dating, so I have pretty good experience with the hours and costs involved with both jobs. Around here the average pizza (delivered) is ~$16 so I hand them a 20 and that's about right.

I also tip the hairdresser (hold the cracks, please! ), that way she will remember me fondly and not booby trap my haircut so that it looks like hell in 2 weeks. I learned that one from a friend (now deceased ) who was a hairdresser.

I can walk to the best pizza around, so should I tip myself?

15% is what I tip if the service is what I expect. Less if it is below expectations, zero if the service is horrific (cold food, long wait times, etc).

Exceptional service/quick delivery = 20% or higher if she is hot ;)

I recently came to the same realization. I always gave at least $2-$3, but I thought about it one day and noticed that that was the same tip I gave way back in the day. The local pizza shop I frequent (or that frequents me, actually) is about a mile away, and my order is always between $19.50 and $21.50, and I always give $25. But yeah, I did the same thing. I thought I was an awesome tipper, and it turns out I was just adequate.

If someone is delivering food to me, they get $5.